Browsers 2.0

    Hello to everyone. First let me apologize, I know I said I would write the article the second day but the past week has been absolutely hectic for me with exams, and different projects. Right now I’ll start working on a very short movie with a friend and that will give me a chance to experiment with the Avid Xpress Pro software. I might just write a review about that.

    Anyway back to browsers. Last week I took a look at only the 5 most popular browsers : Internet Explorer from Microsoft, Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator , and Safari from Apple, and from those Opera ranked number 1. This time I wanted to take a look at the not so popular browsers. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find as many as I had hoped for, but I still found a few that are interesting.


      Maxthon

    This is the first browser I’ll start with and I have to be frank, it’s not really so unpopular. From what I’ve seen a lot of people have started to use this browser, especially in China and they are actually right to do so. In fact this browser was first developed by a Chinese person who simply wanted to customize his Internet Explorer browser, hence the original names MyIE/MyIE2. The browser was then further developed and it got the name Maxthon in 2003.
Some time ago there was a rumor that Google had started investing in it but it was quickly laid to rest, though the possibility of a future collaboration was never excluded.

    The latest release is 2.0.7 and here are some of it’s features: 1) the usual standard features for any modern browser, such as tabbed browsing, bookmarks managing, integrated flash and RSS/Atom feeds. 2) it also has a recovery for lost tabs in case of it crashing or accidental closing. 3) Java applet and ActiveX blocker just as IE. 4) External utility bar – this is a toolbar that let’s you open third party apps. 4) Supports most of IE’s plug-ins not to mention all the ones built especially for it. 5) It also supports mouse gestures. 6) It supports most Java technologies except DOM ( Document Object Model) 2 and 3. It does not support however PDF natively ( as most browsers don’t) but that can very easily be taken care of with an Adobe plug-in. 7) It uses the Trident layout engine but it can also use Gecko; It does not pass the Acid2 Rendering Test.
 
Performance 7/10
Features 8/10
Looks  7/10

    And a few final notes on it: it only works on Windows, it uses a lot fewer resources than the original IE ( comes to about the same level as Opera), it has good 3rd party compatibility, has no major security flaws ( actually I believe it’s even safer than IE ), is very fast, has a familiar environment, and is simply a very good alternative to any other browser.


      Avant Browser
 
    Avant is a popular freeware brower, also based on the Trident engine. But unlike IE, it’s designed to be more feature orientated, flexible and ergonomic. It runs natively on all versions of Windows.
It was originally inspired by Opera, which was the first browser to have a multiple document interface. The idea was to use basic IE shell but just make it a lot faster, and ergonomic, but not to encounter the rendering problems Opera faced in the beginning. It’s original name was actually “IEopera” but it quickly changed. Avant then concentrated on adding use-requested features, and it was one of the first browsers to have pop-up blocking.

    Ok enough history, here are the features: 1) tabbed browsing and all the rest. 2) Built in search named AvantFind that uses Yahoo Search but can be changed to Google or many other search engines. 3) Undo menu for the last 25 closed tabs. 4) All pages open in a single process, thus reducing resource demands ( this is part of the secret ). 5) Also compatible with most IE toolbars and plug-ins, including the Google toolbar. 6) Built in RSS feed reader ( also supports Atom). 7) Has a very nice feature that allows you to save bookmarks and other info ( such as passwords) directly online. 8) Can directly be run from a flash card or other data storage device. ( these last two features make it possible to stop browsing and a computer, move to another an resume from where you left off). 9) Great security features, it can clear browsing traces automatically, and it can also use the XP SP2 security extensions.10) You need to have IE 6 or 7 already installed in order to run it; does NOT pass the Acid2 Test, even though it fully supports the most used formats on the web.

 Performance 8.50/10
 Features 9/10
 Looks 9/10

    Last Word: Really really nice browser ( this was my favorite from this lot). Even faster and more ergonomic than Opera, secure, and with a very nice feel overall. I truly recommend it at least for a look if not for your new fulltime browser.


      SeaMonkey

    SeaMonkey is a free, open source, and cross-platform Internet suite that is the continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite. It consists of a Navigator which is a descendant of the Netscape family; a Mail and Newsgroups client program, and an HTML editor, or Composer program. Being a descendent of Mozilla it uses the Gecko engine.

    The current stable version is 1.1.7 and here are the features:
1)Tabbed browsing ( even though not so nicely integrated) and all the rest. 2) Cross platform so it’s supported by all popular Oss ( unofficial versions exists for Solaris). 3) It basically supports every web standard that Firefox does. 4) It does NOT support RSS/Atom feeds. 5) It also supports exactly the same Java techs that Firefox does. 6) Unlike Firefox it does have an E-mail client and it does support NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol) and IRC. 7) It is safe and fast, with low resource usage.
 
  Performance 8.50/10
  Features 7/10
  Looks 6/10

    Last Word: This is a nice browser, but it looses points for the general aspect. In the end it’s just a rundown version of Firefox and since it has no special features I can’t really see the logic in choosing this over any of the before mentioned browsers.


      K-Meleon

    K-Meleon ( don’t know why but I keep reading k-melon) is a browser designed for Windows and it uses the Gecko rendering engine ( yes the Mozilla Firefox one). It also uses the native Windows API to create the user interface thus it’s tightly integrated into the look and feel of the desktop. The change from the K-Meleon 0.9.x series to 1.0.x was a major modification. The most notable change was the main K-Meleon code being updated to accommodate the Gecko 1.8.0.x rendering engine. The change of layout not only brought the browser up-to-date on the level of security, but on web page layout as well.

    The current release version of K-Meleon is 1.1.3 and these are some of the features: 1) K-Meleon has a very flexible interface. All the menus and buttons can be customized using its configuration files. 2) Modified versions of the program can be found which allow you to run it directly, without any installation making it a portable browser. You can find some of them including Pocket K-Meleon and KMV ( K-meleon on the move) here! 3) Tabbed browsing, bookmark management, spell checking and pop-up blocking are all present. It does not have a download manager! 4) Supports mouse-gestures. 5) Basically supports most common web stuff including RSS/Atom. 6) Supports all Java technologies except DOM3. 7) Does NOT support natively pdf, mng and 2d canvas formats. 7) Not what you’d probably expect but it has limited compatibility with Firefox plug-ins and themes but it often integrates improvements to the scripts and codes ( especially security related ones).

 Performance 10/10
 Features 9/10
 Looks 9/10

    Last Word: Extremely nice browser, extremely fast, good security and compatibility, and a very nice feel overall. This is , alongside Avant, a browser that I really recommend.


      Other Browsers

    These are just a few other browsers that I find are worth mentioned because they have some important/cool ideas/aspects.

      X-smiles

    X-smiles is actually an experiment in progress right now. It is a browser completely scripted in Java language. At present it sucks. Sorry, a little to direct. At present it is very slow, it uses up an insane amount of resources, it has very limited compatibility with anything and it often times has problems with rendering quite simple pages. That being said I still find it very interesting. Because once it is perfected and be made into a decent browser, the compatibilities and possibilities of a java based browser will be absolutely countless. Ok enough said. We’ll wait and see what happens in the future.

      Torpark/xB Browser

    xB Browser, previously called Torpark is a portable browser originally forked from Portable Firefox web browser with Tor access built into it. This is the browser you want to use to be absolutely sure your IP won’t be traced.
    xB Browser works by routing Internet traffic through several "onion" servers, obscuring the originating address. This does not naturally provide anonymity for other Internet programs, only the xB Browser. However, other applications data such as Pidgin can be routed through the Tor network via xB Browser by directing the applications traffic to a SOCKS proxy at localhost, port 9050. This port can be changed via Xconfig, an INI generator for xB Browser located in its App/ directory.
    Now the only issue with this browser is that it is somewhat slow. The free version that is. Because there are also two version for which you can pay, that work at normal/fast speeds. But I guess that’s the price you might have to pay to be completely secure while browsing.
    Easter Egg

    There is an Easter egg in version 1.5.0.7 and 2.0.0.2 of Torpark. The Easter egg is revealed by launching the executable from CMD with the switch /DEADBEEF enabled, an allusion to 0xDEADBEEF, eg. C:\Torpark\torpark.exe /DEADBEEF. A black cross with Cult of the Dead Cow symbols appears while playing a chiptune song in the background.

      Text Browsers

    Last time I told a few people that I would look into text browsers. And I did. But text browsers are more than useless for normal pc-users that simply wish to browse the web and to check their e-mail . The only practicality of text browsers of when you are creating custom networks and you wish to check different protocols and assignments. And since I don’t have the time or resources to do that ( and to be frank I don’t really have the knowledge either) I just let them be. Of course this was my personal view on them, if any of you believe otherwise feel free to correct me with a comment.

    Finally I ended this article. I have been stressing over it for to many hours now. Well I hope it’s not too bad and that it might just be useful to someone. For suggestions or questions feel free to leave a comment.
    
    Cheers, Geeky