Beyond Internet Explorer: Four alternatives

By PAUL BRISLEN

The web-browser wars are over and Microsoft has won. Internet Explorer's market share of well over 90 per cent means any competition is pretty much doomed from the start.

But someone's forgotten to tell the competition, which is alive and packing in features lacking from Microsoft's flagship browser.

Internet Explorer 6 is tightly integrated with the Windows operating system, which is all well and good but doesn't appear to generate any great benefits for me, the user. Perhaps the idea is that I'll be more willing to use a browser that's pre-loaded on the PC, which is true enough, but I'd rather see Microsoft building new functionality instead of forcing an old browser on me.

Meanwhile, other browsers are building in new features that make a difference, like tabbed browsing and blocking pop-up windows.

Tabbed browsing

All the non-IE browsers have tabbed browsing, which allows me to open more than one website in the one browser.

That doesn't sound like much, but believe me, it's changed the way I surf the net. I can have half a dozen news sites open constantly, I can follow a thread through a newsgroup without losing the original page. I can even have several home pages set so I get them all launching on start-up.

This is the feature that convinced me to try out a new browser and it's a killer application for anyone who does a lot of research.

The alternatives

It's been just over a year since Netscape created a non-profit foundation called Mozilla and turned over the source code for Netscape itself. In that time three browsers have been developed, each one slightly different.

Netscape 7.1 looks very much like every other browser that's ever been released. All the buttons are where you'd expect them to be. Unfortunately, it's somewhat bad-mannered.

During installation Netscape asks if you'd like to add a quick link icon. I said no but got it anyway. Users of Windows XP will find it also installs something in the system tray, in the bottom right-hand corner, which I object to. Netscape also insists on installing AOL's instant messenger without asking and tried to sign me up for some subscriber services and got very upset when I told it "no".

On the plus side, it does install existing bookmarks pretty painlessly and users can easily configure the various buttons, security and privacy settings without too much difficulty.

Interface is king

The second browser is Mozilla 1.8, which looks pretty much like Netscape but uglier.

Its functionality is almost identical, but the interface is much simpler. I really hate the default "print" button, and for some reason I get a mixture of icons with text and without, but generally it's fine if not spectacular.

For me the real beauty of this trio is Firefox 0.9. The Firefox project aims to make a browser that's as small and efficient as possible and although it's not finished yet, it's great.

Firefox strips out all the stuff I don't want, like an email client, and makes the interface plain and simple. It blocks pop-ups (and just as importantly allows me to unblock pop-ups if I need to without any fuss) and has a great download manager. It also has a Google search button built in to the toolbar, which is nice.

The fifth browser I looked at is Opera 7.51, and boy is it ugly. I mean that in a pug-dog, drooling-on-your-foot kind of way. It's fully functioning, does all that the others do and is small and fast but frankly, the interface is a mess. Opera launches a panel down the left side of the screen that doesn't appear to add anything but takes up screen space.

One great addition is the "images" button, which allows users to simply switch off images - good news if you're concerned about traffic download limits. Opera can also be driven entirely by using the keyboard, so if you're having overuse issues that's not a bad thing either.

Opera plays banner ads in the top right-hand corner of the screen all the time.

Avoiding the pop-up

You can upgrade to the paid version of the browser and avoid the ads, but frankly who's going to pay when there are free alternatives. The ads can be just plain annoying. However, if you're using an older, slower machine Opera doesn't take up much room and runs quite quickly.

Some sites just don't display well unless the user is running IE. I've had trouble with access to ASB Bank's site and find TVNZ's new site gives me a major headache in anything but IE. I blame the developers - they don't see the need to develop for any browser other than IE and while theoretically they should all display HTML the same way, they don't.

Pros and cons

* Internet Explorer 6.0 The easy option, no problems viewing web pages, familiar, dull, lacking in features.

* Netscape 7.1 Dull, rude on install, good download manager, tabbed browsing.

* Mozilla 1.8 Very similar to Netscape, tabbed browsing.

* Firefox 0.9 Small, efficient, good download manager, tabbed browsing.

* Opera 7.0 Ugly, permanent ads, can switch images off easily, keyboard only option.