Internet
Explorer goes up against Mozilla 1.0 and Opera 6.01
Microsoft Internet
Explorer started out as a lackluster release, an
afterthought add-on for Windows 95 that wasn't completed
in time to make that product's August 1995 launch. IE
2.0, which appeared in beta form by the end of 1995,
wasn't much better, though it did add support for
interesting technologies such as VRML and cookies. But
it wasn't until IE 3.0 hit in 1996 that Microsoft
latched onto the successful formula of Windows
integration. And since that time,
IE has seen its usage grow dramatically, mostly to the
detriment of former market-leader Netscape Navigator.
According to the
latest survey, in fact, IE is virtually the only
browser out there: At the time of this writing, 96.6
percent of Web surfers are using IE, and the leading
browser version is IE 6, which is bundled free with
Windows XP.
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But then that's the
controversy. Microsoft's decision to commingle the code
of Windows and IE has produced an epic legal battle with
the federal government in which the company has been
found guilty of violating US antitrust laws. As I
mentioned in the
introduction to this series of reviews, Microsoft
was found to have commingled Windows and IE solely to
thwart competition, and not for any valid technical
reasons. In response to this verdict, Microsoft took the
unprecedented step last summer of allowing XP users to
uninstall the IE application (but not the underlying
HTML rendering engine and other supporting technologies)
and replace it with a competing product. This decision
forms the framework for future middleware removals,
which will be implemented in XP Service Pack 1 (SP1),
due this fall. Or, if the non-settling states get their
way, a more drastic remedy will be imposed in which even
more choice will be given to end users, PC makers, and
IT administrators.
But returning to the topic
of Web browsers, there are three viable choices today
for XP users, based on what I consider to be the core
criteria of compatibility, stability, and feature-set.
These choices include Internet Explorer 6, which is
bundled for free with XP, the open source Mozilla 1.0
release, on which the next generation Netscape browser
will be built, and Opera, an intriguing entry from
Norway that focuses on security and open standards.
Internet
Explorer 6
Internet Explorer 6 is the latest Web browser from
Microsoft, or as the company likes to say, a set of core
technologies behind Windows XP. However, IE 6 is also
available as a separate download for users of other
Windows versions, making this a curious (and suspicious)
description. When compared to previous IE versions, IE 6
doesn't offer many new features, aside from an XP-like
user interface
(Figure), some digital media-related improvements,
and support for Platform for Privacy Preferences (P3P)
technologies that, as far as I can tell, isn't even used
by very many Web sites anyway.
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"IE 6.0
is the fastest and most stable browser available for
Windows. Where it comes up short is with features you
never know you need until you experience them in
another browser."
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But that's not to say that
IE 6 is a dog. Far from it, actually, as it's my browser
of choice. Instead, we might think of IE 6 as a staid,
minor update to an already excellent product, one that's
seen only basic upgrades in the past few revisions.
Since the 1997 release of IE 4.0, in fact, Internet
Explorer has been on the slow track, with stability and
security updates being the biggest (if hidden)
improvements.
IE 6 comes up a winner
primarily because of its sheer ubiquitousness. When you
browse the Web, you transparently understand that
virtually every site on the Web is going
to display properly with this browser, because Web
developers simply can't ignore the market leader. For
the bullet point crowd, Microsoft says that it supports
a variety of Web standards, including Dynamic HTML (DHTML),
CSS Level 1, HTML Document Object Model (DOM) Level 1,
XML, and so on. Frankly, this list doesn't compare very
favorably to that of Mozilla, say, but then IE 6 is
still more compatible with actual Web sites, so I'm not
sure that such a comparison matters much in the real world.
IE 6 is the most
stable browser I tested, with infrequent crashes. If
IE 6 does crash, however, a fault collection tool
(Figure)
appears, letting you optionally upload crash information
to Microsoft so they can fix any problems in a future
release. (In Windows XP, this feature is part of the
underlying OS).
IE 6 is also the speediest
performer of the bunch, by far, thanks partially to its
deep-seated integration with the OS. It starts up almost
instantly and loads pages quickly. The Mozilla
organization has made fantastic headway with its Gecko
rendering engine, but IE still came out on top with
just about every site I tested.
Some of the new IE 6
features bear examination. A new Media Bar
(Figure)
replaces an ill-conceived Personal Bar that was briefly
tested
during the XP beta, offering users a way to play online
video and audio clips right in the browser without
having to open a second application. Sadly, this feature
never seems to remember its customized settings,
however: The first time you access an online media file,
it asks whether you want to play it in an external
player or using the Media Bar. And despite the fact that
it asks whether you'd like to make the choice permanent,
it continues asking you which player to use in the
future. Aggravating.
For Web-based images, IE 6
offers two new features, an Image Toolbar
(Figure) that
lets you easily save pictures from a Web site, and an
Auto Image Resize option that will scale large images so
that they fit in your browser window
(Figure). I
eventually turned off both of these features, but I
suspect they will be welcome additions for many people.
Saving images in other browsers requires a non-intuitive
right-click action, while none of the competition offers
automatic image resizing.
In addition to IE 6,
Microsoft also includes the free Outlook Express email
application with XP. This is an excellent, full-featured
email client and I'd use it daily if I didn't need
Outlook XP's Personal Information Management (PIM)
functionality as well. OE 6, like IE 6, is a minor
upgrade when compared to previous versions, but again
like IE 6, it was already quite good to begin with.
So if IE 6.0 is the
fastest, most compatible, and most stable browser available for Windows,
why use anything else? Where it comes up short is with
features you never know you need until you experience
them in another browser. And some of those features are
available in an amazing Open Source success story called
Mozilla. Let's take a look.
Mozilla 1.0
The Mozilla project began
in early 1998 when Netscape released the source code for
its Communicator 5.0 browser suite to the public. The
goal, according to the company, was to rally the Open
Source developer community around its Web browser
technology. The company also created a new Web site,
Mozilla.org, to "promote, foster, and guide open dialog
and development of Netscape's client source code." But
it didn't take long for the Mozilla developers to
realize that Netscape's 5th generation browser suite was
a mess. And after the anticipated late 1998 release date
passed by quietly, the Mozilla community decided to bite
the bullet, develop a new HTML rendering engine, and
scrap most of its previous work.
It was a bold move, though
it eventually paid off after years of work. The new
rendering engine, Gecko, proved to be far more modern
and advanced than the original Netscape offering. And
Mozilla developed an extensible, Gecko-based XUL user
interface, also used by the other Mozilla components,
such as Mail, Composer, and Address Book, that would let
users customize the browser suite with new UI skins.
Perhaps most importantly, Mozilla is cross-platform and
you can download versions for Windows, Linux, Mac OS,
and many other platforms. They all work almost
identically.
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"The
true beauty of Mozilla can be found in its tabbed user
interface and automatic pop-up window removal, two
wonderful features sorely lacking in IE 6.0."
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But initial Mozilla
releases were laughable. The early Gecko browser UI was
buggy and slow, and pathetic looking. Netscape, once the
champion of the anti-Microsoft crowd, saw its market
share die and then the company was swallowed up by
online giant AOL, though AOL seemed more interested in
Netscape's Web presence than its browser.
By mid-2000, Mozilla
was somewhat usable, and Netscape released Mozilla-based
beta versions of what would be called, simply Netscape
6. But Netscape 6 was a disaster, alienating long-time
fans of the company and driving people to IE. The
problem was performance: Mozilla, at the time, just
didn't offer a nimble browsing experience.
With time, however,
Mozilla came together. By late 2001, the Open Source
laughing stock had matured considerably, and was
suddenly a viable competitor. Core concerns such as UI,
stability, and performance out of the way, the Mozilla
team began working on adding unique features and
improving the fit and finish.
First, the base Modern
UI theme
(Figure) was improved dramatically, providing users
with, well, a modern-looking application, though a
Classic look, similar to Netscape 4, is also available
(Figure).
I prefer Classic, which inexplicably offers XP-specific
UI widgets. You can also download a number of other
themes, or skins, though few are available today. But
the true beauty of Mozilla can be found in its tabbed
user interface and automatic pop-up window removal, two
wonderful features sorely lacking in IE 6.0. Both
features are optional, but highly desirable.
Tabbed browsing lets
you open new documents inside the same browser window
using a tabbed UI
(Figure).
Compare this with IE, where new windows can multiply
across the screen rapidly. Tabbed browsing is like TiVo,
the popular Digital Video Recorder (DVR) device, in that
you don't realize you need it until you try it. But once
you try it, you can't go back. The best feature of
tabbed browsing is its (also optional) "open behind"
functionality. When you're reading a Web-based article
that has multiple links to other documents, you often
want to open them for reading later. With "open behind,"
these tabbed documents open behind the current
document, so your current browsing experience isn't
interrupted. When you finish reading the current
document, however, you can then go back and read the
other documents you've already opened, all conveniently
arranged behind the current one. I love tabbed browsing
and sorely miss it when I'm not using Mozilla.
The other highly
desirable, Mozilla-specific feature is automatic pop-up
window removal. With a simple click of an option box in
Mozilla's Preferences
(Figure),
you can eliminate virtually all pop-up windows, which of
course, are mostly spam-like advertisements you don't
want to see anyway. Compare this to IE, where a single
browsing session can initiate dozens of unwanted and
annoying pop-up ads. You need to find, install, and
configure a third party application to get rid of these
windows in IE.
Another neat Mozilla
feature is its Sidebar, a customizable, tabbed frame of
which can host a number of often-needed items, such as
your address book, instant messaging buddy list, or
whatever. My favorite sidebar tab is called What's
Related. As you browse from site to site, this sidebar
changes to display a list of other sites that are
similar to the current site
(Figure).
So, for example, when you're visiting the SuperSite for
Windows, you're referred automatically to Paul
Thurrott's WinInfo, Activewin, WUGNET, and other related
sites. Good stuff.
Regarding the core
competencies, Mozilla also gets high marks, though it's
not quite as compatible or stable as IE. It doesn't
support ActiveX controls, which means I can't use it as
my only browser, because one of the secure sites I
access regularly for article updating requires this
feature. And though most Web sites display correctly in
Mozilla, some still do not.
In an attempt to better
compete with IE, Mozilla.org offers a Mozilla Quick
Launch applet on Windows only, which pre-loads the
Mozilla rendering engine, ala IE, allowing the
application to launch more quickly. This applet takes up
about 17 MB of RAM on my system, but I still recommend
it to people that will be using Mozilla full-time.
What's most intriguing
about Mozilla is that most people probably could use it
full-time, and replace IE completely. If you're
interested in the tabbed browsing feature or pop-up
window removal, I strongly recommend Mozilla. You won't
be disappointed.
Opera 6.01
Opera began life as a lightweight, free alternative to
Netscape Navigator, which was a commercial product at
the time. The goal was laudable: Provide users with a
simple Web browsing experience in a compact package that
offered support for real Internet standards, not the
proprietary add-ons supplied by the competition. And
initial Opera versions came in a download package that
clocked in under 1 MB. It's fan base has always been
tiny, but dedicated.
But things changed over
time. Faced with free competition from IE and Mozilla,
the latter of which, like Opera, is also offered on a
number of platforms, Opera has turned on the features
pipe in recent years. And though the download is still a
relatively svelte 4 MB today, the resulting product is
pretty full-featured. Opera 6.01, the latest version,
offers two browsing modes: a Multiple Document Interface
(MDI) mode
(Figure), where document windows all open inside a
single main Opera window, and a Single Document
Interface (SDI) mode, where each document opens its own
window
(Figure), ala IE 6. When in MDI mode, individual
documents are denoted by buttons on the bottom of the
Opera window, similar to the tabbed browsing option in
Mozilla. You get to choose the mode each time you start
Opera (Figure).
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"Opera
is a curious animal, and it comes up short when
compared to Mozilla. I can't recommend this product
when superior--and free--alternatives are readily
available."
|
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Opera also offers a number
of unique features, though I don't find many of them
particularly compelling. You can zoom in and out of Web
pages on the fly
(Figure),
and perform searches by right-clicking on words in Web
documents, for example. The Opera UI, like that of
Mozilla, is quite configurable. In fact, I eventually
settled on a skin that resembles the Mozilla look and
feel.
So how does it compare to
the competition? Opera is a curious animal, and it comes
up short when compared to Mozilla. I can't recommend
this product when superior--and free--alternatives are
readily available. I find its user interface to be
overly busy, in sharp contrast to its original goals.
The ad-enabled free version is annoying. And it offers
no true email or newsgroup applications, as the other
choices do, let alone the HTML editor or chat
applications offered by Mozilla.
Opera is of most interest,
I believe on platforms that aren't as well supported by
browser choices, such as the Be OS and OS/2. But in
Windows XP, we just have too many excellent alternatives
to even bother. Both Mozilla and IE are vastly
preferable to Opera in almost every way.
Conclusions
Internet Explorer 6 is an excellent browser, but
Microsoft let it languish in recent years with a
string of minor upgrades that have somewhat diminished
this otherwise notable product. Looking back over the
last several IE upgrades--IE 5.0, 5.01 (Windows 2000),
5.5 (Windows Me), and 6.0 (Windows XP), it seems the
only valuable new features users have gotten are print
preview and a pretty, XP-like UI. This compares quite
unfavorably to IE's development in the early years, as
Microsoft raced through the first four iterations of the
product, madly adding features in order to better
compete with then-market leader Netscape.
Well, witness the fruits
of it's victory: IE has grown staid in recent years as
the competition has vanished. But it's still the best
browser, barely. If Mozilla can improve its reliability
and site compatibility, I would have no problem
recommending that product over IE to any user. But for
now, it's a toss-up, and one that individual users will
have to weigh carefully. The safe choice, of course, is
IE, but Mozilla's tabbed browsing and pop-up window
removal features make this release worth looking at. I
strongly recommend that you look into this option.
Sadly, I can't honestly
recommend Opera to anyone. It's not free, unless you
settle for an ad-injected version, and it's most notable
features--an MDI option and its configurable UI--are
already available in Mozilla, which is completely free.
Opera also lacks a true email client, though one could
arguably use Outlook Express of course.
I use IE every day for
various reasons, and I suspect that most SuperSite
readers will as well. But you do have a choice, and I
recommend you exercise that right and at least examine
the competition.