Major Alternative Browsers

In the past week, I've published some comments on Firefox 3.0, the new version released June 17, 2008. If you are interested, here are links:

Part 1 of this series
Part 2 of this series
Part 3 of this series

Here are notes on a few more alternatives to Internet Explorer that run on the Microsoft Windows platform:

Opera 9.5
I have used Opera on occasion, dating back to version 5.

1. One of the things I really liked about it was it's emulation mode (I could run v7 or 8 in IE7 mode) tricking most, though not all sites, into thinking I was working in IE instead of Opera.
2. Though Opera has at times been faster than IE or Firefox, because it continues with its previous engine and Mozilla moved Firefox to Gecko, Firefox now wins most benchmarks. Opera 9.5 is definitely faster than Internet Explorer 6, making it an alternative for those who are running Windows2000.
3. Firefox has more plug-ins available, making it easier to customize.
4. For those who use mobile browsing, the sychronization features probably still give Opera an edge over Firefox.
5. One big advantage held by Opera is the ability to install on older Operating systems (Windows 95, 98, ME, NT4, though there are special install instructions). Knowing a number of people still using Windows98 and WindowsME, I found this an important discovery.

Minimum configuration for Opera 9 (Requirements only apply to Opera. Third-party plug-ins such as Flash, Java and others may have additional requirements):

20 MB of free disk space
Any system running Windows 95 (or later)

Recommended configuration for Opera 9:

Pentium II system with 64 MB of RAM and at least 50 MB of free disk space
Windows 98 or higher

While Opera 9 should run on any 32-bit version of Windows, the performance on computers below Pentium II class may be less usable. Legacy versions of Opera, remain in archive for these systems.

Though this article is targeted to PC users, MAC owners may wish to know that Opera has version that will run on OS7.5 and up, with the requirement for Opera 9 being Panther (OSX 10.3) or higher.

Safari 3.1 -- the first non-beta release of the Apple browser for Windows users

1. Compatability with surveys is spotty for Safari users, MAC or PC. For many users of gather.com, this may be one reason to avoid Safari. It scores high, however, on standards compliance for HTML 5 and many other web components.
2. Graphics Management -- Apple graphics, colour management in Safari is excellent. Text sizing is excellent, and form windows can be resized on many site to make it easier to write comments. A problem has been noted, however, with inconsistent font aliasing (if a website specifies one font and, because it does not exist on the machine, an "intelligent" substitution is made).
3. Apple claims Java-script rending speeds like this:

I have not, however, been able to find any independent sites that verify the numbers.

Avant Browser 11.6

1. Online Profile Storage: Users' bookmarks, RSS Feeds, configurations or web passwords etc, saved in Avant Online Storage. Useful for users who access the internet from a variety of machines.
2. Customizable Flash Animation Filter and pop-up blockers: Helpful for controlling bandwidth by stopping the loading of ads, scripts, video, sound, and ActiveX components. Doing this, can make Avant one fast browser.
3. Built-in RSS/ATOM Reader

This browser seems a bit lighter than Opera 9.5 on my WindowsXP machine (the only one on which I've loaded it). Ir runs quite well from a thumb drive, as does Firefox, but I find that Firefox has a less errors running in this mode.

While Avant was tested on lesser systems, its minimum recommendations are:

AMD K7 800 / 256 Ram / Windows XP Home Edition / Internet Explorer 6
Pentium-4 2.4G / 512 Ram / Windows XP Professional + Service Pack 1 / Internet Explorer 6 SP1

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I have installations of each of these on some, though only Internet Explorer (7) and Firefox (2 or 3) on each of my production machines. Personally, I'll probably upgrade the Firefox to 3 on all production machines, keep IE7 (needed for compatibility with quite a few sites I use often). I'll continue to play with Avant and Opera for mobile platforms.