Browsers

    First of all I want to say sorry for the long absence but the holidays were quite busy for me, I was away most of the time and quite focused on trying not to use the PC because I really needed a break. Secondly, I just want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I hope you all had great holidays.
    Now, as you've seen in the title I've actually commited to the impossible and started to write this article on browsers. Why am I writing this ? Well mainly because there are 5 major internet browsers out there, and I myself was really curios which was the best and why, and just maybe this will also point out to which browser works best for you. Ok so the major 5 browsers which I will refer to are : Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape and Safari. All of them created for browsing the net, but which is the best?

    Internet Explorer

    This browser first appeared in 1995 with the Plus! release of MS Windows 95. It is probably the most known browser out there even though it's usually not the best one. In the beginning IE struggled for a long time to try and catch up with Netscape Navigator , the first public browser . In 1996 both browsers were at the same level offering brand new and exciting support for Java Script and CSS. But due to the fact that IE was free ( unlike Netscape) and that it continued to evolve backed up by Microsoft, it won the battle. By 1998 IE had majority of the market shares, and Netscape's future was unclear. With the passing of time Microsoft kept developing the program increasing security and support for third party features, but also adding their own new features that kept this browser at a very competitive level.
    In 2001 MS released Internet Explorer 6 alongside Windows XP, which was now very focused on security and reliability. And now in 2007 the latest release came out with Vista and that is Internet Explorer 7. IE 7 is the best version of IE of course, and it brings new features such as tabbed browsing ( IE was the last browser to adopt tabbed browsing), better support and a friendlier relationship with the user regarding RSS feeds, advanced printing and other such features. Now the dowside of the browser, while it is true that it now supports almost all third party add-ons for any kind of media, and it is true that it is one of the most secure out there, it has come to lack in speed and to consume a lot of resources. IE7 is probably the second slowest browser ( the first being Safari ) that there is and the fact that it's free is not a good excuse anymore as all the above mentioned browsers have become freeware. There are no other special features that I find worth mentioning. It has all the common features that every browser now has.

    Mozilla Firefox

    As I mentioned in 1998 the future of Netscape was unsure. So they decided their browser would be free from then on and also that it would be an open source project. 4 years later ( yes quite a long time) the first version of the Mozilla came out which was then named Pheonix. The first official Mozilla Firefox came in November 04 with their 1.0 release. It included advanced security , and new features such as RSS/Atom feed support.
    The second full official release came 2 years later in October 2006 when Firefox 2.0 was released, which added certain features such as session restoration after a browser crash, search using Google and Yahoo, an add-on manager and more importantly anti-phishing protection. It also included support for JavaScript 1.7. One year later version 2.0.11 was released that fixed a few problems that had arisen. This is the latest stable release of Firefox. Now you may say there is nothing special about this browser, but it's speed, stability, performance,high security ( still some debate if it is the safest ) and excellent compatibility with 3rd party add-ons make it one of the best browsers around and this shows as it's popularity is quite rapidly growing. It now owns about 17% of the market share.
    Work has already begun on version 3.0 but no public beta has been put out. While we wait , this is still one of the best browsers.
Note: Firefox 2.0.11 ( the latest stable release) does NOT pass the Acid2 standards-compliance test. But neither does IE7 nor Netscape. For more info on this, search on Wikipedia for Acid2 test.

     Netscape Navigator 

     I have to be sincere and say that this is probably the browser that surprised me the most. Why? Well because I actually hadn't heard/used Netscape ever since windows 95. I didn't even know this browser still existed, and yes that's ignorance on my part. Well I am very glad I found it once again. Popularity with it seems to be at an all time low ( that's the reason I didn't know it was still out there) but performance of the latest version which is Netscape Navigator 9 is above average. And I actually think it's even a little faster than Firefox.
    But unfortunately that's where the better part of it stops. While it does have compatibility for most common web technologies used now, it still lacks certain popular features ( right now it does not support e-mail and other such features). It is because of this and other reasons why it seems to be destined to always remain somewhere in the shadows, nothing more than " a backup browser". Plus on December 28, 2007, Netscape developers announced that AOL will discontinue their web browser on February 1, 2008.Petitions have been made in an attempt to stop this, but I can't really say how successful they've been.

    Safari

    Safari is Apple's official internet browser and the first (1.0) version was released in 2003 alongside Mac OSX. Windows support didn't exist until June of last year. The latest version (3.0.4 ) works on both Xp and Vista.
    As with everything else Apple, Safari has a cool look and cute features, but it doesn't really take you all the way. It does have all the popular features such as tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, incremental finding, ad filtering, the oh so marketed page zooming that ie7 has. It does support almost anything you can think of that other browsers support, it actually passed the Acid2 test that most other browsers didn't. It even has complete text-to-speech support. Great security features. So why isn't it number one? Well mainly because it is slow. Certain people said that is quite fast and a great browser but comparing it to all the other browsers it seems to me that it's the slowest. Second I personally wasn't able to find any 3rd party add-ons to go along with it. On Mac Leopard it works great, being part of the OS and taking advantage of all the built in features of Leopard but on Windows it seems to be somehow out of place. I can't comment any further on it. As I said great browser but somehow it just stops dead in it's tracks.

    Opera

    Ok I have saved the best for last. Yes I do believe Opera is the best browser out there at this moment. Opera's first public realease was in 1996 and back then it only worked on Windows. Even though it's been around for such a long time it hasn't really caught on until now. The latest release stable release came on the 19th of December 07. The early versions had a lot of issues and that's why this browser was never very popular, not to mention the adds that were included in the browser some previous versions.
    Right now it is clear, fast, extremly economic on resources, and supports more features than any other browser. It does pass the Acid2 test and it has almost everything you can think of. I believe Opera is the browser that invented tabs ( but I am not sure of this so don't yell if it happens to be false). Anyway it does support tabs, mouse gestures, voice commands, email, adress book, bookmark management, almost any type of web standard imaginable, it even supports BitTorrent. It even supports Web Forms 2.0 that no other browser supports. It is a jewel. And if not the fastest it is definitely in top 3. What can I say ..I am more satisfied with this browser than any other and the only fault I have found for it is that most tracker sites will not allow you to use Opera's built in BitTorrent but that is a mild incovenience considering that using IE for just one link isn't that bad.

If you wish to look for a specific piece of information on support for any of the above browsers that I have not mentioned you can look here, a great source of info.

Well that's it. I've done it, I've written it though not in as much technical detail as I would have wanted. Disclaimer thingy : I have used both professional reviews and personal experiences in the descriptions above. Also all the support information or/and the technical specs were taken from OFFICIAL or trustworthy sites ( such as Wikipedia). If any of the provided information is false and you have proof of this please adress me in any form you want and let me know. The last thing I want is to post false info.

Anyway that's it. Hope this was worth it. I will definitely come back on this subject and the next article will also be on Browsers but the ones that aren't so popular such as Maxthon, Camino and everything else I can get my hands on.
Enjoy, Geeky.