Challenge 15: Browser Wars

Web Browsers.

Even after the great Internet Explorer security scare a few years back, Internet Explorer still holds 72% of the market share in web browers. Why? Well, for starters, it is the browser that comes pre-installed on all Windows computers, and many people learned to use the internet with IE. People are comfortable with IE. But there are many other free web browsers available for use. Are you familiar with any of them?

Mozilla Firefox is IE's biggest competitor online. Built from the frame of Netscape, Firefox is a free, open source program. Open Source means that the software's source code is freely available for other programmers to tweak or build off of, allowing software to do more than what the original programmers made it to do. Add-ons also allow for extra functionality.

Firefox links of interest:
Become an Efficient Researcher: Top Twenty Firefox Add-ons that Make Firefox the Researcher’s Browser of Choice

Flock is a browser that demonstrates taking the Firefox source and making it do something the original programmers did not forsee! Flock is a browser that works hand in hand with popular social networking sites to keep you connected at all times. A "people" sidebar displays Twitter "tweets", Facebook status messages, and Myspace status messages without ever having to leave what you're doing and go to the sites. Flock also has shortcuts for blogging, RSS, and other handy social networking tools.

Google's "Chrome" is the newest of the browser pack, and already it has been getting rave reviews. Right now, the biggest complaint I have heard is the lack of add-ons, but they're working on getting that feature soon.

Chrome Links of Interest:
CNET's Chrome 101 podcast - a 12 Minute introduction to Google's new browser.

Do I need Chrome when I’m happy with Firefox? Or if you're still insistent on using Firefox, but must look like you're using Chrome, check out "Turning Firefox into a Google Chrome Clone".

Safari is a predominantly Apple browser, which is now available for Windows. iTunes as well as Quicktime are both pushing users to download and try Safari.

Once upon a time you had to pay for Opera, but now they've made the software available for free. Lifehacker has an article about their newest release here.

Bonus Links:
Internet Explorer has worked to make a better browser in recent years. They've beefed up security, added tabbed browsing and added add-on capabilities. Here is Lifehacker's article: 7 IE add-ons that don't suck.

The LibX add-on is a library extension for both IE and Firefox. I don't know anything about programming extensions, but this would be fun to have for our library.

Lifehacker posted a list of cool features found in the most popular browsers.

Lifehacker's Browser Speed Tests.

Your Task: Browse the links above. I'm not going to require you to download a new browser if you don't want to (though Firefox is available on the circulation computers if you would like to try it), but read about what is available. Respond in your blog. Did you try any alternate browsers? Did you like one so much you switched over? What features impressed you the most?