Alternative Browsers
The fight for internet users' browsers is over, they say.
The Browser Wars had been won in 1999 by the Redmond Giant, Microsoft, they say, but its rival's death knell didn't sound until the middle of last year.
That was when the owners of Netscape, which produced the first popular web browser back in 1994, agreed to bundle Microsoft's Internet Explorer ( IE ) with its AOL ( America Online ) software. Then AOL laid off most of Netscape's employees.
It was a significant moment because the two companies had been battling since around 1996 for people to use their web browser, the piece of software which lets you view web pages.
In 1995, Netscape's Navigator had had more than 80% of the market, but Redmond awoke, pouring an estimated $100 million a year into developing and marketing its browser.
While Netscape stagnated, Microsoft bundled
IE with its Windows operating system, and had
made huge improvements by the time version
5.0 browser was released in March 1999.
By the end of that year around two-thirds of internet users were wielding a version of IE, and now, with version 6.0 the latest, the figure is somewhere between 85 and 95%.
The quick and dirty history is by way of showing how quickly these things can change on the 'net, the importance Microsoft placed on the browser, and the danger of stagnation.
Most of you will now be using a version of IE ( Help --> About Internet Explorer to find out which ) , because it comes bundled with Windows, because it is the default browser, because familiarity breeds comfort, or because you are unaware of alternatives.
But there are better alternatives, which work with Windows and other operating systems, and which are well worth trying.
The best of these is a family of browsers which rose out of the ashes of Netscape, Mozilla, which PC World Magazine named the Best Browser of 2003, and including a younger sibling named Firefox.
These have a number of major advantages over IE, which has been stagnant since October 2001, and will not now be updated until Microsoft releases a new operating system, Longhorn, scheduled for sometime next year.
Many of these features are common in all family members, including the latest - Mozilla 1.6, and Firefox 0.8.
- They block pop-up ads. No more annoying pop-up windows when you visit a website. ( Edit --> Preferences --> Privacy and Security )
- You can zoom text either larger or smaller. Many web-sites use type-sizes which are too small to read comfortably. The Listener ( http://www.thelistener.co.nz/ ) is one in this category. While IE doesn't let you resize the text ( View --> Text Size won't work here) , both Mozilla and Firefox do ( View --> Text Zoom ).
- They use a tabbed browsing interface, letting you open as many web-pages as you like in one window. You can switch easily between them via their tabs. Use the Ctrl-Tab, middle mouse button, or right-click options.
- A download manager lets you pause and resume downloads, and keeps a record of which files you have downloaded.
- Mozilla's email client can easily be configured for multiple accounts or email addresses, and has better facilities for organizing and filtering email. If you do try this new email client, I suggest you leave your mail on the server ( Edit --> Mail and Newsgroup Account Settings --> Server Settings ) so that you can use your current email client as a back-up in case of disaster.
- You can search the web in the engine of your choice from the location bar.
There are other advantages : Andrew Leonard of Salon.com (http://www.salon.com/tech/col/leon/2002/03/12/mozilla/index.html ) called Mozilla 'slick and fast and full-featured', but that's something I hope you take the chance to judge for yourself.
April 18, 2004
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