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Too Good To Ignore — 6 Alternative Browsers
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.
am i missing any (competitive, comprehensive) engines?
Don't forget Lynx and Amaya.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
I think part of it is that building browsers on Trident has fallen out of favor. There used to be quite a few such browsers out there, but most of them have disappeared. Probably because they are unable to compete against the IE == The Internet mentality. Mac users seem to have less of that Safari == The Internet association, so they're more open to alternative browsers.
Personally, I'm not really sure this article adds much. You still have four major browser engines: Trident (IE/Microsoft), Gecko (Mozilla), Webkit (Apple), and Presto (Opera). Nearly all web browsers are based on one of those four engines. Which limits the choice based of better web experience to primarily the user interface. Since the major browser makers are already tussling over the best interface to wrap around their engine, there's not much to differentiate the third party browsers.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
How about: "Find a browser that's not ever going to be mainstream enough to be a viable target for trojan writers, but still allows doing home banking?"
I'm all for Opera never making it into the top three.
Yeah. It's a catchy way to try to distinguish themselves from the rest of PC (Personal Computer) owners. Theirs is just a PC that's vendor-locked. Hooray! So, is a Hackintosh a PC, Mac, or neither?
Maxthon was originally named myie2, and was basically a way to "skin" Internet Explorer. They have added more features, but they're still using IE under the hood. I used to use Maxthon exclusively before tabbed IE7 came out, but now I use Firefox. :0)
Taken from their overview page:
Sleipnir uses the same Trident rendering engine as Internet Explorer, so it will display just about any web page perfectly.
recently i was tasked with upgrading a bit of inhouse web 2.0 data entry software, and i had to add spellcheck, which of course is extremely easy: just use firefox. which floored longtime msie users
but then, upon further research, i found out about dynamic textarea resizing, a useful little feature for lots of data entry, while using chrome. you just click and drag the corner of the textarea to make it bigger (or smaller). very nifty
and upon even more research, i found out safari supports both dynamic resizing and spellchecking, AND a grammar checking feature (underlines green, as well as red for misspelt words like in firefox)
all of the mac users in my office were all smiles when i proposed we switch to safari company wide
so, for data entry with lots of textareas on the webpage, i summarize the following for you:
firefox: spellchecking
chrome: dynamic resize
safari: spellchecking, dynamic resize AND grammar checking
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Actually Opera Mini is quite hand for getting around content filters :)
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
Who do you think first implemented tabs?
(Hint: It was on a browser that ran on Windows 3.1 and was written by a company later bought by AOL.)
Mozilla and Opera were VERY late to the game with tabbed browsing.
Me too. links and w3m are much, much better than lynx. I use w3m all the time, especially for browsing bug-report databases and other text-heavy sites, but I use lynx only when nothing else is yet available, i.e. troubleshooting a tricky install.
According to the stats from the website I work for, Chrome is #4 (just over 2% of traffic) and Opera is #5 (0.7%).
For those looking for a go-between between lynx and other heavy-duty gui browsers like firefox: give dillo a try.