Browser Wars: Firefox vs Opera vs Internet Explorer
Just to clarify the format of these posts, Bored and I are using two different fonts to differentiate on who is speaking in the posts. She is using the Georgia font while I will use the Trebuchet MS font. On to tonight's post:

Is anyone here using IE? Anyone? All righty then, as stats would indicate, over 73% of users use Internet Explorer. Well, I'm here to tell you that there are alternatives to Internet Explorer. In fact, you might have seen some of them around the Internet. Anyone here know of the "Get Firefox" campaign? Well, here's a long story short. Back when Netscape was shut down in 2003, two years after being aquired by AOL in 2001, a bunch of the Netscape engineers formed an organization called the Mozilla Foundation. From that came the browser that we know as Mozilla Firefox. Netscape.com still exsists, but that's for another post. Netscape was developed on an engine called Gecko, the engine that now runs Firefox. So, in essence, Firefox is the stepchild of Netscape. The ironic thing is, Firefox is more succesful in it's first 1 1/2 years than Netscape was in the nine years that Netscape exsisted.

Users tend to be fond of Internet Explorer because for Windows users, it's right there in front of them. It comes literally embedded in Windows. Users on other platforms use it as well, because most web developers only thought about what their page would look like in IE... not in other browsers. To get a page to display properly - or at all, in cases - one would be stuck with IE. But as a former IE user who's now typing this post while using Firefox, I can tell you which one performs better. IE was always sluggish, ridiculously prone to crashing - and after hearing so many stories about how unsecure it was, I never felt safe using it.

No, I'm not saying that the other browsers don't have issues. No piece of software, no matter who develops it, is perfect. But Firefox and Opera are better-performing alternatives to IE. Plus, for the Windows user, they're not embedded into your OS.

Here I'm going showcase a little history on all three browser starting with Opera, the oldest of the three.

Opera

The oldest of the three browser and also the first browser to use tabbed browsing. Opera was started as a project from a Norweign telecom back in 1994. It was originally only develloped for Windows but spread to Linux and OS 9 (now OS X) after lack of use, in 1997 Opera software launched Project Magic to determine who would purchase a copy of the browser in there native OS. Opera is a go-between between Firefox and IE. Unlike Firefox which was a bare bones extendible browser since it's conception. Opera on the other had only had limited extensions, however it does have extra features like a built in BitTornnet client, voice recognition and an Email client. It is also one of the few browsers (beside's Apple's Safari) that has passed the Acid2 test. Opera is an interesing browser, however huge dents in system resources, lack of extenibility and a glitchy plugin manager have led me to believe that although Opera is a nice browser, it needs some work under the hood to become a major player.

Opera does have great potential. Switching, however takes some time to get used to. I have Opera 9.01, currently - and it offers functionality where Firefox does not, in some places. It's passing the Acid2 test gives it potential - and so do the features decided for accessibility, such as being able to tweak the colors and font sizes, as well as the ability to control the browser with just a keyboard, a mouse - or neither one, as you can tell it how to work with your voice. Zooming in and out is simple (I accidently did it yesterday) by simply pressing the + or - keys. The built-in BitTorrent client is very user friendly - I didn't use to download, but even having never used BitTorrent before, I was able to get it working so I could download, if I wished. It is web standards compliant, which is a nice touch... and I think, if Opera 9 is any indication, with further development, it will be a major player.

Internet Explorer

So we come the browser that started it all.....Internet Exploder Explorer. Internet Explorer was once the King of Browsers, but it has fallen off the cliff in the past few years. And this isn't just the Browser Fanboy in me talking. Technology experts Steve Gibson of Gibson Research Corperation and technology journalist Leo Laporte both strongly advocate the use of Firefox, because of the fact that many, many vulerabilities remain unpatched in IE - leaving the user exposed to malicous pieces of code.

Back in the days of Netscape, Internet Explorer was King. It was better than Netscape. But that was then, this is now. Internet Explorer has been lapped numerous times by Firefox and Opera. Microsoft is just now clueing into the fact that things like Tabbed Browsing and RSS are good things to intergrate into a browser. But you also have to give Microsoft a break, they don't develop as much as Mozilla or Opera, and therefore don't have as much feedback to go on. And the fact that Microsoft is closed source doesn't help it either. (Opera is closed source, but it is a smaller code base and easier to update.) People aren't allowed to modify or experiment with the code base of IE. Microsoft needs to pay people to fix problems. Firefox pays ordinary people to find bugs. Mozilla will give someone who finds a legit bug a $500 reward and a Firefox t-shirt per report. So if I was to isolate myself in my room for a long period of time and scour the Firefox code, I could buy a new computer just by looking for bugs. Internet Explorer, although better now, unless they go open source, will never regain the ground they have lost and are losing now. Thanks to projects like Firefox (and look alike Flock) IE is doomed to be left in the dust, sooner rather than later. In 2005, PC World rated Internet Explorer the eigth worst tech product of all time.

When the Internet was new and shiny, IE was king, I agree. It was an alternative to Netscape - which honestly deserved to go down the toilet sooner than it did. But those days have passed. IE hasn't been overhauled since the Internet was very young. It hasn't kept up with the times. Enter new projects like Firefox, which is just nearing it's second birthday - and is more stable, more secure - and makes web browsing far less annoying. And older projects like Opera, whose developers are aware of the times and keep up with them.

I'm willing to give Internet Explorer 7 a chance... but it's a little too late coming. IE already has it's reputation as Internet Exploder. To be fair to Microsoft, however, they are closed-source - no amateurs like myself or Virtunate can look at the code and fix bugs for them... and they do have a massive marketshare. I believe when they ship an update or something new, it has to be translated into 23-plus languages, for users around the world. But... the browser is not standards compliant, in any form. And IE 6 hadn't been changed much at all since it's release, oh, five years ago? It's outdated, unstable - anyone who probably reads this is aware how much things can change in five years in the technology world. And they wonder why they're losing ground.

Firefox

While not the "King" of web browsers, Firefox is definitely a rising star. Since it's release in 2004, it has taken the browser market by storm. Not only has it won acclaim from the geek community, but it has recieved numerous awards from PC Magazine and CNet amoung others. It's only been out about a year and a half and it's already had over 100 million downloads. As metioned above, Firefox is designed from Netscape technology, namely the Gecko rendering engine. Although it has yet to pass the Acid2 test, its still a great browser. Firefox is what you would call an extendable browser. By default it only starts out with one, default theme and no extensions. You can load as many extensions and themes as you want. I currently have eight extensions running. Notable amoung them Stumble Upon, Mouse Gestures and Flashblock. And here's the best part. If your tech-savy, you can write your own extensions. The only problem is with extensions that the Firefox team doesn't check for memory leaks and that can lead to the browser taking up more system resources. Although not nearly as leaky as Opera, it can still stack up 30,000 K of system resources. Firefox has gained popularity over it's two year life and shows no signs of slowing down. With the release of Firefox 2 this fall, Firefox's popularity should grow even further. Unless the codebase takes a dive in the next release, I will continue to use Firefox for years to come. Having migrated to Opera twice, I find it does not compare to Firefox for the reasons I have mentioned above.

Firefox is taking a bite out of the browser market... taking territory that used to belong to IE. No, it hasn't passed the Acid2 test like Opera - but it's still considerably tighter than IE. It's great for customization... you can get the browser looking looking and behaving however you'd like it to. But, there is a hitch with the extensions and themes like Virtunate mentioned... as they're coded by outsiders... usually just users with some skill and some time - the code may not be perfect. It's not tested by the folks at Mozilla. Which can lead to the memory leakage, even though it's been reported in Firefox without extensions. I have also had an extension crash my browser, so it's kind of user beware, but the extensions are not mandatory. You don't need them - but they are there. And if you report a bug to the creator of an extension, they will acknowledge you - and work on fixing it.

It is an open-source alternative. For the likes of me, who don't enjoy supporting the big corporations, it's great. And also for the likes of me, who don't have the most high-end of computer systems, it runs very well. The browser is updated regularly... and if you're tech-savy and want to tweak it yourself, you can. The source code is available.


So now comes our recommendation: What should you use? For users of the power user type, we recommend Opera, as it is more an all-in-one browser. It allows multi-tasking with widgets, BitTorrent, et cetera. For people who are just surfing and like expandibility and ability to change appearance at will we recommend Firefox.
You can get Opera Here and Firefox Here

That's all for tonight. Monday evening we will return with coverage of the Apple WWDC Conference.
I'm Virtunate and this is Bored SVU Nut... Goodnight, the non-existant readership.

We are the Ranting Geeks and we Ranted!