Web browsers are a staple item on just about everyone's desktop. Currently, four primary players exist in the browser market space: Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Netscape, and Opera. Each offers unique features. For example, IE supports Microsoft's proprietary ActiveX and Active Directory (AD) technology. Firefox has a huge community of developers who create free add-ons that greatly enhance its functionality and appearance. Netscape lets you choose between the Firefox and IE HTML rendering engines. Opera comes with a built-in email client, contact manager, note-taking system, and the BitTorrent client peer-to-peer file-sharing tool. Let's take a closer look at what makes each browser unique—keeping in mind that I won't delve too deeply into compliance with commonly accepted Web standards and that I focus primarily on standard functionality rather than features that are available through add-ons or extended suites.
Opera 8.10 Preview 2 (build 7685)
I tested Opera 8.10 Preview 2 (build 7685) for Windows (and the other browsers) on a 750MHz Pentium II system with 256MB of RAM, a 4200 RPM disk drive, and a 1MB broadband connection. The skinny on Opera is that it's super-fast at rendering HTML pages and the standard installation package is jammed with features. This browser has a highly functional and fully customizable UI that supports tabbed browsing and custom menus, as Figure 1 shows.
Opera runs on any version of Windows, as well as on BeOS, BSD, Linux, Mac OS X, OS/2, Sun Microsystems Solaris, and Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)-enabled cell phones. The browser can identify itself as IE 6.0, Mozilla 5.0, or Opera to Web servers, which Opera says can help with page rendering on sites that support only certain browsers. I set Opera to identify itself as Opera, then visited a federal Web site. I received a message from the site's Web server that said I must use IE to render the page correctly! I set Opera to identify itself as IE, then reloaded the page, which rendered perfectly. The same scenario reported itself for other Web sites (e.g., banking sites) that insisted I use IE.
One thing I really like about Opera's tabbed browsing is the ability to rearrange the tabs any way I want and even tile the tabbed windows. Another great feature is Opera's Quick Configuration (on the Tools pulldown menu), which lets you change settings on the fly for Java, Javascript, browser identity, cookies, pop-up windows, and more.
Opera's built-in mail client supports Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), spam protection that autolearns about unwanted messages, and a message-filtering system that works according to user-definable rules. This client is based on IMAP and POP3 and doesn't support proprietary connections to Microsoft Exchange Server. However, you can configure your Exchange mail account to use IMAP connections, after which you can use the Opera email client with Exchange. Opera also has a built-in Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client. Chat sessions appear in a browser tab, so you can have a tab for each chat session.
The native voice subsystem add-on is a great feature. It reads Web pages out loud and lets you issue voice commands to the browser. You can also create your own voice commands to perform actions, such as navigating to a particular Web site.
One fantastic feature is the new BitTorrent client, which is a hugely popular peer-to-peer file-sharing system. On the downside, I could change the settings for the BitTorrent client only by editing the OperaDef6.ini file; I couldn't find any way in the GUI to change those settings. In the version I tested, the email client had to be enabled for BitTorrent downloads to work. (Keep in mind that I tested a preview release, so these limitations might be eliminated by the time you read this article.) BitTorrent downloads show up in the excellent download manager. When you position the mouse pointer over a BitTorrent download in progress, extra information (e.g., how many peers are reading and downloading the file) appears in a tooltip.
Opera's download manager and bookmark manager are similar to those in Firefox. However Opera's are a little better. For example, bookmark folders are listed in alphabetic order; in Firefox, you must manually select alphabetic ordering, which isn't the default layout. In Opera, both the download manager and bookmark manager appear in tabbed Windows; in Firefox, those items appear as new windows on the desktop. Opera also has built-in support (via context menus) for encyclopedia and dictionary queries through Infoplease, and a language-translation feature that works with Lycos's translator Web site.
Another nifty feature is the built-in Really Simple Syndication (RSS) and Atom feed reader. Feeds show up as folders in the mail client or on a separate tab. When you enable Opera's email client, you can also send email to a feed item's poster if he or she has included their email address in the feed file. One feature I found missing in the preview was a way to import a list of feeds.
The note-taking feature lets you make individual notes. You can type whatever text you want into a note, or highlight text on a Web page, then right-click and send the text straight into the notes database for later referral.
The links feature lets you see all the links embedded into a Web page in one easy-to-navigate list. Opera also saves your session state when the browser closes, so when you reopen the browser, all the sites that were open when you closed it reopen on tabs. Another great thing about Opera is that in September 2005, the company removed banner ads and now makes the browser available for free.
Firefox 1.5 Beta 1
Firefox is the darling of the open source community. Firefox 1.5 Beta 1 sports a highly customizable tabbed interface (which Figure 2 shows) along with hundreds of third-party extensions and themes that are completely free of charge. You can easily add functionality to the browser to support various search engines (even Windows IT Pro's search engine), real-time weather forecasts, language translators, a full-blown FTP client, and more. In fact, the vast number of available extensions is one of the best features of Firefox.
Firefox is an offshoot of the original Mozilla browser source code. However, Firefox is smaller, faster, more efficient, and much more popular than Mozilla. Mozilla is a suite of tools that includes a Web browser, email client, chat client, and HTML editor, whereas Firefox is simply a powerful standalone Web browser. Firefox runs on just about any mainstream OS, including BSD, Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. (Minimo is a scaled-down version of Firefox that runs on Windows CE-based handheld devices and cell phones.) Like Opera (and unlike IE and Netscape), Firefox handles all Web sites in one security zone, which means most browser settings affect any Web site you visit. Exceptions to that rule are for pop-up windows and cookies; you can create settings to manage those items on a site-by-site basis.
Firefox doesn't come with a built-in email client or voice capabilities, but those options are available as extras. Mozilla Foundation provides the standalone Thunderbird email client, and a third-party developer created the FoxyVoice add-on, which gives Firefox the ability to read Web content aloud. The voice extension requires the use of the Microsoft Speech software development kit (SDK)—which is a hefty 68MB download on non-Window XP systems.
Another benefit of Firefox is that the complete source code is available to anyone who wants a copy. You can audit the code for security concerns or modify it to suit your needs.
Overall, Firefox is fast (though not as fast as Opera in my tests), easy to use, and easily extended. Although the standard distribution of Firefox has far fewer features than Opera, there are loads of third-party add-ons available that introduce functionality similar to Opera's. It would be nice if Mozilla would package some of the better add-ons right into the distribution package, but plug-ins are available for RSS readers, FTP clients, dictionary and encyclopedia lookups, note taking, and hundreds of themes that let you change the browser skin. Extensions are written in JavaScript, so anybody can develop their own functionality without having to use a standalone program compiler. If you prefer an all-in-one suite that includes Web browser, HTML editor, email client, and chat client, you might want to take a close look at the Mozilla Suite, which is developed independently of Firefox.
All this makes Firefox my pick for best browser. By the time you read this article, the release version of Firefox 1.5 might be available. Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 1—RC1—was scheduled for release in late October 2005.
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