Browser Wars

As the browser wars continue to heat up, and Firefox gains market share, Microsoft has at last released its long-awaited Internet Explorer 7 beta, but only for Windows XP users with Service Pack 2. This is a long-overdue move on Microsoft’s part, as Internet Explorer 6 has proved to be very vulnerable to spyware and other security issues. For the purposes of this article, I downloaded the new Explorer 7 Beta for evaluation, and although these days I am loath to pollute my new computer with any unnecessary software, I tentatively went ahead with downloading Opera, Maxthon and Netscape for comparison. I already use Firefox as my daily browser, simply because it’s safer.

Perhaps the most important new feature of all the browsers, including IE 7, is tabbed browsing. All the new browsers have it, and once you’ve used this feature you’ll wonder why it didn’t exist earlier. It’s a little odd that this feature has taken so long to appear, as we’ve had tabbed spreadsheets for years.

The first thing I wanted to test was speed. On my computer, Opera is the fastest to launch, Firefox and Netscape are the slowest. While I like Firefox because it is much more secure than Explorer 6 and earlier, I have never been very impressed with its launch speed. Also, it seems a bit sluggish loading graphics compared with the others.

Maxthon, while actually based upon Internet Explorer, crams loads of features into the browser window that IE never offered before this latest release, including RSS feeds, Roboforms, and the ability to return to previous sessions after closing the program (Opera also offers this handy feature). Unfortunately Maxthon also sneakily attempts to install Weatherbug, which is an annoying piece of adware that forces you to answer a questionnaire before you can uninstall it. The Roboforms feature is also available for Opera and Firefox, and is similar to the “autofill” feature of the well-established google toolbar. After initial setup, whereby you fill in your vital stats (address, email, phone number etc), you can then quickly fill in web forms with the single click of a button, saving much time and aggravation.

There is not enough space to compare all the features of all these browsers, but I can tell you that Firefox will remain my browser of choice because of one unique feature that isn’t available with the others – a plug-in called StumbleUpon. After initial installation, Stumble asks about your various interests. You pick your categories and finish, and a new button then appears on your Firefox menu. If one of your interests is “cats” for example, then you can pick that category and then click the Stumble button; the browser then “stumbles” through an impressive list of websites dedicated to cats. You can also add your own favourite cat site to the Stumble database. If you don’t pick a category, then Stumble randomly brings up sites related to all the categories in your list. It’s almost like Google on steroids.

If you spend a lot of time surfing the internet, I would strongly advise that you switch from Internet Explorer 6 (or earlier) to one these new browser alternatives. The additional features alone are worth the trouble, but more importantly you will drastically reduce your vulnerability towards becoming infected with adware and spyware.