World of World Wide Web Browsers

Berglund Authority Level 3

by Jesse Snyder <snyderjw@pacificu.edu>

BS, Computer Science, Pacific University

Most people are happy with the pre-installed web browser on their machine. Most of the time, that browser is Internet Explorer. Since Explorer comes with all Windows and Mac machines, roughly 90% of the traffic into any given website is accessed with Internet Explorer. However, there is a whole world of other web browsers available and free to download. Many people aren't even aware these browsers exist.

Some people use the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, which is perfectly fine. Some also think compatibility might become an issue if they try new browsers. For example, some think other browsers can't handle something Explorer can. Generally, this is not true. In fact, most other browsers support features that Explorer does not.

In any event, the rest of us yearn for better browsing, or perhaps something new and exciting. We'll explore many of the web browsing options out there, including some of the features, why you might want to use a particular browser, advantages, disadvantages, and operating systems for which a given browser is available.

Internet Explorer (http://www.microsoft.com/ )

As previously mentioned, Internet Explorer, by Microsoft, is the default browser installed on virtually all Windows-based machines and Macintoshes. Most of the options available in Explorer set the standard for other browsers out there. It's hard to go into much detail about Explorer since pretty much everyone knows the ins and outs. Really, it's just a web browser. You can browse web pages, bookmark sites (Microsoft calls them "favorites"), set security levels for browsing, among other things.

Using Explorer has its benefits. You can almost guarantee that any website you go to will load properly since web pages are generally developed with Explorer as the only browser in mind. The mentality is that since other web browsers make up roughly 10% of browsers, other browsers should commit to Explorer's standards. However, Microsoft isn't too thrilled about releasing the code of their web browsers. If they did, more people would make web browsers and potentially push Microsoft out of the browser market.

Using Explorer has its disadvantages as well. Since most people use Explorer, viruses and other nasties are created for Explorer. Other browsers don't tend to have the problems Explorer does with security. Actually, Explorer running under Windows has the most problems with security since computers of this configuration are in the majority. Running Explorer on a Mac for example, yields very few security problems. For more on this check out http://www.guninski.com/browsers.html

There are a whole slew of problems with Explorer listed on this site. Microsoft has been known to be very slow to fix (or ignore completely) these types of problems.

Explorer is only available for machines running Windows and Macs. But I doubt most Unix and Linux users would want to use any Microsoft products anyway, they tend to be a fiercely independent bunch.

Opera (http://www.opera.com/ )

I have a friend who swears by Opera. He claims it is the fastest browser available. He might be right. Opera is probably the fastest browser, especially on machines with modem connections or fewer system resources. This browser is free as well.

Opera is coded completely from scratch. That means the browser has been built correctly from the get-go. Many of the Netscape strands of browsers have been built from an older code base, which means some loss in efficiency. Think of software as a building. Explorer and Netscape are more like buildings built in the early 1900's. Sure, they are reliable, but they have lots of little quirks. The buildings might be poorly insulated, or have leaky old lead pipes. Opera is more like a new condo on the block. Sleek and stylish. However, there is a small price to pay...

Do you like advertisements? I don't. To keep Opera free, the developers decided to include advertisements into the browser window. They aren't terribly intrusive, and they don't slow the browser down. The ads are downloaded once a week and cached on your machine. However, you can choose to purchase Opera to get the most recent version, which is supposed to be even faster and more secure than their free versions, as well as not having any ads.

Opera also doesn't support Active-X, which is a Microsoft set of software components that add functionally to web browsing. For the most part you won't know you are missing Active-X until some site won't load. This doesn't seem to be a big problem, however.

One last thing: Opera strictly follows the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) www.w3c.org, standards that Microsoft tends to ignore. Explorer "ignores" a lot of errors that come up in websites. This means that some pages may not look right in Opera. This all goes back to web designers checking their work with Explorer, or lack thereof, rather.

Opera does have some distinct advantages over Explorer. Most plug-ins (like Flash, Shockwave, MIDI players, etc) work with Opera. Opera also has a feature for download called "Opera Composer" which allows you to customize the interface of Opera.

Again, as far as security goes, there are no known viruses that attack Opera, but Explorer is known to be prone to at least 5. There's also a ton of other features that are worth mentioning, such as "Presentation Mode" which allows for PowerPoint like presentations. Also, Opera remembers the last page you visited, so next time you open the program, it'll open to the site you were last viewing (I love this one). Opera also has "Auto Page Reload" which is great for news sites, sports and stocks. There's many more other minor features, too numerous to list.

Opera is available for virtually every OS out there. Mac, Windows, Linux, even BeOS. Opera software went out of their way to make their browser available to everyone.

Netscape & Mozilla (http://www.netscape.com/) and (http://www.mozilla.org)

Netscape has had quite a history (http://www.holgermetzger.de/Netscape_History.html). Netscape is based on the code from the very first web browser, Mosaic. Mosaic eventually became Netscape in all its many forms. You may have heard about Netscape Navigator or Netscape Communicator. Netscape browsers used to be the only decent browsers around, but Microsoft sought to change that with Explorer. For the most part, Microsoft accomplished what they set out to do. Later, AOL purchased Netscape, but the open source (meaning free) branch of Netscape, went on to make Mozilla. While Netscape and Mozilla are two separate entities, they are spawned from the same code base, and perform and function essentially the same. For the sake of brevity, I'll lump them together.

In any event, people still use Netscape and Mozilla. Although the percentage of Netscape / Mozilla users is small, it functions more or less like Explorer. The terminology is slightly different. For example, you'll hear about "Bookmarks" rather than "Favorites." Many of the features from Explorer carry over into Netscape too, such as security settings, remembering passwords to certain sites, etc.

With Netscape 7.0, many new features, such as tabbed browsing, full screen mode and a new download manager have been implemented. While these features are nice, there aren't quite as many as Opera has. As far as sheer speed of the browser, Netscape lags behind the competition. Netscape seems rather sluggish in comparison to other browsers. However, there aren't any advertisements like in Opera. Also, some people like to use Netscape simply because it isn't a Microsoft product.

Mozilla is basically the same case. The "full release" version recently came out and is now version 1.0. Up until this point, the Mozilla team has been releasing different "builds" for testing. It is worth noting however, that Mozilla seems to be slightly faster, and more stable than Netscape.

Netscape and Mozilla are available for Mac, Unix Based, and Windows Operating systems.

iCab (http://www.icab.de/logo.html)

iCab is a little known browser only available to the Mac. And I do mean little: iCab uses only a fraction of the RAM that other browsers do. Also, this browser supports many standards and is Java compliant.

Being a Mac user, aesthetics are important to me, and this is where iCab stumbles a bit. The iCab icon and the interface turn people off. Also, some pages have trouble rendering, but at least in the latest versions, Java support has returned. In prior versions, Java support disappeared which left some surfers high and dry.

iCab does have some nice features. For example, ad blocking is built in. This is a great feature since usually outside programs are necessary to block advertisements, and I'm unaware of any existing for the Mac. iCab also has "kiosk" (full screen) mode, and an HTML checker that lets you know if the page you are viewing is W3C compliant. You'd be surprised about how many pages are not W3C compliant. This may account for the small percentage of mis-rendered pages as iCab is strict about HTML code rendering.

Konqueror (http://www.konqueror.org/)

Konqueror is a Linux only web browser. Konqueror uses the same scheme of having an integrated desktop and web browser as does Microsoft with explorer. In essence, Konqueror is an extension of KDE (K desktop environment) on a desktop Linux machine. Konqueror functions as a file manager, as well as a web browser.
Of course, being made for Linux machines, Konqueror is open source. Konqueror has been dubbed "the best open source Linux browser" available. However, the "rest of us" won't get to share in the fun Linux users will be having while surfing the web.

Konqueror is better than the other options (Netscape, Opera, Mozilla) simply because it integrates flawlessly with KDE. Konqueror is standards compliant, and has features such as cut and paste and drag and drop to KDE that other browsers do not. However, sometimes there are glitches in page views, and the browser is somewhat unstable. For the most part, the features are run of the mill, but the page load time seems to be snappy.

Lynx (http://lynx.browser.org/)

Well, I know my colleague, Matt Ernest, the other writer of Tech Corner, would shoot me if I didn't include Lynx. I see him using it all the time, although he is usually doing server stuff from a terminal (text based) application and gets bored waiting for processes (programs) to finish.

Lynx is essentially a text-only web browser. Only the text from web pages can be viewed. Pictures, Flash, and other niceties are stripped out to give you the raw text information.

This actually has quite a few advantages. Instead of getting distracted by moving pictures and sounds, you get only the text information you want. This is great for research and speed of browsing. However, nearly all typical web-browsing features are missing since Lynx is so paired down.

Lynx is compact, and runs on Unix, Windows, and even DOS platforms, and is being ported to the Mac.

Since most computer users use Windows, and most Windows users use Explorer to use the web, it is reasonable to assume that most computer users use Explorer. Explorer comes in a nice, neat, package, fully integrated into the operating system and is adequate for web browsing. However, if you feel like breaking the Microsoft cycle, learning or trying something new, or maybe you're missing some web-browsing feature, download a new web browser and give it a whirl. Don't worry; most or all of your browser settings can be imported into another browser. You might be pleasantly surprised.