jQuery is a powerful and widely used JavaScript library designed to simplify web development. It allows developers to perform common tasks like HTML element selection, DOM manipulation, event handling, animations, and AJAX requests with significantly less code than plain JavaScript. The core philosophy of jQuery is “write less, do more,” and it achieves this by providing a clean and concise syntax that is easy to understand and implement. This simplicity makes it especially popular among beginners, while its rich functionality supports advanced use cases as well. As a result, jQuery became one of the most popular libraries in web development history.

One of jQuery’s key strengths lies in its ability to ensure cross-browser compatibility. During the earlier days of web development, developers often struggled with inconsistencies across different web browsers. jQuery resolved many of these issues by offering a uniform interface that works reliably on all major browsers. This made it a go-to solution for web developers looking to build consistent and stable applications. Whether it's attaching event listeners or manipulating styles, jQuery smooths out the differences between browsers, allowing developers to focus more on functionality than fixing browser-specific bugs.