Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

10 Oddly Useful Specialty Web Browsers

Posted by timothy on from the pornovation dept.

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Peter Wayner looks beyond Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and IE to uncover 10 alternative browsers that offer specialized advantages for 3-D searching, social networking, easy scriptability, powerful page manipulation, and the like. Each provides a targeted browsing environment, enabling users to browse Web tables into spreadsheets, browse leaner, browser in text, browse socially, browse musically, or browse smarter on the Mac. 'A purist might object that these hybrids are not much different from a standard browser with extra plug-ins. There's some truth to this, but not always — some of the unique capabilities can only be done deep inside the software. In any case, the job of parsing the terms and creating an exact definition of the Web browser isn't as much fun as embracing the idea that there are dozens of alternatives.'"

51 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. They forgot Pivot! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    http://getpivot.com/

    1. Re:They forgot Pivot! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Troll?

    2. Re:They forgot Pivot! by Runaway1956 · · Score: 1

      Pivot? Microsoft only, and you have to have Vista with Aero. I suppose that I could load it onto a virtual machine, maybe. But, somehow, I'm not motivated to experiment with yet another Microsoft browser. I was kinda thinking about grabbing IE9, but I haven't even found the motivation to do that yet.

      --
      "Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
    3. Re:They forgot Pivot! by Custard+Horse · · Score: 1

      The same argument should work for Office 97 but lot of people still use it as 'it ain't broke'.

      As for software becoming unsupported, there are plenty of companies that don't bother with windows updates as they are unrequired for day to day use. I regularly see XP installs which have not connected to MS since installation a few years ago.

      Sitting behind an effective firewall and with fully managed local security policies, there is little risk in having an out of date installation.

  2. Browsing in spreadsheets is not new by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    You've always been able to load a URL into a spreadsheet...

    1. Re:Browsing in spreadsheets is not new by alzoron · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You've always been able to load a URL into a spreadsheet...

      I must have missed that feature while playing around with Lotus 1-2-3 and VisiCalc back in the 80s.

    2. Re:Browsing in spreadsheets is not new by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Funny

      You've always been able to load a URL into a spreadsheet...

      I must have missed that feature while playing around with Lotus 1-2-3 and VisiCalc back in the 80s.

      I think it was alt-shift-F3 + ctrl-shift-u + ctrl-alt-insert + ctrl-alt-shift-sys_request ... or something like that.

    3. Re:Browsing in spreadsheets is not new by amias · · Score: 5, Funny

      no no no , thats a special move in emacs that gives your cursor a rocket launcher

      --
      [site]
    4. Re:Browsing in spreadsheets is not new by FooAtWFU · · Score: 1

      I don't know about rocket launchers, but did you want to play Asteroids in your browser with any web site?

      --
      The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
  3. One page by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    All on one page.

    1. Re:One page by PatPending · · Score: 1

      ...and the example for Lynx shows it looking at Slashdot

      --
      What one fool can do, another can. (Ancient Simian Proverb)
    2. Re:One page by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      >>>Lynx shows it looking at Slashdot

      Familiar sight. I use Links at work. Makes the boss think I'm looking at some boring text-only code, rather than the web.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    3. Re:One page by sootman · · Score: 1

      And he had to SSH to another machine (look at the title bar) to run it and nab the screenshot because OS X doesn't ship with Lynx or Links. I generally don't miss it much but it's occasionally handy, especially the 'dump' option to render HTML as plain text.

      --
      Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  4. How about a "Facebook Firewall" browser? by david.emery · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A browser that is specifically set up to completely firewall websites from each other?

    1. Re:How about a "Facebook Firewall" browser? by ya+really · · Score: 3, Informative

      Blocking connect.facebook.net in your hosts file (/etc/hosts or c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) will probably take care of any third party meddling related to facebook or if you use Chrome or SRWare Iron (Chrome without the creepy google tracking) this will do what you ask as well.

    2. Re:How about a "Facebook Firewall" browser? by ya+really · · Score: 2, Informative

      add "127.0.0.1 connect.facebook.net" (without the quotes) to your host file, just to clarify.

    3. Re:How about a "Facebook Firewall" browser? by pjt33 · · Score: 4, Informative

      It used to, but it doesn't any more. Now you have to, at minimum, block static.ak.connect.facebook.com as well. I've installed AdBlockPro today to take care of it in a more sweeping way.

      But I think David Emery was wanting a generalisation and just used Facebook as an example. I don't know how well common sites would work with external content blocked - whitelisting would be necessary at least for things like jquery.

    4. Re:How about a "Facebook Firewall" browser? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The Ghostery addon also blocks Facebook and most other tracking. IME, has worked invisibly; it's never stopped a webpage from working normally.

    5. Re:How about a "Facebook Firewall" browser? by revealingheart · · Score: 1

      There's the RequestPolicy extension for Firefox (and perhaps other Gecko-based browsers). This allows you to browse websites without third-party domains loading scripts, images and other media onto the page.

      The upside to this is that you'll no longer be followed by social networking websites wherever you go. The downside is that you'll have to spend time changing the settings for some websites to work, as even CSS will be blocked when hosted on a different domain - the eternal vigilance problem.

      You can also install CS Lite for cookies, BetterPrivacy for Flash cookies and NoScript, which makes it difficult to be tracked. An extra browser for when you want everything enabled temporarily (such as Opera or Chromium) works well together.

    6. Re:How about a "Facebook Firewall" browser? by js3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I put 127.0.0.1 facebook.com (and for www.facebook.com) and it's amazing how much my Back browser button gets messed up because almost every link on numerous websites foward to facebook.

      --
      did you forget to take your meds?
    7. Re:How about a "Facebook Firewall" browser? by hairyfeet · · Score: 2, Informative

      The funny part is even NoScript has a downside, as I went to one of those sites that told how easy it was to ID you by string (sorry I can't remember the name) and with NS I was something like 1-24,000 thanks to NS+FF version+OS whereas without anything my odds were something like 1-2.5 million thanks to so many not using NS. But the trade off of not dealing with drive by malware or a bunch of FB crap makes it worth being easier to pick out of a crowd for me, though YMMV.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    8. Re:How about a "Facebook Firewall" browser? by camperslo · · Score: 1

      If the reviews are to be believed, Ghostery has been sold to an advertising company and may be functioning as spyware

      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9609

      From the Ghostery/Better Advertising Privacy Policy- "We collect user traffic patterns"; "we track click-through information, including IP addresses"; "We may place a text file called a 'cookie' in the browser files of your computer."; "We may provide personal information to or permit access to personal information by our vendors and service providers"; "If Better Advertising should ever file for bankruptcy or have its assets sold to or merged with another entity, information Better Advertising receives from you, from this website, is a Better Advertising asset and may be transferred."

  5. CSSEdit by bckspc · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I use CSSEdit all the time. Its core is a Webkit browser that shows a live preview of CSS changes you make. It's great for AJAX-y, DHTML-y dynamically driven sites that don't always have HTML "pages" to debug.

    It's a bit like the Web Developer toolbar for Firefox, but a standalone browser / app for OS X focused solely on CSS and, IMHO, a bit easier to use.

    No connection to the company. Just a very satisfied user.

  6. Dillo by jones_supa · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Even though it lacks crucial features like JavaScript and plugins, one should try Dillo just to experience how extremely fast a graphical browser can be.

    1. Re:Dillo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Can't you just get the same effect by disabling JavaScript and plugins in your preferred browser?

    2. Re:Dillo by Jorl17 · · Score: 4, Informative

      No, you can't. I've programmed some features of Dillo myself and I look at the amazing work that the regular developers do. It is fast, memory-efficient and efficiency-centric. You can't compare a fully crazy assed GUIed application like Firefox, Chrome and IE (though Chrome is the least expensive of these three) with Dillo and FLTK. The Fast Light ToolKit makes it *really* fast and responsive -- similar to Chrome before all the fucktards started adopting it. Its CSS is increasing and there are *some* plans for basic Javascript. It is something else and I use it whenever I need real speed.

      Of course you can just wget something and even make scripts to only get the text out of it, but then you'd just be "reading" the internet, which isn't enough for some things. Dillo is a much more advanced Links.

      --
      Have you heard about SoylentNews?
    3. Re:Dillo by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      Does Dillo work on Windows NT 5 or 6? (XP or Vista or Seven) I'd like to try it, but it appears it does not work.

      Flock:

      It abandoned Mozilla and went to Chromium. Is there still a facebook-friendly browser that uses Mozilla?

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    4. Re:Dillo by realityimpaired · · Score: 1

      You might like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1833/ if you're looking for a mozilla-based addon that's Facebook friendly. It doesn't implement all of the features that Flock has/had, but it does implement the basic social networking aggregation into a sidebar addon for Firefox. :)

    5. Re:Dillo by belmolis · · Score: 1

      For me the main downside to Dillo is the lack of Unicode support.

  7. What I want is... by Peter+(Professor)+Fo · · Score: 1

    A browser that will detect repeating structures in the DOM and parse them into segments. Then be able to select on elements with the possibility of export. Often people have to look through long lists of things where only a few are of interest. For example (a) detect the 'comment' structure in a slashdot page (without being told the template) (b) parse into title, who, text (c) offer (in this case) three search fields to select on and then (d) copy a selected one into the clipboard in XLM or append to a clippings file.

    1. Re:What I want is... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      slashdot (and others) should be returning xml and using xslt to convert it into html.

  8. Shameless plug by commodore64_love · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I recommend Mozilla seaMonkey. It has the same core engine as Firefox 4, but with the functionality/appearance of classic Mozilla Netscape, and only half the memory usage of FF (~150,000 vs ~300,000 kilobytes).

    Another browser Ive tried is Mozilla Songbird, which is really more of a music player than a browser but it's good for those of us who like noise in our ears all day long.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    1. Re:Shameless plug by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      P.S.

      Forgot about the Mac & Linux. I like Opera which stores its bookmarks online (can access them anywhere, even work). Mozilla Camino is also nice since it uses Mac's built-in tools/appearance.

      Lightweight Ubuntu & Puppy Linux use Chromium, which is okay, but I still prefer seaMonkey.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    2. Re:Shameless plug by theaveng · · Score: 1

      From the Puppy Linux FAQ:

      Q: Why not use Firefox instead of Seamonkey?

      A: "Yes, Firefox web browser, Thunderbird email and news client, Sunbird Calendar, and NVU HTML editor are useful programs. The Mozilla/SeaMonkey suite, with all of this functionality, is about 11M compressed, whereas the separate applications are each about 35M compressed. So, the live-CD, instead of being 60M would be 85M and would be too big to run in RAM in a PC with 128M RAM.

      "Why are the separate applications so big compared with the Mozilla/Seamonkey suite? Simply because the Mozilla suite has a lot of common code shared by each module, whereas the separate applications have to duplicate that code. This creates a gigantic size bloat, not in the spirit of Puppy."

      - Barry Kauler 2006
      http://www.puppylinux.com/faq.htm

      --
      FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
    3. Re:Shameless plug by jc42 · · Score: 1

      I like Opera which stores its bookmarks online (can access them anywhere, even work).

      Zat so? I've been using opera for several years, and I've never even suspected that it could do that. Is it documented somewhere? A quick check in in its Preferences stuff on my Mac and linux systems didn't turn up anything that looked relevant. Of course, it could be there, but I just don't recognize whatever words they use.

      I've occasionally wondered if there might be some systematic way to learn about software features that you'd use if you knew about them. So far, the only heuristic I've found is to look for hints in online forums, and ask questions. Or state rashly that app A doesn't have feature F, to encourage people to call you an idiot for not knowing about it, and in the process, give you enough of a hint to find it. ;-)

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    4. Re:Shameless plug by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      It was added with Opera 10.5 and is called Opera Link. Other useful features they added recently are Opera Turbo (speeds-up dialup/cellular connections) and Opera Unite (photo and file sharing). I use the Turbo feature a lot, since many hotels only come with slow connections.

      http://www.opera.com/link/

      Supposedly Firefox 4 will have the same "store bookmarks online" feature, but I've not tried it.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    5. Re:Shameless plug by jc42 · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the pointer (and the keyword); it looks like something worth experimenting with.

      (And you didn't even call me an idiot for not knowing it. ;-)

      So far, I've put off playing with FF4 due to a shortage of time and a surplus of other things to play with, but I'll probably try it sometime soon.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
  9. Lynx? by gmuslera · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For text mode browsing i would go use elinks, with good (text mode) rendering of pages, ssl support and a lot of other features, but not sure in which state are the latest version of lynx, links or w3m by now. There are plenty of text mode browsers, and speed is just one of the advantages.

  10. Also check HTMLayout by Cyberax · · Score: 1

    HTMLayout (http://terrainformatica.com/htmlayout/main.whtm) is not strictly a browser, but rather a toolkit to create UI in HTML+CSS.

  11. Customizing Lynx colors by Compaqt · · Score: 1

    FYI: Ubuntu has a dark background, light text Lynx setup by default.

    If you prefer black text on white background (as do I), do this:

    Copy the lynx.lss file somewhere (like a ~/.lynx dir)
    cp /etc/lynx-cur/* .lynx/

    Edit the lynx.lss file to comment out the 8th and 9th lines:
    normal: normal: lightgray:black
    default: normal: white:black

    Then run lynx with "lynx -lss lynx.lss" or set LYNX_LSS to your personal lynx.lss file.

    --
    I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
  12. they forgot one i know of by FudRucker · · Score: 2, Interesting

    K-Meleon

    it uses mozilla's gecko engine, even more bare bones than firefox, a little rough around the edges but overall an ok browser. (windows only)

    --
    Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
    1. Re:they forgot one i know of by commodore64_love · · Score: 1

      I had a lot of problems with website rendering when I tried K-meleon last year.

      Also had a tendency to crash, and even though it claims to "use windows standard" components for efficiency, I didn't see it using any less memory than Firefox.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  13. No mention of Links? by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    What could be more odd or special than a text browser?

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    1. Re:No mention of Links? by Tacvek · · Score: 2, Informative

      No mention of links, but they do mention its predecessor lynx in the article.

      --
      Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
  14. Which text mode browser? by dlenmn · · Score: 1

    I've had occasion to need a text mode browser, and I think I used lynx, but I saw that there are a number of them. I recall looking for a good comparison of the different options, but I couldn't find one. What are they, and what are their strengths and weaknesses?

  15. Notepad by T+Murphy · · Score: 2, Funny

    Notepad is my favorite specialty browser. You name the file (url).txt, and it instantly renders the website as a blank page- think of all the clutter you don't have to deal with! Plus, you can add in whatever text you want- ever wanted to make microsoft.com say "Linux rules!"? Well now you can! I can't imagine how anyone could want anything else.

    --
    My webcomic
    1. Re:Notepad by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 1

      Notepad is my favorite specialty browser. You name the file (url).txt, and it instantly renders the website as a blank page- think of all the clutter you don't have to deal with! Plus, you can add in whatever text you want- ever wanted to make microsoft.com say "Linux rules!"? Well now you can! I can't imagine how anyone could want anything else.

      The first thing people coming from FireFox will notice is the print feature really works!

      --

      "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  16. uzbl?! by sammyF70 · · Score: 1

    No mention of Uzbl, the command line operated browser?

    --
    "DRM is like the Ford Pinto: it's a smooth ride, right up the point at which it explodes and ruins your day."-C.Doctorow
  17. I would like to mention elinks. by Roobles · · Score: 1

    I don't know why elinks doesn't get more recognition. It's an ncurses-based (console) web browser with tabs and support for basic javascript. It's easy to compile, even on windows, and even has support for the mouse. As soon as I found out about it, I stopped using lynx and links.

  18. The forgot uzbl by marienf · · Score: 1

    http://www.uzbl.org/

  19. Conkeror by djupdal · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I rarely see anyone mention conkeror, my favourite browser: http://conkeror.org/

    It is the only browser I have tried I can comfortably use without a mouse. Once you learn the emacs-like keybindings, browsing with keyboard is really fast.