The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The browser wars heated back up last week as two of the main competitors in the business released major upgrades in the hope of knocking the other off of their pedestal. While these upgrades both revolved around improving functionality for users, part of the issue for users is, whose philosophy do you want to support? Microsoft, after a few years of dead silence on their browser, released basically an entirely new version of Internet Explorer last week. IE7 is not just an upgrade or a security plug, but an almost entirely new product. Although I have to admit that I have never been a fan of IE and rarely used it, they have done a good job on this product. New features include tabbed browsing, the ability to subscribe to RSS feeds from directly within your browser, the inclusion of a whole lot of built in anti-phishing security measures, and a neat zoom feature built directly in to the browser window. The browser is stable, intuitive, and feels much faster than older versions of IE. Microsoft deserves a lot of credit for this product. After years of basically doing nothing with their browser except sitting on a huge lead in market share, they have done well and have come back with a vengeance. The second release was an upgrade to Firefox. While not moving to a completely new product, Firefox has also done well. This browser is built by volunteers, with very little money changing hands. Thousands of coders, programmers, and people just wanting to help, test and re-test this product, continually trying to improve it. Initially launched to great expectations, it quickly found a niche as people annoyed with IE and frightened of the security risks it posed moved over. Now, two years down the line, Firefox has an approximate world wide market share of 15 per cent and is much higher (40-50 per cent) in many European and Asian markets. Firefox was one of the first to include features such as tabbed browsing, and the Firefox community has done a remarkable job of developing literally thousands of plug-ins and skins allowing users to completely customize the look, feel, and functionality of the product. I have plug-ins allowing me instant access to my blogs (Performancing), my online bookmarks and for changing the code on some sites, allowing me to customize what they look like (Greasemonkey). The differences between these two browsers have shrunk significantly with this release. IE is no longer the outdated security danger past versions were. As long as Microsoft keeps up with patching any problems, this browser version will be a good product. But make no mistake, its upgrades will be a target for hackers just because it is a Microsoft product. Firefox, on the other hand, has a smaller market share and is much less a target for hackers and other general bad guys. It is stable, reliable, and continually growing as new plug-ins and add-ons are developed. The only complaint that some people have had with Firefox is it is more of a do-it-yourself project. Firefox comes bundled with few plug-ins, and a new user needs to spend a bit of time downloading the things they want to add to it. It is more customizable overall then IE, but this of course takes a bit of searching through their database of available products. There are also a lot of other browsers you may want to consider. Opera is extremely popular in Europe, Camino for Mac users, Shiira from Japan, and my favourite, Flock, which allows me instant access to all of my online tools and accounts from blogs, to Flickr, to my del.icio.us bookmarks. You do have choice. The two main competitors have both vastly improved their products, but look around. You may be surprised by what you find. ([email protected]) Tech Notes runs Mondays.
