Vista Themes

      It’s 2 am Saturday and I’m writing about what I’ve been doing for the last 3 hours.
Most people like to enjoy and relax, maybe go out on their Friday afternoons. Well no, not me. My favourite activity on a Friday afternoon is hiting the desk with my head. And I came very close to doing that today.

      There comes a time in every man’s life when he says to himself: Well I’ve got a good computer, a great OS but ( after seeing a few SCI-FI films ) I want it to really look cool. Such a thought occurred to me a few hours ago, and I decided to change my classic Vista skin with a cooler techier one. Now I’m not the one to usually have 20 skins for every application and 45 types of cursor that I change acording to my mood. Actually I haven’t really used skins for the OS ever since Win 98. It’s just something that I find useless and memory consuming. But tonight I forgot all that.

      So after googling around for a nice theme I decided ( as usual) on an OS X Leopard one, actually extremely well done from what I saw in the previews. So I downloaded a few versions to test them. Unpacked them and tried to install them. Nothing happened except for my background going black. I decided to take another look on the site where I found them. “ You need to get Vista Glazz and patch files for the skins to work”. I think to myself ok no problem, so I quickly download the latest Glazz version I can find. Install it , hit the “check dlls” button.
!!! “ Vista Glazz is missing key components of the program, do you still want to patch?”. Wow, key components ..no I don’t want to patch. I uninstall it and get the version from the original Vista Glazz website, without corrupt files and stuff ..or so I thought. Do the whole thing over again. Check dlls. “Glazz is missing key components..” oh screw it , patch anyway. It patches a few dlls from the system. Great. Reboot needed. I reboot. When I log on again , my Vista was looking somewhat like MS DOS 5 .

      I think to myself, well it went back to windows basic and now I can install the theme. SO I try to double click on the .theme file. Nothing happens. Then I try to open the personalize menu. OPS, ERROR. APP Crash, host process error. My PC was kinda telling me to go *%& myself. And I got that error for anything that had to do with visual styles , resolutions, basically the way anything looked.

      OK so I figure ..patching system dlls with obscure program = BAD IDEA. Didn’t even know what files it had patched. So I go to my theme folder and notice that the Aero files were patched. Ok no problem it must have kept originals. WRONG, no originals. So I ring a friend and he sends the original files to me via messenger. I try and replace them. BANG no can’t do. YOU NEED PERMISSION to modify these files.

      How do you change permissions in Vista? Easy, right click on the file, properties, security. Advanced, Owner, make yourself the owner of the file. Back Back back , Edit permissions, select yourself give yourself full control over the file. I had to do this for about 10 files in the end. Try and delete the patched files. Again no can’t do. The files are in use. By what? Who knows …Aero wasn’t working, no theme service was working , no graphics service was working ( I disabled all the services myself) ..but hey the files are in use. OK. Reboot. Safe Mode. Delete. WOW the files are still in use. Now that’s weird.

      Solution: Renaming the patched files ..even though they were in use I was allowed to rename them ..yeah ..don’t ask… then copying the good files, rebooting, and then deleting the patched messed up files that were no longer in use due to the name change.
So I did this for my Aero folder and the files inside it. Rebooted once more. I was actually thinking everything would be fine now. Guess again. After logging in nothing had changed, and I still got the fatal errors when trying to change stuff via control panel. And then I go to the original Glazz forum and try to search for a solution. Somebody was complaining of something similar so I followed those ideeas and found out that besides the Aero dlls it also patched a few other ones. To be exact Uxtheme.dll, Themeui.dll and Shsvcs.dll, all found in system32. And the guys also mentioned that Glazz makes a copy of the original and stores it as filename.dll.vgorg so this can be used in case anything goes wrong. Said and done. Again I modified permissions, again I rebooted in safe mode, again I changed names and deleted the crappy files and replaced them with the ones that I got my friend to send to me.( the so called copies of original with the .vgorg were of no use)

      Finally I logged in and surprise ..nothing changed. The theme was still basic BUT ..and this is important I didn’t get the Fatal error thing in Control panel. So I recopied the Aero folder once more ( it had somehow got corrupted between 3 reboots ..again don’t ask ..) recopied the good aero dlls and rebooted for the last time.

      Praise the Lord it works now. People also suggested trying to boot using “ last known good configuration” but that didn’t do any good. And also trying system restore to an earlier date but I didn’t have any restore points near today , plus I have very little faith in that program as it has NEVER helped me with anything.

      The conclusion of this story is : 1) always have a copy of the original file before doing anything to it.
 2) Try and enjoy your Friday afternoons.
 
  Please leave your comments and suggestions after the beep.

  Cheers, Geeky.

Vista Service Pack 1

      

      Yes it’s true , it’s TRUE , it’s HERE. The new Vista SP1 is here. On March the 18th Nick White from MS announced its release on Windows Update. I found out about it that night. OK, so what did Microsoft promise about the SP? They said it would improve reliability, stability, efficiency, driver compatibilities, and other such issues. What does the SP do? Well mainly what it’s supposed to.

      After about half an hour ( that’s how long the update took) and 2 restarts I had SP1 up and running. I took a look at my win version , and wow major change from build 6000 to build 6001. Good sign, means the sp worked. Second change, you can now actually select which drive you want to defragment ( no I’m serious you couldn’t on the original release of Vista). I’m messing around here but that’s because I haven’t noticed any major changes. The system does seem more stable with certain aspects, and it looks as though there’s somewhat less CPU usage, but I also noticed about 10-15 % increase in RAM usage. MS said that the service pack would bring a 50% increase in file copying speed. Of course that 50% is only possible because with the service pack they fixed some sloppy scripting they had done in the original release. Plus I did a few tests with different files and personally I would estimate the increase at about 15-20% but maybe that’s just me.

      Compatibility with different drivers was indeed improved ( I only got 1 BSOD ever since I installed the SP and that’s with a very curious driver). Unfortunately Vista is hardware scripted, meaning that it is designed for specific hardware much like Mac OS is, thus making possible many compatibility issues. Hopefully by now most manufacturers have learned to test everything with both Vista and XP ( though this should have been going on for the last 1 year and a half) and such issues can be avoided. The problem persists with older hardware that doesn’t have support any longer but that’s a different story.

      So if you have a genuine Vista install you can install the SP and have all the wonderful benefits mentioned above. But what if you don’t ? There were two main hack for vista that made it possible for everybody to enjoy it without paying. One of them was tricking the activation timer into thinking you had 999 days to activate and then just rewind it again. The second method developed by Paradox was to fool Windows by emulating a specific BIOS and then use a specific key code. This would make Windows appear as if had been preinstalled by manufacturers and required no activation. Every update worked, no issues with anything, it would easily pass registration and had no problem with WGA. Well the SP1 takes care of both these methods rendering them useless for the time being. And I did a little snooping around but until now I haven’t found any way to bypass this. So if you didn’t have a genuine install, and you installed SP1 you probably now have 15 or less days to activate.
      The good part is that there is no more “reduced functionality mode” that Vista had. After the 15 days are up you’ll just have a black background, and continuous remarks from WGA that you may be using counterfeit software. That’s all. I’m curious what would happen if you uninstalled the sp after those 15 days. The old hacks might still work. I actually will try that on another computer just for the fun of it.

For the original info on the release of SP1 you can check out this link.

For a list of some of the updates ( but not all) contained in the SP you can check out this link ( I wouldn’t download anything from there, get the original if you want Sp1, it’s free) . If you want a full list you can probably find it somewhere on the MS site.

Questions, suggestions be sure to leave a comment.

Cheers, Geeky.

News

      Well in the absence of any other article I'll just fill you in on a few things that caught my attention lately.

      First of all on the Microsoft - Yahoo deal.
 
    As you all know a few days ago Microsoft put up an unsolicited bid of 44 billion $ for Yahoo. They tried to do this one or two years ago and they got a very big NO. The answer was exactly the same this time, not to mention all the oposition towards the merger from outside parties. Without any other bid, MS may still argue that their price is fair, and will probably try to put pressure on Yahoo executives into negotiating, even if that will eventually mean reaching a higher strike point than iniatially thought.
    Yahoo's response to the unsolicited bid was to apparently restart negotions for a merger between them and AOL. This was quoted from London-based Times newspaper which also mentioned Google as another possible partner for  future colaboration with Yahoo.
 Right now most of us will just have to wait to see how this whole thing turns out.

      Second thing in the news: Vista Service Pack 1.
    It's done, it's ready but you're not going to get it any time soon.  At least that was the way Mike Nash from MS first explained it to us.
    Vista SP1 was released to manufacturing on the 4th of February but a full implementation of it was scheduled for mid April. The reasons for this were quite confusing and weird... Microsoft- style.  First Mike said that there were still some issues with certain drivers that would malfunction once the update to SP1 was complete. And so there was this 1st thing to solve.
    Then they said that the whole point was a great Vista experience and that everyone should receive the sp at the same time, and because mid April is when it will be in stores that was the release date on Windows Update too.
    And now , I believe MS must have reconsidered after the negative response because the SP1 is already available on both MSDN and TechNet for subscribers to download. And almost all the prerequisites for the sp were put up on Windows Update in preparation for the release which was set for mid-March.  So in just 3 weeks most of us will have it installed. Now for exact 
info on what the sp will bring
you can check around on microsoft.com. Be sure I'll do an article about this when the time comes.

 Well that was is , time's up. Stay tuned the next article is due soon.
    Cheers, Geeky.

Windows Genuine Advantage

      Genuine Crap
    
    Imagine me saying that with a deep Scottish accent. What the hell am I talking about? Well actually I'm talking about Windows Genuine Advantage or WGA for short. Now some of you might be blissfully unaware of it's existence which probably means you're running either a genuine version of Windows or a very well- hacked version of it. The rest of you have probably encountered it, and you know just how annoying it can be.

      What the hell is WGA ?

    Well WGA is a program/spyware/thingy from Microsoft with the alias of being an anti-piracy system. It enforces MS Windows online validation when trying to download certain updates or other programs from MS. WGA covers Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Vista. It doesn't cover Server 2003 and the Win 9x family. At first it was an optional feature which you were asked if you wanted to install, but later on it became mandatory if you wished to obtain programs or upgrades for Windows from MS. In April of 2006 MS began ditributing WGA as "critical update" KB905474 through Windows Update effectively annoying milions of users .

      What does it do?

    I kept saying until now that it is extremely anoying, and now let me explain why. The WGA validation process validates the present installation of Windows and its license key against the hardware involved. It is accessible by either a stand-alone program, or as an ActiveX control within Internet Explorer, the latter of which is relevant to any attempt to access Microsoft updates via its browser.
    If successful in validating Windows, it stores a special license file on the PC for future verification.
    If an instance of Windows does not seem to have a valid license, WGA displays a specific notice to the user and prevents "non-Critical" updates from being downloaded from Microsoft. At least this is the official version. In fact it blocks all updates except the new versions of WGA and displays pop-up warnings that you may be running a counterfeit copy. Another syndrom is the computer locking up whenever you try to access IE. Now this is not official but it happened on different machines that had not passed the test.
    On Windows Vista, WGA validation failure has a greater impact. In addition to persistent notification and the disabling of "non-critical updates", WGA also disables Windows Aero, Windows Defender, and ReadyBoost. The user is given a grace period in which to then pass validation, after which most of the operating system is disabled and Windows reverts to reduced functionality mode, which will suposedly be removed in Service Pack 1 of Windows Vista.

      Other info

    Now I mentioned this as "spyware" from Microsoft. And I am not the only one. Why? Well because it is installed and acts exactly as a spyware program. First MS tells you it's a critical security update, which in fact it is not. It does not ,resolve or notify or have any connection with any system vulnerability. Secondly it collects data from your computer and "calls home" once a day sending that data back to MS. At first no one even knew what info it was sending but later they broke it into bits and this is what this little tool sends each day :

-> Computer make and model
-> BIOS checksum.
-> MAC address.
-> A unique number assigned to your computer by the tools (Globally Unique Identifier or GUID)
-> Hard drive serial number.
-> Region and language settings of the operating system.
-> Operating system version.
-> PC BIOS information (make, version, date).
-> PC manufacturer.
-> User locale setting.
-> Validation and installation results.
-> Windows or Office product key.
-> Windows XP/ Vista product ID.

    After heavy accusations and criticism directed at the Redmond based company, MS said that future versions of WGA would only "phone home" once every two weeks, and also came up with removal instructions for WGA. Unfortunately those didn't work for the machines I tried them on.
    Now, another issue with WGA is that is has a tendancy of giving out false positives. Meaning it doesn't identify genuine copies of Windows as being so. This actually has happened to me on another machine with an XP Pro GENUINE instalation.
According to an editorial on the arstechnica.com technology website, WGA reported around 22% of 500 million Windows computers as failing the test; of these less than 0.5% were due to pirated software, with the balance (over 20%, or 90% of all positives) related to non piracy issues. Microsoft "refused to comment on the rate of pure false positives" beyond saying it was "under 1%" (or as stated, at most around 5 million users affected).

      How to fix it!


    Now there were many ways and ideas out on the net on how to get rid of the wga tool. Unfortunately MS quickly found most of them, and complained thus effectively shutting down the sites that hosted such sollutions. A good last place where you can find info and sollutions on this problem is this one. I did try some of their recomandations but they didn't work for me. The second place where you can actually find something useful is Softpedia. You can actually download a WGA removal tool here. I did use this one and it did the trick.

    Disclaimer: I did say before, that I like Windows and that I especially like Vista and it is true. But not the same goes for MS. While I do believe that every coder and person that has worked o a project should get payed, I also believe that no student should have to pay around 600$ in total just to be able to use MS Office to do his projects. And yes I know there are some alternatives out there, but what can really substitute Windows when it comes to compatibility and availability?
By the way if the original copy of your Windows looks something like this, " You may be a victim of software counterfeiting".

That being said I hope this article was useful for a few people.
Cheers, Geeky.

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

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.