Firefox is now available for download from
mozilla.org. This is a newer, faster browser, than Internet Explorer
6.0 and is the preferred browser of many people working in "Tech Support" for
Internet Service providers. Many extensions are available for Firefox at
mozilla.org.
Firefox is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux i686 systems and is
currently available in 27 languages. Read more about it at
http://www.mozilla.com/. When I downloaded Firefox and installed it on a Windows
98 machine, then on a Windows XP Professional computer, Firefox 1.5.x did not
display table bordercolor nor the color of horizontal rules. Table border
width was distorted as was the width of the horizontal rules in the
<HR> tags. This occurred with Firefox versions 1.0 and 1.5.x I was
not able to edit a local Web page from within the browser. To edit from a
browser, I had to open Internet Explorer 6.0 on the Windows 98 machine.
Firefox is very good at having multiple instances open at the same time for
searching, researching.
Internet Explorer is very good for editing Web pages on your local machine or thumb drive and saving the code. Just double click on a local HTML page using your Windows Explorer page view pane to open any HTML document. Then click on
Firefox version 1.5 and Thunderbird e-mail client are now available for downloading at the above mozilla.org Web site.
Safari
Safari is the default browser of the Mac OS X operating system by Apple Computer. Safari is fast, easy to use and was a real joy with its faster-loading Web pages and faster browsing. Internet Explorer is also available for the OS X operating system but in tests at home, Internet Explorer was slower-loading and I was unable to edit text on a local HTML page using Internet Explorer for the Mac OS X G4 system and the "View, Source". Hands down, Safari was faster on the Mac G4 OS X machine.
Mac OS X users can download Safari 1.2.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer is the browser belonging to Microsoft Corporation.
They distribute this browser (free-of-charge) as freeware over the Internet. It is also
known as Microsoft Internet Explorer and is abbreviated "MSIE" or "IE".
See Intro. to DHTML for technologies
supported by the 4.x generation of Microsoft Internet Explorer. The
SMIL-Boston draft specification for full multimedia presentation recently published by the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is also supported in Internet Explorer version 6.
With add-Ons a user may now view
MP4 streaming video files using this browser. MP3 is supported with Real Player and other audio add-ons.
Many users are unhappy with security problems associated with Internet Explorer. When using this browser please be sure to get the security patches and any available service packs associated with Internet Explorer... and keep visiting Microsoft to find out when new security patches become available, or sign up for the e-mail notification of security patches and service packs as they become available for Microsoft's various software products.
Software Storage: When you download any zipped file from Microsoft, and before you click on the file icon to decompress or unzip the file, SAVE IT as a copy, in a different location such as on a CD-R disk, or on a Zip drive disk or other external storage. The reason you want a compressed copy of the file is so that the program can be restored in the event of a hard-drive catastrophe. Microsoft does not make back versions of browsers available for download from their Web site.
Prior Versions: Many programmers and developers need back-version availability (such as for using Visual Studio 6.0). I prefer the MSIE browser version 5.2.x on my personal computer since it is compatible with the .dll files of Visual Studio 6.0. MSIE v. 5.2 shipped with Visual Studio 6.0. Always keep backup files of software (including an extra copy of any browser download) in a secure place that is cool and dry. Consider having two backup copies of important software so that one copy can be stored in a separate building, a bank safety deposit box, or at home or work.
AOL Navigator
Netscape Navigator is a browser which was created by Mark Andreesen and
his team for Netscape Communications Corporation which Mr. Andreesen co-founded. Navigator was
distributed over the Web as freeware, and free downloads are still available to AOL users. Netscape Navigator was acquired by AOL.COM. Their newer versions still had some proprietary features and did not support all of the features of CSS-P, CSS, and DHTML. Since then it has lost a lot of previous users of the older versions who have moved on to newer browsers, such as Firefox 1.0 available at http://www.mozilla.org/
Additional Information:
Opera
Opera Software is the Norwegian developer of the Opera Browser. This browser had a US "registration fee" of $35.00> Now you can
try Opera (free) for several operating systems, including for Windows, Mac, Linux, OS/2, symbian OS.
This software takes up very little space on the hard drive in comparison to Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. Read about the features of
this browser and additional information about Opera in the links below.
Additional Information about Opera Browser
NCSA Mosaic
NCSA Mosaic is a client browser that was developed at the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champain.
It was one of the earliest graphical user interface (GUI) browsers. The NCSA Mosaic for X developers were Eric Bina and Marc Andreessen. The NCSA Mosaic Web sites at ncsa.uiuc.edu are no longer available... not one of the previous links nor download sites is working.
[NCSA Mosaic sites no longer available... archive no longer available]
Mozilla
AMAYA, JIGSAW and OTHERS
What is Amaya?
The
Amaya editor/browser is a browser/authoring tool available for downloading from W3C.org. It is used to demonstrate and test many of the new developments in Web protocols and data formats. Given the very fast moving nature of Web technology, Amaya has a central role to play. It is versatile and extensible and is available for the following operating systems: Windows:NT/2000/XP (formerly also 95,98); Mac OS X; Linux: Mandrake, Redhat, SUSE; and Debian.
Amaya is a free browser available for downloading from the
Amaya site at W3C.
Lynx Sources and Resources A text- and Lynx-based DOS web browser
Bobcat, Lynx-Based DOS Web Browser (scroll down the page to this section.
Jigsaw is the counterpart of Amaya, but for the server side. It is open source.
Jigsaw Known BugsSpeech-Enabled Browsers
The technologies for speech-enabled browsers are under development and some are available now. It will be just a matter of time
until speech-enabled browsers become available to end-users. The links in this section are for further study.
