Which Browser Will You Choose?

We use web browsers every day. Most of you are probably using one right now! There are so many to choose from so obviously I cannot compare them all. I have taken the 5 most popular ones and listed out the pros and cons. This comparison refers to the latest stable release unless otherwise stated. Safari 4 Beta is reviewed rather than Safari 3 because the main download of Safari on the website is version 4, not 3.

Which browser will you choose? The blue e, the fox hugging the earth, the blue compass, the colorful orb, or the red O?

THE PROS AND CONS OF EACH

Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 (Windows only)

Pros:

• Accelerators. Highlight any word or phrase, search that term right away through the special menu.
• Web Slices. More than just RSS Feeds.
• Domain Highlighting
• inPrivate Browsing
• inPrivate Blocking: Possible to block certain tracking elements such as some ads
• Faster than older versions and on some pages, other browsers
• Malware and Phishing Filters (SmartScreen Filter)
• Large collection of add-ons, toolbars, accelerators, and more at the IE Addons site
• New Session Mode. Two sessions do not share cookies so you can log on to multiple accounts
• Relative Tab with Colors
• Search Suggestions with images and description in some cases
• Tab Showcase
• New Tab Page
• Passes Acid2 (last major browser to do so)
• Session Store (finally!)
• Isolated Tab Environment
• Easier Add-on Management
• Built in Source Viewer (finally) with tag colors rather than one using Notepad
• Nicely designed RSS Feed viewer
• Much faster than previous versions
  

Cons:

• Quite slow on cold starting up, but browsing is quite fast
• Tabs take a bit longer to load
• Main target of hackers
• Following older IE versions, update cycle is slow including patching critical security issues
• Too tightly integrated with operating system
• Fails miserably at Acid3
• ActiveX rather than plugins (all other browsers use plugins and ActiveX have many security risks)
• Add-ons are All Users rather than Single User. Requires Administrative Privileges
• No Download Manager
• No Download pause and resume
  

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 (Windows, Mac, and Linux with variations available for other platforms)

Pros:

• Fully open source
• Easily modify the configuration through about:config
• King of customization. Fully customizable with a collection of over 5000 add-ons and themes at Mozilla Add-ons: Anything from ad blocking, script blocking, site rating, file hosting download delay time skipping to domain highlighting. Whatever you want. There’s a good change, someone made an add-on for it. Want to make Firefox look like IE, Chrome, Safari, or something completely random? Maybe there’s a theme for it!
• Instant Web ID. With one click on the favicon, all the page’s security info can be viewed.
• Phishing and Malware Filters
• Multi-Platform and Platform Look and Feel
• “Awesome Bar” searching bookmarks, history, and also makes “smart” website decisions when typing a term: Autocomplete and Tagging
• Library of Bookmarks and History. Tag Bookmarks to easily search
• Smart Search Keywords. Assign keywords to search engines (like a simple w to wikipedia), then type in w and then your term into the location bar to search. Works like the Omnibar in Chrome.
• Inline Spell Checking
• Session Restore
• Set individual settings per site, such as cookies, image loading, Javascript, etc…
• Instant Find and Quick Find
• Elegant Autoscrolling and Smoothscrolling
• Available in 60 languages (Even more being added!)
• Windows only: Automatically scan files with your anti-virus software
• Easy to use download manager with pause and resume
• Very fast update cycle. One of the fastest in patching security holes.
• Easy to use download manager with pause and resume
• Error Console
• Passes Acid2
• Firefox 3.5 only: Private Browsing

Cons:

• Does not pass Acid3 Web Standards test yet (3.0 scores 71/100 and 3.5 scores 93/100)
• No zoom percentage counting. Only Zoom in, Zoom out, and Reset.

Apple Safari 4 (Windows and Mac)

Pros:

• Elegant new tab page
• Looks like correct platform (Windows looks like Windows)
• Drag and drop tabs with visual eye candy
• Toolbar colors change with Windows Aero color (Windows Vista and Windows 7)
• Minimalistic interface. Looks like Google Chrome but with an option to show menubar if needed
• Coverflow for Bookmarks
• Snapback: Go back to search results page
• Collections Library: History, RSS, and Bookmarks
• First Browser to feature Private Browsing
• Passes Acid1, Acid2, and Acid3 Web Standards Test
• Malware and Phishing Filter
  

Cons:

• Requires an abnormally large amount of system resources especially video (for Coverflow despite the fact that iTunes coverflow works fine on old hardware). This may cause major lags with the visual effects. Safari 3 was much lighter on system resources.
  
• Many text forms fail to submit.
• No zoom percentage count

Google Chrome 1.0 (Windows only. Mac and Linux pending)

Pros:

• Currently the fastest stable release browser available.
• Like all Google Products, simplicity.
• Easily drag and drop tabs
• Isolated Tab AND plugin Environment
• Omnibar saves space although searches take a bit longer
• Incognito Window (Private Browsing)
• No obtrusive download manager.
• New Tab Page showing recent pages
• Easily create application shortcuts
• Powerful DOM Inspector built in
• Bookmarks Manager
• Malware and Phishing Filter.
• Mostly passes Acid2
• Chrome 2.0 only: Drag a tab to the side and it will attach to side (like Windows 7 Aero Snap).
  

Cons:

• No RSS Feed Support in current version.
• Editing text fields often fail to submit properly: More common that in Safari.
• No native plugin support.
• No extension support.
• The download statusbar is hard to use if you're used to other browsers. Previously, download stops when closing tab. Luckily, this doesn't happen anymore. However, download continues in the background with no indication of the status unless you press Download from the menu.
  
• No download pause and resume
• Sends data with unique ID back to Google. Not optional.
• The domain highlighting puts emphasis on domain AND sub-domain, which defeats the purpose of it.
• No Autoscrolling (middle click scrolls up and down)- Introduced in v2.0
• No Full Screen Mode. Yes the toolbars take up very little space, but still. - Introduced in v2.0
• Does not completely pass Acid2 test pixel by pixel. Small artifact to the left.
• Does not pass Acid3 yet.
• No option to show menu bar, even if you want it
• No zoom percentage count.

Opera 9.6 (all platforms)
Note: Not all features mentioned here are available for all versions especially on portable devices

Pros:

• Elegant Special Effects
• Two default themes: Opera and Windows Native
• Tab Previews (Mouse over tab)
• Panel Sidebar with buttons for History, Bookmarks, Widgets, etc…
• Widgets: Little Gadgets showing various information
• Closed source makes it one of the most secure browsers
• Built in mail client and IRC Chat
• BitTorrent Downloading integrated
• Trash can to reopen closed tabs, restore notes, widgets, etc…
• One click detailed site info including downloaded time, cache file, security, number of elements, scripts, and more
• Detailed element loading status on URL bar
• Many community created themes to choose from to change Opera's appearance
• Wand: Autocomplete not only Passwords but Forms too
• Rewind and Fastforward. Go back to first or last page visited on tab
• Speed Dial. Instant Access to 9 selected sites
• Useful Mouse Gestures
• Error Console
• Identify as another browser like Firefox and IE. Tricks various scripts that identify browsers however this does NOT run as another browser engine. Its still Opera
• Passes Acid2.
• Opera 10 only: Passes Acid3
• Malware and Phishing Filter
  

Cons:

• No add-on support at all. Not likely to receive them either.

The following chart is a comparison of some major features built in. Does not include add-ons that can add the feature. Refers to latest stable version except for Safari.

	IE 8	Firefox 3	Safari 4	Chrome 1	Opera 9
Domain Highlight	Yes	No	No	Yes	No
Private Browsing	Yes	Firefox 3.5	Yes	Yes	No
Phishing Filter	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Malware Filter	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Acid2 Pass	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Acid3 Pass	No	No	Yes	No	Opera 10
Session Restore	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Download Manager	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Add-ons	Yes	Yes	Mac only	No	No
Themes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes
RSS Feed	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

You’ve seen 5 of the most popular browsers. Now, which one is your favorite. Cast your vote below!

Techpedia Daily 4: Speed Up Browsers (Simple)

Welcome to Techpedia Daily Issue 4.

We use browsers everyday. The internet is part of our everyday life, but choice of browsers has a major impact on how you experience it. (Get Firefox! :D) But thats not what this post is about. How do we speed up browsers without any extra downloads?

This is the browser speed up simple way that doesn't put for browser at risk of crashing. This post does not involve any configuration hacks. Look for a future issue (probably Issue 5) where advanced settings will be introduced and these CAN mess up your browser if you're not careful (Firefox only).

1. Cut Down History Size

Each time a browser loads, it needs to load up the history. By default, browsers Mozilla Firefox stores history for 90 days, which is excessive. For most browsers, there should be somewhere to configure how many days to keep the history stored. Here is how to set this on the most well-known browsers.

Microsoft Internet Explorer (Windows only)
Go to your Internet Options from the Tools menu (both from Tab bar in Version 7.0+ and menu bar). Then under browsing history in the General Tab, click Settings and on the new window is the option to change how long history should be stored.
Mozilla Firefox (all platforms)
Go to your Options from the Tools menu (Windows and Mac) or Preferences from the Edit menu (Linux). Then on the Privacy tab, lower the history amount.Apple Safari (Mac and Windows)

Go to your Preferences from the Edit Menu (Safari 3) or Preferences from the Tools menu ("Gears" button) (Safari 4). In the General tab, there is an option to choose how long history items should be stored.
Google Chrome (Windows)
Google Chrome does not have an option to do this.

Opera (all platforms)
On the Tools menu, click on Preferences. Then under the Advanced Tab, there should be "History" in the sidebar. Unfortunately, there isn't much flexibility here. By default, it remembers 1000 web sites. The only options available are 0, 1000, 5000, 10000, 20000, and 50000.
2. Clear Data

Browsers stores history, cache, downloads, and other data. This is helpful but having them especially old ones are pointless. So why not clear them every so often. Don't worry you don't need to clear them all at once. Many browsers also feature Private Browsing, where this data won't be stored at all (as of April 2009: Internet Explorer 8, Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox 3.5-formerly 3.1).

Microsoft Internet Explorer
Out of all the browsers mentioned here, IE is the slowest at doing this. But anyway, go to the Tools menu and click Delete Browsing History. In IE8, you can go to the Safety menu on the tab bar. Or press Ctrl+Shift+Del to do this. Check what you want to delete and click "Delete." Then a progress window or two progress windows appear. IE is one of the only browsers that do this.
Mozilla Firefox
On the Tools menu, click Clear Private Data. Or press Ctrl+Shift+Del to do this (Windows and Linux) and Cmd-C+Shift+Del (Mac). Check what you want to delete and click "Clear Private Data Now."
Safari
From Edit menu (Safari 3) or the Tools button (Safari 4), click Reset Safari and choose what you want to delete and click "Reset."
Google Chrome
From the Tools button, click Clear Browsing Data. Choose what you want to "obliterate" and click "Clear Browsing Data."
Opera
From the Tools menu, click Delete Private Data. Click Detailed Options to choose what you want to delete and then click "Delete."
3. Extra Navigation Tip

Many browsers support Ctrl+Tab for switching tabs. Very useful feature. A tab switch window is coming back to Firefox soon (available in Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 and removed in Beta 2).

Look for the next issue where configuration "hacks" will be introduced to Firefox to optimize your browsing experience.

As always, you can contact me through chatting in the Digsby widget in the right column, leaving a comment in the comments section, or by sending an email to techpedia.mail@gmail.com. Thanks for reading!

Techpedia Daily 3: Speed Up Windows Explorer (Vista+)

Welcome to Techpedia Daily 3, the third in the series of daily tips and tricks for your computer. Yesterday's issue was about speeding up Windows XP. Now how about Windows Vista and Windows 7?

Microsoft Windows is the most bought operating system. Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system. Conclusion? Microsoft Windows Explorer is the most used file manager. This is the post for Windows Vista and Windows 7 users. For Windows XP users, check out Techipedia Daily 2.

The new redesigned Windows Explorer is fantastic with a nice streamlined design. But as usual, it can get a bit slow. Here are a few tips that you can try to make it run faster. However, some come at the cost of some nice eye candy.

1. Disable Thumbnail Previews
Just like in Windows XP, loading thumbnail previews slow down loading since all of them have to load each time after you clear the cache. To speed things up, you can easily disable them. Unlike Windows XP, you can easily disable this without having to run commands or modify the registry.
On the colored area under the address bar, click on Organize. Then click Folder and Search Options on the next menu. The Folder Options window should then open. Go to the View Tab and under Advanced Options, uncheck "Always show icons, never thumbnails." Now, media files will show as the file icon not the preview, which drags down your computer when it loads. If you have resources to spare and you don't mind waiting for new ones to load or reload all of them when you clear the thumbnail cache, this option is a nice visual effect.

2. Turn off special effects

Windows Vista and Windows 7 feature a resigned interface enabling a load of nice special features. Many are enabled by default and some may slow down your computer depending on your hardware. If your computer is slowed down, here is how to remedy that.

In Windows Explorer, type in Control Panel\System and Maintenance\Performance Information and Tools into the address bar then click enter. Here you will find your Performance Information. In the left panel, click on "Adjust Visual Effects."
Uncheck any that you don't really need. Unchecking all of them will cause everything to look like Windows Classic styles, which is the fastest, but it loses all special effects. Unchecking any of the following will speed up Windows Explorer:

• Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing
• Fade or slide menus into view
• Fade or slide tooltips into view
• Fade out menu items after clicking
• Show shadows under menus
• Slide open combo boxes
• Slide taskbox buttons
• Use a background image for each folder type

These tips are basically disabling special effects of Windows Vista and Windows 7, the main cause of lag in Windows Explorer. The largest cause is the thumbnail previews. However, if they're already stored in cache and you don't delete them (in Disk Cleanup or other Computer optimization tools), they won't slow things down much. However, newer media files will severely slow down file browsing, even if you have a fast computer. But if you don't add a lot of files or add files a lot or you don't mind waiting, thumbnail previews are a great feature.

Following these tips will significantly speed up your general file browsing in Windows Explorer however will remove some eye candy. If you want to get back the visual effects, you can easily enable them at any time.

Want to suggest something that you want published? As always, you can contact me through the Digsby widget to the right, leaving a comment in the comments section, or sending an email to techpedia.mail@gmail.com. Feedback is always welcome.

Techpedia Daily 2: Speed up Windows XP Explorer

Welcome to Techpedia Daily 2, the second of the daily tips and tricks for your computer.

Microsoft Windows is the most popular operating system, therefore, most of us probably use it. Tired of waiting every few seconds for the next folder to load and also having your whole system freeze because Windows Explorer consumed all your system resources? Here are a few tips to speed up Windows Explorer in Windows XP (Windows NT 5.1).

1. Disable Automatic Network Drive Searching

Whenever you load Explorer, you may notice a slight lag. This is because Windows XP, by default, searches for files in network drives (network files) and printers every time Explorer opens. This is quite unnecessary as it causes everything to slow down and many of us might not even have any network files. Disabling it is really simple.
Simply go to Folder Options which is accessible from Tools --> Folder Options. Then click on the View Tab. In the Advanced Settings box, uncheck the box that corresponds to "Automatically search for network folders and printers." Then click OK or Apply and reboot your computer. Your Explorer browsing should be faster (especially on low resource computers). Click on the above screenshot to enlarge.

This also works in Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition (Me).
2. Limit the number of details on the details view

Viewing in Details mode is useful because it gives you lots of information about each file and folder in one place. However, Windows needs to look up this data each time and depending on your computer, this might slow it down. You can easily disable what you don't need.
In all Windows NT systems, when in details view, right click on the column names and you will get a list of column options. Uncheck what you don't need. This can speed this up slightly especially for low resource computers.

3. Disable Thumbnail Previews (Advanced)

In Windows XP (as well as later systems), a file thumbnail isn't just the file type icon, but a preview of the image. In XP, Windows Picture and Fax Viewer makes this possible.
However, there is a way to disable the previews, which will disable Windows Picture and Fax Viewer completely although Microsoft doesn't make it easy here. There are two methods: A command, or a registry modification. Try the command first and only try the registry if it doens't work. Both ways should work. End explorer.exe and start it if necessary.

Command Line Version: (Run --> cmd)
Run the following command in Command Prompt: regsvr32 /u shimgvw.dll
This will disable Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, therefore disabling the thumbnails.

To reverse these steps, simply run the command: regsvr32 shimgvw.dll
This will reable Windows Picture and Fax Viewer, therefore enabling the thumbnails.

Registry Modifications: (Run --> regedit)
This is slightly more advanced. Do back up your registry before doing this.

-Expand the keys (folders) to the following:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SystemFileAssociations\image\ShellEx\ContextMenuHandlers\ShellImagePreview
-On the (Default) key, double click it and clear the value so the value goes blank.

-To reverse this, go back to the same key and double click on (Default) and enter the following for the Value Data: {e84fda7c-1d6a-45f6-b725-cb260c236066} Enter exactly that including the brackets.
These 3 steps will make your Windows Explorer browsing a lot faster. However, if you have plenty of RAM and other resources to spare and want to keep some nice eye candy and visual effects, re-enable the last one.

There are much much more methods to speed up your XP, which will be included in a future issue. These were methods to speed up Windows Explorer in XP. I hope this has been helpful.

Want to suggest something that you want published? As always, you can contact me through the Digsby widget to the right, leaving a comment in the comments section, or sending an email to techpedia.mail@gmail.com. Feedback is always welcome.