Alternative Browser Review

alfredo_tomato writes: "I would have liked to seen a larger selection, but here are three browsers reviewed: You'd be surprized at who came out on top. The ugliest of the lot won."

Comments

Opera is still worth buying

[Cato]

Opera doesn't actually have its own JVM; however, the downloadable versions for Windows come with a JVM from Sun, in the same download and as part of the same install sequence.

As for the cost - Opera is particularly good on older hardware (my mother used it on a 486SX/25 with 8 MB RAM and Windows 3.1 for quite a while, and it was a lot better than Netscape, and I used to use it on a slow P200 laptop). So if you can pay $30 to avoid a hardware upgrade, you are way ahead financially.

Opera is missing a few features such as password management, etc, but its speed and ability to turn off images with one click is enough for me. I'll be registering the Linux version as soon as it gets out of alpha/beta, as it is stunningly fast on my AMD K6-2/350 as well.

My picks

[Felinoid]

The KDE Browser gets top rankings...
It's fast.. effective and soon to have Java and Javascript.
Still needs a lot of work but works quite well for most of my browsing...
It looks like KDE is taking the microsoft approch to browser plugins..
Let's hope develupers don't plug into the KDE system with wordprocessors or basic and port e-mail viruses over.
Byond that the KDE browser (and system) is making some nice moves in the area of a user friendly Internet interface...
The only sad side of course being this won't work on Gnome or WindowMaker...

Modzilla. Really just Netscapes dev version.. even before it was open sourced...
It's nice but it's still just the dev browser for Netscapes commertal product. I'm not sure this one will ever be compleatly ready...
There are some nice ports of this to many platforms. Once it plugs into modern libarys it seems to speed up quite a bit...

Arachne. This is really a Dos browser.. for XTs... You may scream now.. It's a full pacage just like Netscape only it's a console browser.
Lacks Java and like Netscape it's free for noncommertal use.
The nice part of Arachne is it's great for a NetBox.. even if your just making one on your own. Just grab an old computer and put Arachne on it. I recomend at least a 386 and no more than 8 meg ram. Arachne accually gets slower when it has to much memory to play with.
VGA and a mouse are good...
This would make a good gift... turns an old PC into a netbox...
The downside... it's not that fast... it uses the hard disk a lot so you want a fast hard disk.. not a big one.. size not issue.. speed is..
I last tryed this on an XT years ago but a while back the min requirements slid up from an 8088 XT to an 8086 XT... wow big jump..
It's safe to say any given XT is a bad move anyway as thies boxes are old enough to have blank BIOS roms.

Anyway there is a Linux version...
Windows users can use the Dos version...

However my recomendation is purely to recycle an old PC and make a NetBox for a famaly member...
http://arachne.browser.org/

And finnaly there is http://lynx.browser.org/
Good old Lynx...
Fast friendly but not GUI...
Lynx is an example of how broken the WWW really is.
Lynx was the second web client.. WWW being the first..
Lynx has had problems supporting HTML every sence HTML 2 and what appears to be a total abandonment of text browsers...

Lynx remains the fastest browser when it comes to loading HTML only pages and of course gets faster when visiting graphic pages (By never loading images).
Obveously Lynx dosn't load banners...
Lacks Java and Javascript and dosn't support plugins.

Mosaic.... a decent base for a web browser itself to old... it won't view most pages (even pages Lynx can view) and is basicly to old to be of any use other than base code for annother browser.
A few updated Mosaics exist however and they are worth using.
Mosaic is a fast decent browser lacking flash and hype... however it's a HTML 1 browser and needs considerable code added if it's to be usable..

My recomendation at this time is the KDE browser...
With the caveot that it needs KDE...
If you want to use Gnome then you probably should look elsewhere...
There are some Modzilla projects to port Modzilla to everything under the sun... odds lay good that a GnomeZilla project exists.. the name sounds to cool to pass up... and such a port is likely gona hook into Gnome something sereous resulting in a nice powerful browser.

One last thing.. I don't nessisarly like KDE I just think it sucks less than Gnome...
Eventually nither will suck... it's just the suckness level of both provides room for Window Manager wars...
Anyway... to take the glass house anolog....
The other camp isn't living in glass houses... they just don't have the walls up yet...

Why is it...

[lemox]

... that people keep wanting to call NeoPlanet a "browser". All it is is some prettied up overlay for IE, yet stupid people still insist that it is an "alternative". Seems like Cnet and, in turn, slashdot, is pretty hard of for articles. Anybody can draw up a form in vb, throw a browser control on it and it's a damn alternative browser.

An article on New Coke vs. Coke Classic would probably be a more useful article than this...