firefox

Five Browers Compete on your Desktop: What is your browser of choice?

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There are now so many competing browsers on your PC that, after years of a monopoly by Windows’ Internet Explorer, we’re finally having some competition. And the stuff coming out is AMAZING! This post will look at five of the choices now available for PC users running Windows XP or above. Do note: many of these browsers have Mac and Linux installs or variations. I’m writing this on a system that is in essence a five-year old system with some modifications. It is also not XP SP2. I decided not to upgrade the software on this system. So for browsers, what choices do you have on an older system? Surprisingly, quite a few.

Firefox 3

My first browser of choice is the venerable Firefox 3. It’s stable, fast and has an endless array of plugins that can be added to your installation. The current version has, I’ve found, been a little unstable on my platforms when it has invoked the Gmail site, causing my PC to slow unduly and sometimes even crash. But perhaps that is the fault of my nearly six year-old PC system! The add-ons are great but can also add extra burden to your PC or even crash Firefox. This installed fine on my older PC.

firefox browser

To download Firefox, visit http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ or click on the image.

Flock 1.2

A seriously interesting variant of FireFox is Flock. In essence, this is Firefox in social mode and provides a lot of interaction with Web 2.0 sites, like Flickr, YouTube, Blogger, Facebook, Digg, etc.. One of the reasons I like this version is that there are a number of ways to interact with the Web 2.0 and it facilitates each of these methods. For example, you can post directly to your blog, upload images, or interact with people on Facebook without closing your browser window or what you are looking at. Plus, many of the plugins for Firefox also work for Flock. It also installed well on my PC. It is a bit of a resource hog, but so far hasn’t crashed my system.

flock browser

To download Flock, visit http://www.flock.com/download or click on the image.

Chrome

I use Google’s Chrome at work and on my small portable, but originally I couldn’t install on this PC because of some technical reason or other about it not being XPSP2. Anyway, I liked Chrome because of its ease of use, relative speed, and its independent windows. I hate losing my work when one tab or window becomes unstable because of slowloading scripts or worse. Google designed a good looking browser that helped to mitigate that. For a while, I used it regularly at work, but I had hoped that it would install on this computer. And it did. But each time I use it, it crashed. Right now, it refuses to load any pages. So I haven’t any screenshots of it. It just refused to work. I can’t recommend this for older computers at all. It will install but it refuses to run.

No download link is provided since this failed to run properly on my system. You can google it yourself!

Opera

I’ve been using Opera for sites that were causing problems for Firefox and I’ve been impressed at its power, speed and ease of use. It was far more innovative in its GUI than any of the other browsers and is offered on a far bigger array of platforms than any other browser. While I do not use it everyday, it is my backup browser of choice because it is so rugged. Not all sites, however, play nicely with Opera. Its strengths lie in its speed, size and its ability to provide browsing, rss feeds and mail/chat services in a small and powerful format. It was the first browser with tabbing, to my recollection, and has the ability to add widgets. It also runs quickly on my system taking up a little ram only.

opera browser

To download Opera, visit http://www.opera.com/browser/ or click on the image.

Apple’s Safari

I’ve reviewed Safari before, but I was frustrated for a number of reasons with Safari. I didn’t like the page rendering, it didn’t install on older machines like mine, and I didn’t take to it immediately because many of Firefox’s conveniences weren’t provided. I was able to install it on my work machine but it didn’t seem to like SP1. Now however, Safari 4 beta installed smoothly, runs fairly quickly on my system. It seems to borrow heavily from Google Chrome’s stylised offering, with buttons in the top right, and the private browsing feature. It’s too early to tell if I will switch at home to Safari. I didn’t at school and eventually removed Safari 3. Who knows? I might even keep it this time.

apple safari

To download Safari, visit http://www.apple.com/safari/welcome/ or click on the image.

And now the proof of the pudding, which browser uses the most resources when showing my website’s first page which comes in at less than 600Kb.

browser resources

It’s Safari which is using over 250MB of Memory Usage. Flock and Firefox are second and third. And Opera comes in at the bottom. So, Opera really is an efficient, lower resource, more flexible browser! Why do I not use it more?

Which browsers do you have installed on your computer? What do you prefer? Which are less reliable? Share your views…

The View from My Desktop: Lots of great apps

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This was a view from my desktop yesterday as I was working. I thought I would share some of the software I’m enjoying using at the moment with you all.

current print screen

In the background, of course, there’s Firefox 2.0.11 with an unusual theme. I can’t remember what theme I’m using at the moment in Firefox! Oh, got it! It’s LittleFox. My version of Firefox runs a bunch of plugins, some of which are listed, and some of which are visible in the closeup.

firefox plugins

I quite like FoxyTunes, and the Better Gmail plugin. IETab works pretty well for websites where the owners refuse to admit the existence of FF. SearchStatus is also pretty neat as it displays PR, Alexa and Compete scores on your browser. Here’s the complete list.

ff plugins 2008

On the midground, there’s the Flickr upload tool, that I was using to upload photographs from my recent trip to Taichung. It’s a seriously useful tool! And Flickr is a great website for photographs. In the foreground, you can see Trillian running: Trillian is a tool that allows you to chat on four different platforms at the same time – Yahoo!, MSN, ICQ/AOL, and GTalk.

u3 image cruzer

Minimized to the icon area on the right: you can see a U3 Cruzer – a seriously useful piece of electronic wizardry that allowed me to do most things while I was away, simply by plugging it into a PC. So I used it at the hotels and in an Internet Cafe to access most things I needed. The image lists all of the software that I’ve got installed on my Cruzer: it works pretty well, and the OpenOffice is seriously useful. Can’t see Microsoft Office 2008 doing that, can you?

I also have three more applications that aren’t installed but just work: an FTP program, an MP3 Player that just runs, and BlogComment. In fact, Trillian is running from the Cruzer itself. As is the next wonderful mp3 playing software. XMPlay 3.4 is only 305Kb (yes, Kb, not MB or GB!), and it plays many formats including streaming formats from my favorite online radio stations, including the one I’m listening to in the screenshot above: Sky.fm’s Da Tempo Lounge.

Skype is also running but I usually just use it to call people, rather than accept calls. For incoming calls, I just use regular phone calls or chat in Trillian or Skype. I don’t call that much.

Last, two pieces of blogging software that are helping me: BlogDesk is my blogging platform that helps me post to the blog(s) and creates the neat pictures that everyone seems to like; and a late comer, called BlogComment that doesn’t need installed, but that facilitates the entry of repeated information for commenting on blogs: your name, email address and blog address. I can’t find a URL for it.

So, what’s your desktop looking like today? Show us a picture on your blog and tell us about your favorites.