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Too Good To Ignore — 6 Alternative Browsers

Posted by timothy on from the hit-the-internet-button dept.

bsk_cw writes "With the exception of Google's Chrome (which got attention because it was, after all, Google), most of the alternative browsers out there tend to get lost in the shuffle. Computerworld asked three of their writers to take some lesser-known browsers out for a spin and see how they do. They looked at six candidates: Camino (for the Mac), Maxthon (for the PC), OmniWeb (for the Mac), Opera (both the Mac and the PC versions) and Shiira (for the Mac)." It would have been more interesting if they included some popular open source, Linux-friendly browsers like Konqueror or Epiphany, as well.

6 of 291 comments (clear)

  1. Re:aren't there only 4 engines? by danhuby · · Score: 5, Informative

    That's right, all current browsers use one of four layout engines, or derivitives thereof.

    Gecko (Firefox)
    Trident (Internet Explorer)
    Presto (Opera)
    KHTML (Konquerer, Safari via WebKit fork)

    Writing a layout engine is, I expect, very difficult so I'd say starting from scratch is only for the brave.

    There are other layout engines but they are generally not compliant with the latest standards, with the possible exception of this one (although it is in alpha):
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tkhtml

    There is more to a browser than the layout engine though.

    Dan

  2. There's a reason they were 'lost in the shuffle' by twistah · · Score: 4, Informative

    First of all, Opera is not a forgotten browser and has quite a big following. Maxthon outlived its usefulness as "IE with tabs" when IE7 came out. Chrome was interesting because of its threaded design (ie individual tabs can't crash the whole thing, in theory), its specially-developed V8 JavaScript engine and its focus on making web apps part of the desktop. Slapping a different GUI on Gecko/WebKit, along with a general lack of support for add-ons and other crucial pieces of the browsing experience, does not persuade a lot of people to switch to something "new." Especially when that "new" thing is just a downgraded version of what they're currently using.

  3. No they don't by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 5, Informative

    6 more browsers that all do the same things the mainstream ones do.

    Unless I've missed it there is one thing that none of them do as well as Firefox and that is block ads. The browser extensions like this are the one thing that, at least for me, puts Firefox head and shoulders above the rest.

  4. Re:Mac over represented? by Yvan256 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Opera is available as a download for the Wii (and was free for quite a long time), as a cart for the Nintendo DS (discontinued, but still) and as a built-in app/download (not sure which) for the new Nintendo DSi.

    If anything, Opera is the fourth on what should be the "top four".

  5. 100% IBM-PC Compatible by cromar · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh bother. Look at you all. There's a good reason for calling them PCs. Of course Macs are personal computers, but for many years up until around the Windows 95 days, a lot Windows and DOS software was marketed as running on "IBM-PC and 100% compatible computers" and then just as "IBM-PC Compatible. That's where it comes from. It's simply an evolution of a marketing slogan.

  6. Not by stats by ThrowAwaySociety · · Score: 5, Informative

    It depends somewhat on your geographic location, but these days the breakdown is something like

    IE - 70-80 %
    Firefox 15-20 %
    Safari - 3-7 %

    Opera - 1% or less
    With some others thrown in.

    Opera is a fine and often innovative browser, but its share of the market is negligible. Luckily, it's standards support is good, so it works with the same pages that Firefox and Safari work on.

    Being the premier browser on a gaming platform doesn't do much for market penetration.