Acquisition of context with the use of web browsers

Marko Jurinčič (2011) Acquisition of context with the use of web browsers. EngD thesis.

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Abstract

The purpose of the diploma thesis is to improve the retrieval of users context. The work begins with a review of selected literature and examples of context retrieval. Theory and practice from various disciplines were included in order to construct a theoretical and a technical base to choose the suitable way for context retrieval. The review showed that web browsers are the best choice and to demonstrate that a plug-in was developed. In the process of choosing the adequate web browser I have included five web browsers with the biggest market share. The system resource usage and the support for plug-in development have narrowed the decision to Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. The further comparison of advantages and weaknesses have eliminated Mozilla Firefox, mainly because of the need to restart the browser when testing the plug-in. The plug-in consists of different functions with which the users web browsing data is recorded. In the process of defining the functions I have taken into account the work and researches of other authors as well as the benefits that the data and the connection between different data types can bring to the usage of the retrieved context. The plug-in and the data storage is developed in a way, that allows adding new types of data to be recorded. The plug-in has been tested for one week with six users. The results have shown some interesting patterns like the way to point out some content, the time spent on a single web page, daily visits of certain pages at the same time period, and so on. In the search of a more effective solution I have come to the conclusion that the data retrieval and storage has to be invisible to the user and the interaction between the two has to be as minimal as possible.

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