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Which browser is best?
"Once upon a time there was Netscape and it was King of the worldwide web (WWW). Then along came the Wicked Witch, and her name was Internet Explorer. Soon, she had poisoned the King and he wasted away, the Wicked Witch ruling in his place. However, the Wicked Witch did not reign for long before new would be usurpers came and sought to take the throne for themselves. Soon it was war after war. They called it the Browser Wars and still they rage across cyberspace." Introduction
The first proper browser for the WWW was Mosaic (1991), followed by Netscape (1994), son of Mosaic. It was better and soon gained a dominance of the browser world. Until that is Internet Explorer came along in 1995. However, it wasn't until 1996 with IE3 that the battle started to get ugly. When IE4 came along in 1997 it was better than Netscape 4 and as they say, the rest they say is history. Today, Microsoft dominates the browser world, but not as much as it used to do. It has abandoned the Mac market to the better Safari (from Apple itself) and with the move to Intel by Apple, Safari has crossed over the OS divide and invaded the kingdom of Microsoft. With the resurgence of the Mac platform and Safari on the iTouch and the iPhone, Microsoft is seeing its market share being eaten into. And its not only Apple with Safari on the Mac and PC. Mozilla, the grandchild of Mozilla has gone open-source and given birth to Firefox, Flock and others. They have been joined by Camino, iCab, Opera, Shira, OmniWeb... the list goes on. Not forgetting too all those browsers that seem to hang around the Linux platform such as Konqueror, Amaya and even Netscape Navigator 9, a link back to the very start of the WWW. Which is best?
Well, its horses for courses, as we Brits say. If you just want to browse the web, searching in Google or Yahoo, then any browser will do. If you want to customize your browsing experience with plugins and extensions, then Firefox or one of the similar browsers (Flock, Camino or Shira for example) would be more suitable than either Internet Explorer or even, dare I say it (being a Mac fan), than Safari. My personal favourite is Flock, because it is based on the same code base as Firefox and so can run the same plugins and extensions. Also, it is geared to multimedia and social networks. it comes already configured for social networks (inc. Facebook and Twitter), media sharing sites (Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa and Piczo) and numerous blogging applications & sites (Blogger, Livejournal, Typepad and Wordpress to name just some). Most browsers are available on the big three platforms of Windows, Mac and Linux and their various flavours. They are all free [except OmniWeb but you can download a trial] so you can try them all out and see which best meets your needs. Each of them makes all sorts of claims for themselves, for example Opera claims to be "The coolest, fastest, and most secure free Web browser available."My advice is, make up your own mind, with one exception. For me, Internet Explorer is still needed to view some websites, though this is less common than it used to be. So, you may need to keep a copy of it floating around on your computer just in case, but in my opinion its not the best for everyday browsing. I say this because it is probably the most insecure browser around unless you are using version 7 or above. However, on the Mac its extinct as Microsoft stopped updating it back in version 5 (if I remember correctly... its been so long since I used it on a Mac). You can also download free themes to tweak the look and feel of many browsers, so if you want a more personal experience whilst browsing the WWW this is an option. If you ask me, my rating would be as follows:
1. Flock
2. Firefox
3. Camino, Shira, OmniWeb or Opera
4. The rest inc. IE As I said though, try them all out and make up your own mind.
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Contributor's Note
I have been an active user of browsers from 1992 and have tried most of them. I have worked with Macs and PCs, as well as used various packages to design websites (including Netscape Composer, Fusion, Freeway, Frontpage, PageMill, GoLive and even text editors).
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Flock
| Opera
| Safari
| Shira
| Camino
| OmniWeb
| Firefox
| Wikipedia on Browsers
PLEASE VISIT THE CONTRIBUTOR'S WEBSITE
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