Difference between Web Surfing and Web Browsing

Key difference: The key difference between the two terms is that the term ‘web browsing’ means going through or searching for a specific information on a specific website, whereas the term ‘web surfing’ means going through information aimlessly on different subjects on the different websites.

With the information on any subject just being a click away, the use of internet in people’s life has grown considerably. Most of the times, people just love sitting in front of the computer, and pointlessly go through the different websites on the internet for long hours. And often, this habit of simply clicking through the pages of the various sites is termed as ‘web surfing’ and ‘web browsing’.

The terms ‘surfing’ and ‘browsing’ are usually used to refer to the task of ‘searching’ on or through the internet, and are often considered as the same thing. Now, the technical difference between the two terms depends on the particular task, wherein one might browse the web or one might just surf the web. If a person is using a particular browser, going through websites in search for a particular thing, it is termed as ‘browsing’, whereas if the same person is just randomly searching or going through different websites, it is then termed as ‘surfing’.

Though in general, there is no difference between the terms ‘web browsing’ and ‘web surfing’. And, based on the above explanation, one may agree to the fact that they both mean the same thing. Because, nowadays with the different search browsers like Chrome, Internet Explorer, etc and different search engines like Yahoo, Google, Bing, etc, there is a vast variety of information available on variety of websites from all over the world. Which is why, whenever one might need to find a specific definition, or answer to a specific question, he or she, uses the browser or the search engine thus naming the activity as ‘web browsing’ or ‘web surfing’.

So, it really doesn’t make any difference as both the terms are commonly used by people to describe the action of moving from one website to another, to download or watch any content from the internet. Hence, one can watch, read, listen to music, or enjoy videos or movies by simply gallivanting from one site to othe, and enjoy ‘web surfing’ or ‘web browsing’.

Comparison between Web Surfing and Web Browsing:

	Web Surfing	Web Browsing
Definition	It is defined as going through information aimlessly on different subjects on the different websites.	It is defined as going through or searching for specific information on a specific website.
It is	These are random searches on the internet.	These are specific searches on the internet.
Purpose	One can surf aimlessly on the internet.	One can browse intently on the internet.