Web Browser

New Technologies

The technologies for speech-enabled browsers continue under development and some are available now. It will just be a matter of time until speech-enabled browsers become a reality. I have included a small section near the bottom of this page for speech-enabled browsers.

New Version Release of Internet Explorer

Users may download the Beta version of Internet Explorer 8 from the Microsoft Web site. Some like to wait for a later version, not a Beta version. In that case you will want to download a version of Internet Exlorer 7.

Blackberry mobile cellular browser:HTML Internet Browser

There is an icon on the main screen of the Blackberry mobile phones which is an Internet browser. Activation requires that you have a contract with a carrier such as AT&T Mobile. Then when you open the program for the browser you would see the AT&T logo with the browser name of "HTML Internet Browser" and instructions on how to begin browsing. When you come to websites not optimizing for hand-held devices you would have to scroll a lot using your track ball (both sideways and vertically) in order to see all of the Web page from such a small screen. Some sites such as the download sites for cell phones, at AT&T, are optimized for hand-held devices and are much easier to navigate using your Blackberry device.

Chrome

Chrome was released for free download from Google. Hitmill.com webmaster decided on a browser test for Chrome, and tried Chrome at ancestry.com with the following problem: When a person search was done the results came up nicely and one the links pointed to a census online at ancestry.com. I could not move the census page up or down, the page locked up and turned purple in color. I was able to exit the ancestry.com Web site without the browser freezing. So, only the page at ancestry.com froze up. This is an issue for the Chrome development team. Chrome Chrome was not able to print a copy of a census report at ancestry.com. (I shall try this test of Chrome again this week). In other features of the browser, I am very impressed and love it.

Here are a few links about the new browser:

Features of Chrome

  • Web Developers' FAQ about Chrome Browser (Google.com)
  • Google Chrome: A Developer's Perspective (InfoWorld)
  • How Chrome Changed the Web Overnight (WebMonkey)
  • Google Chrome: The First True Web 2.0 Browser (PC World)
  • A Linux Users Guide to Google Chrome (ITWire.com)

Firefox 3

Firefox 3 is now available for download from mozilla.org. This is a newer, faster browser and any 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/.

Firefox 1.5 and what that was like

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.

Firefox was very good at having multiple instances open at the same time for searching, researching. Internet Explorer early versions were very good for editing Web pages on your local machine or thumb drive and saving the code.

  • Safari 3.1.2
  • Safari 3.1.2

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 and Windows PC users using XP or Vista can download Safari 3.1.2.

Note: The Mac and iMacs now utilize an Intel processor. Leopard is the current operating system version and Snow Leopard will be next, with hoopla.

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". Version 7 is current but version 8 is in Beta 2 release.

As far as the browsers go, this is the browser I like best when hand coding HTML documents in NotePad and checking the page in this browser. Open the Windows Explorer to locate the HTML document on the local computer you wish to edit. Click/or double click on the Web document to open it in a browser window such as in Internet Explorer then Click on View, Source in the browser menu bar, make an editing change on the local computer's Web page's code document, and hit the F5 key to refresh the Web page. You can toggle the pages back and forth between the viewable Web page and the source code by using Alt + Tab (to toggle the editing pages of the browser and the source code).

  • Internet Explorer 8 World-Wide Sites
  • Internet Explorer 8 Beta2 for XP Computers in English language download site
  • Security TechCenter at Microsoft
  • Microsoft Security Bulletin Search
  • AOL Navigator

Netscape Navigator was 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.

Last I checked, all of my links for this browser came up with 404 errors for "File Not Found". I still keep a copy of Netscape Navigator on a disk. I not longer use this browser. Newer technologies were not supported, such as the CSS-P, a technology incorportated into the coined phrase of DHTML for Dynamic HTML, a marketing term at one time used by Netscape and Microsoft to describe the features in their version 4 browsers.

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
  • Opera Home Page
  • Opera's Features
  • Opera Download Page, for Windows (English)
  • Opera Support Desk and FAQ Link
  • Opera Plug-Ins
  • Opera and Other Applications
  • MyOpera Forums
  • Opera Press Releases
  • 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.

  • Mozilla
  • Mozilla.Org
  • Mozilla at a Glance
  • Mozilla Tutorial
  • Mozilla is open source code so this tutorial for programmers is about how to use and configure the browser.
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