Web Browsers

During the browser wars between Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer, I definitely took sides. Microsoft might have taken some time before catching up to Navigator in features, but there was no looking back once they reached that point. Internet Explorer was more advanced and far more stable.

In the years following the demise of Navigator, a lot of people tore Microsoft apart for Netscape’s inability to succeed when facing competition. There was even an antitrust lawsuit that relied on blaming Microsoft for Netscape’s shortcoming. While that case was being heard, we learned about Netscape’s real plans. They wanted to make the public reliant on their software then start charging for it.

People desperate to defend Netscape came up with some flimsy arguments including standards compliance. While it is true that Microsoft was struggling with compliance, the same could be said for Navigator. Most features introduced by both browsers were extensions of HTML. Some of those extensions such as CSS and embedded frames (iframes) were eventually standardized. Some were not (Marquee and blink tags). If Microsoft and Netscape would have embraced full standards compliance. They would have broken the websites that were helping to push their browsers. Of course, Microsoft was moving faster than Netscape. This made it easy for Netscape to come closer to compliance.

The combination of exploitation of a flawed American legal system (Microsoft’s antitrust case) and the loss of competition, Microsoft eased up on Explorer. It was still the best browser around, but it hadn’t changed much since it became the best. Eventually, developers decided to bring back competition.

While there were a few niche browsers on the market, things changed after the release of Firefox. The sales pitch behind Firefox was essentially “download our product because we’re not Microsoft.” The browser had an immediate impact, but I still have not heard any legitimate positives about the software. With other browsers out there, why would anyone pick a browser that isn’t from Microsoft if they could get a browser that isn’t from Microsoft and is actually meant to be a good browser?

After a while, Microsoft started to notice their market share declining. To address the problem, they started investing more in development. They embraced the features that were working well on other platform. They also started moving closer to standards compliance. Eventually, their browsers started crashing more. While Explorer does a good job of recovering from crashes, it’s not always fun having to wait for tabs to reload.

Do to my increasing frustration with Explorer, I caved. I downloaded Google Chrome. This browser takes a minimalist approach to browsers. Google brags about speed, but it doesn’t have the features that I like in Explorer. Specifically, I like how Explorer handles favorites. Google Chrome has remained relegated to a backup status ever since I downloaded it.

More recently, I decided to look for something else. Due to the lack of positives associated with Firefox, their overly negative attitude, and my experiences with the browser in the workplace, they’re not getting my support. I also can’t stand Apple's “Be who we tell you to be” attitude, their unethical legal actions, and their heavy reliance on marketing.

The most noteworthy of the remaining web browsers is Opera. I decided to give it a try. While there are problems with my computer becoming unresponsive for 2-3 minutes if I load all of my frequently visited bookmarks too soon after my computer starts up, I think I might have found a winner. The browser is stable. It seems to load quickly. The favorites setup is as good if not better than Explorer. The ability to search a provider other than your default by preceding search terms with a letter or two is a feature that I use a lot more than I expected.

The biggest drawback that I have found is that sites that are optimized for the different browsers don’t view Opera as a big player. For that reason, they don’t bother to test their web pages with Opera. Some websites will even block Opera as an unsupported browser. Despite this known problem, I can’t seem to find a single site right now that isn’t working. If you know me, other companies not supporting Opera will do little to influence my opinions of the browser. This is because I don’t want to hold a company responsible for the actions of others.

Opera is now my primary browser. I have not (nor do I intend to) removed Explorer or Chrome. I still think that the best browser to use Microsoft web services will be the browser that Microsoft knows the most about. Similarly, I expect Google to know Google. Unless Opera fails to open a web service properly, everything else will be Opera for me from this point forward.

One last thing. Opera really is a great browser. How come people aren’t talking about it more often?