Web Browsers that do more

June 15, 2009 by Brenda Bell · 4 Comments
Filed under: Internet/Web, Technology

A majority of people use the web browser that came bundled with their Windows pcs which is of course Microsoft Internet Explorer without a second thought. However, with rich media and web 2.0 websites, there are a lot of other web browsers out there that may fit your needs better and they are easy to install and use. Most will even import your existing Internet Explorer favorites and settings. Here is a listing and a short blurb of some that you might want to give a try. Clicking on the icons will take you to their download site where you can download and install the browsers for free.

Mozilla Firefox – This is the world’s second most popular browser, behind Internet Explorer. Mozilla Firefox is an open source web browser that has a wide variety of add ons available, is twice as fast as Internet Explorer, offers more security, renders pages more accurately and is easier to navigate. With the thousands of plugins and themes available, you can customize the browser to look and do just about anything. I also like it because when using the default theme, it functions the same on both macs and windows computers. Available for Mac, Windows and Linux.

Google Chrome - This is a free web browser based on the Mozilla browser platform that Google has modified which means renders webpages quickly and accurately. Google originally created it as the browser for it’s Andriod mobile phone operating system (used on such phones as the G1), they have since modified it and released it as a browser for computers. It is just as fast as Firefox, although I find it a little harder to navigate. One of Chrome’s best features is that you can create shortcuts on your desktop for your web applications. For example, I could go to Google docs and tell Chrome to create a shortcut. It would then place a shortcut on my desktop so when I double clicked it, Chrome would open up my Google docs account like an application that was installed locally on the computer. Very handy if you do a lot of cloud computing. Google Chrome is available for Mac and Windows.

Apple Safari - Safari is the default browser on the Mac OS. Like Chrome, it was also built using Mozilla as its base. Safari is a little slower than Firefox or Chrome, but still offers better performance than Internet Explorer. It is also is easy to use and has a simple and elegant look that ties in nicely with the Apple OS and iPhone OS. While Safari works well on a Mac, on windows based computers it does not function quite as smoothly. Safari really took off in popularity because Apple uses it on the Apple iphone. Available for Mac and Windows.

Flock – This is a web browser you may not have heard of before, but is really great for people that like to social network. Flock is basically a modified version of Mozilla Firefox. From Flock you can easily update and keep track of all of your social networking accounts including Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Flickr, Picasa; even update your blog and upload photos. However, because the broswer is constantly checking multiple web accounts and RSS feeds, it uses a bit more resources than a normal web browser so it does run a little slower compared to Firefox. Also, it is more of a personal broswer and might not be the best choice for use at the workplace due to the personal information it stores. Available for Mac, Windows and Linux.