A post at The Unofficial Google Blog recently caught my attention. When you think of the web browser, you are supposed to think of a piece of software that allows you to connect to the Internet and see websites as they were designed to be seen. The most popular Internet browsers are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Google Chrome, and Opera, with hundreds of other versions, many of which branch off or integrate features of the main ones.

The Internet, in its current form, has been around for approximately twenty years. Simply because you set your default website to Google doesn’t mean that it powers the entire web, although some people are led to believe that it does, and that you can’t access sites from anywhere beyond Google. In terms of building your site, it would likely be a lot nicer if more people wrote down, memorized, or bookmarked your site for visiting later, but in most cases, it is through search engines that they find your content.

Although this experiment was rather unofficial, it might still be echoed in more official surveys. A web browser is not Google or any other search engine.

In review, here’s the difference between the two.

• Web Browser: The program that serves as your front end to the Web on the Internet. In order to view a site, you type its address (URL) into the browser’s Location field; for example, www.computerlanguage.com, and the home page of that site is downloaded to you. The home page is an index to other pages on that site that you can jump to by clicking an underlined hyperlink or an icon. Links on that site may take you to other related sites.
• Search Engine: A website whose primary function is providing a search engine for gathering and reporting information available on the Internet or a portion of the Internet.

Most bloggers spend a ton of time online, time that needs to be used as wisely as possible.  Speed shouldn’t simply be a factor of accomplishing something.  It should be the ability to use time more wisely, combining tasks, in order to have more time promoting and creating content for your blog.  A little known (or used) ability of most browsers including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari,and Opera, is the ability to add frequently visited sites or bookmarks in a bookmarks bar or through a keyword.

Firefox

While a bookmarks button has its uses, the keyword tool within Firefox has become extremely time saving.  Previously, to access GMail, Google Reader, or any frequently visited site, I would either have to find the shortcut button or else type in the address.  By using a short keyword, you’ll be able to navigate to a website using any words you’d like.  It also comes in hand when needing to open multiple tabs and not having to find the actual bookmark and speeding up “tabbing”.

Other tools: Use the bookmarks bar to add frequently accessed sites.  Additional configurations can also be used for forums and sites without “pretty” URLs.  [Mozilla.org]

To utilize: Right click a bookmark, click “Properties”, then add your shortcut key under “Keyword”.  Type the keyword into the URL bar, and the site will auto-complete.

Firefox Shortcuts 

Internet Explorer

In Internet Explorer, there is less support for easily finding the bookmark that you need on the spot due to the unmovable navigation bars.  However, you are still able to add favorites in the favorites bar and create shortcut keys.

To utilize: Right click on the site you have bookmarked, then click “Properties”.  Under shortcut key, designate the CTRL + ALT + KEY that you wish to use.  As previously stated, Internet Explorer is not user friendly for quick access to bookmarks.

Internet Explorer Shortcuts 

Opera

In terms of speed, Opera has several tools for bloggers to maximize the shortcut abilities of their browser.  First of all, you can use Speed Dial for quick thumbnail-response to the top nine (user-configurable) sites.  In addition, there is also a bookmarks bar (personal bar) which can be used to keep bookmarks.

Searching is also made easier by inputting “g” for Google or “y” for Yahoo! in front of any search from the address bar.

To utilize: Right click on the site you have bookmarked.  Under “Nickname”, define the shortcut key that you want to use.

Opera Shortcuts 

Safari

Safari has the ability to render pages faster than most other browsers, but again lacks any real way of speeding up the ability to quickly get to pages on demand.

In terms of bookmarking, you are able to use a bookmarks bar, bookmarks menu, and an auto-click feature, which opens all tabs within a particular folder.

Safari Shortcuts 

As always, it is more important the usability and functionality you receive from each browser and the tools that you can addon to them.  I have not covered all the abilities to make browsing quicker, such as auto complete or the different levels of bookmark management.  However, Firefox and Opera score the highest in the ability to quickly launch a frequently accessed site using as little time as possible.

A little late on posting this, but Mozilla has introduced lightweight theming for the ever-popular Firefox browser. The new version just released on December 14, 2007 improves upon a prototype that was discussed and tested earlier this year. This new extension will help web designers reach a wider range of users, as no browser restart is required to activate a new theme. ‘The Persona selector is dynamically loaded and populated from a JSON feed and all designs are loaded via URLs to remote resources.’ There is news that an API – which will allow developers and designers to submit themes or Personas, based on web content. Support for HTML, CS, PNG, JPG, Javascript, SVG, and Canvas are supported.

Personas is a prototype that builds upon the ideas that:

• Themes today are too hard to find, install, and use.
• Graphic designers should be able to style the browser without having to code.
• Browsers can be more than just desktop software, they can also include online components.
• People just want their computer to be a little more fun and personal.

Other features include the ability to select a Persona from the dynamic menus and view the theme instantly. No restarting is required after initial install of the extension.

Designers can remove, add or update their Persona without having to update the software.

Visit Mozilla Labs to install the extension.

You receive errors when a page loads or some things don’t look right. Messages say that your browser isn’t compatible or that the page didn’t load correctly. These are just a few of the of the many complaints that people receive when trying to visit a site with Internet Explorer. However, there are many alternatives, with the best alternative being Firefox. As of October 2007, Internet Explorer leads market share at 77.86%, followed by 14.88%, Safari at 5.07%, Opera at 0.87%, Netscape at 0.72%, Opera Mini at 0.39% and 0.20% for other browsers.

This guide outlines the features (mostly taken from the browser download pages) of the top browsers. Included are customized versions and browsers that support multiple operating systems. Switch your browser for a better experience blogging today.

Firefox is an award-winning browser created by Mozilla. It combines speed, security, and customization to create a very good browser. Firefox’s source code is available as open source software and has approximately 14.8% of the world’s market share in web browsers as of October 2007. The relationship with Google and their paid referral agreement has greatly helpedspreadFirefox . The main features are tabbed browsing, spell checker, incremental find, live bookmarking, an integrated download manager, and a search system, along with more features outlined below. 

Features

Experience:

• Cross-Platform – Various versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
• Improved Tab Browsing – Advanced tab browsing, opening new web pages in tabs by default, History (recently closed tabs), and scroll when there are too many open tabs.
• Spell Checking – Firefox has a built-in spell checking utility to fix any mistakes in blog posts and web-based email.
• Search Suggestions – When searching in the Search bar, Google, Yahoo!, and Answers.com will automatically suggest search terms.
• Session Restore – If Firefox has to restart, when you reopen it, there is the option to pick up exactly where you left off. Any open windows will still be there, as well as downloads that were in progress.Firefox also lets you always restore your previous session instead of loading a home page.
• Feeds (RSS) – Better control over web feeds, showing you a preview and letting you choose your feed subscription service.
• Integrated Search – An integrated search bar preloaded with popular search engines, with hundreds of additional search engines available.
• Live Bookmarks – Lets you view web feeds such as news and blog headlines in the bookmarks toolbar or menu.
• Pop-up Blocker – Integrated pop-up blocker putting you in control of web pages you’re viewing and blocking annoying pop-ups. If a pop-up is blocked that shouldn’t be, you can easily add it to an allowed list.
• Interface – Improved usability without changing the main layout.
• Accessibility – Includes support for DHTML accessibility, with support for other Windows standards and screen readers, as well as meeting US Federal government requirements for accessible software.
• Two special editions, eBay and Firefox Campus edition are also available.

Security

• Phishing Protection – Helps safeguard financial information and protect you against identity theft. Firefox will warn you when you encounter a suspected forgery site.
• Open Source, More Secure – Due to the open source development process driven by thousands of experienced developers, ensures the product is more secure and updated quickly.
• Automated Update – Update system keeps the software up to date, notifying you when a security update is available, and is available in over 40 different languages.
• Spyware Protection – You must provide explicit agreement before Firefox downloads, installs, or runs programs on your computer with notification when downloading or installing programs.
• Privacy Clearing – Firefox allows users to easily clear all their private information in one click with the “Clear Private Data” tool.

Personalization

• Add-ons – Over 2,000 add-ons are available at the add-ons web site. Add-ons range from helping you comparison shop, share bookmarks, see the weather, write to your weblog, get news, or listen to music.
• Add-ons Manager for Extensions and Themes – Improves the user interface for managing extensions and themes, making it easier to customize the browser.
• Search Engine Manager – Firefox makes it easily to quickly add, remove, and re-order your search engines in the Search bar.
• Firefox provides an environment for web developers in which they can use built-in tools.
• Hidden preferences can be found by typing in about:config, which can be used to modify the behavior of features and tweak performance.

Speeding Up and Optimizing Firefox
If you are connected through a broadband connection, below are a few simple tips to speed up Firefox.
1. Access the configuration file by typing about:config into the address bar and hitting the enter button.
2. Find (copy/paste to search or scroll down) – network.http.pipelining and change it to true by double clicking on false.
3. Find – network.http.proxy.pipelining and change it to true.
4. Find – network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and set it to a higher number – for example 30, enabling more requests to web servers.
5. Right-click in the screen and select New > Integer. Name it nglayout.initialpaint.delay and set its value to 0. This sets the default amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

Visit the main Firefox page. 

Opera web browser is called the “coolest, fastest, and most secure web browser available”. Opera is safe, secure, powerful, and fully customizable, and is over 30% faster than IE, and faster and more secure than Firefox. 

Features

New in Opera 9.5 Kestrel (beta)

• Opera Link – Now every part of your life is able to be synchronized – Synch your Speed Dial and Bookmarks through My Opera, take your bookmarks with you on your phone or add Opera to your game consoles.
• History Search – Opera 9.5 brings you built-in Full Text History Search to help you remember the interesting sites that you can no longer remember.
• Enhanced Mail – Opera’s built in mail application is improved in the latest version with improvements in speed, performance, stability, and usability including anewbackend and IMAP support, Opera Mail is free to use.
• Status bar with Zoom and Image Control – Opera improved the excellent zoom function and bandwidth saving control of images and placed them on the Status bar for easy availability.
• Restore closed windows and changes in speed dial – Kestrel has an improved version of the trash-can feature by adding support for opening closed windows, not only the closed tabs. You can also undo Speed Dial changes.
• Improved BitTorrent Performance – Added Support for BitTorrent Peer Exchange to allow connection to more download hosts and improve your download speeds.

Get the Latest Version of Opera, Release 9.5

New in Opera 9

• Speed Dial – Access your favorite websites simply by opening a tab to get your Speed Dial, and its easy to populate and addictive to use.
• Fraud Protection – With advanced fraud protection, you are protected against websites that try to steal your personal information.
• BitTorrent – To start a torrent download, click on the link and start the download, no separate applications are needed to download large files.
• Content Blocker – Remove ads or images simply by right clicking or pressing (CTRL-click on the Mac) to access the block content settings.
• Widgets – Small web applications found at widgets.opera.com to help make your desktop experience more fun.
• Thumbnail Preview – Displays small thumbnail previews of tabs that are open, greatly increasing navigation options when many tabs are open.
• Search Engines – Easily add search engines to the built-in search bar by right-clicking on a site’s search field and selecting ‘Create search’ from the menu.
• Site Preferences – Right click and select ‘Edit site preferences’ to configure options such as viewing a site a different way or denying certain cookies.
• Improved Rich Text Editing – Advanced text editing features for use in today’s most popular web applications.

Efficient Surfing

• Transfer Manager – Easily access all your downloads and download progress from one simple transfer manager window.
• Password Manager – Remember usernames and passwords with the password manager.
• Pop-up Blocking – Enable requested pop-ups and block those that you don’t want to see – you are in control of all pop-ups.
• Fast Forward – Fast Forward will detect the most likely ‘next page’ link and greatly simplify navigation in multi-page documents including results and image galleries.
• Quick Preferences – With one button (F12) you can browse through the ‘Quick Preferences’ menu to switch settings such as pop-up and cookie preferences.
• Voice – Currently offered in English and on Windows 2000/XP, the voice feature allows you to control Opera’s interface by talking and to have documents read aloud.
• Trash Can – You can retrieve closed tabs and blocked pop-ups if you accidentally close them and need to view them again.
• Tabbed Browsing – By opening multiple web pages within the same application window, you can surf the web easier and faster.
• Integrated Search – Add popular search engines to the built in search field, with the ability to search directly in the address field using keywords such as ‘g’ for Google.
• Mouse Gestures – Support for mouse gestures allow you to perform movements with the mouse to access commonly used features.
• Sessions – Save a collection of open tabs as a session – for later retrieval, or open Opera with the last pages open.
• Notes – When you want to refer to a site later, Opera allows you to take notes.
• Keyboard Shortcuts – Keyboard shortcuts allow faster and more efficient browsing.

Security and Privacy

• Security Bar – Inside the address field, security information is displayed, with a padlock icon indicating the level of security present on a site.
• Delete Private Data – When exiting, to protect your privacy, you can clear the history and cache, and can easily be erased at any time.
• Encryption – Opera supports Secure Socket Layer (SSL) version 3, and TLS 1.0 and 1.1, as well as 256-bit encryption, the strongest standard encryption for the web.
• Cookie Control – To accept and reject cookies, you have detailed control, including different setups for different servers/

Mail and Chat

• Opera Mail – A built-in Pop/IMAP E-mail client displays email. news, mailing lists, and RSS/Atom news feeds.
• IRC Chat – Communicate with people all over the world using the chat client, privately or in rooms, and share files with your friends and family.

Customization

• Drag and Drop – Add, remove, or rearrange buttons, search fields, and toolbars easily within Opera.
• Skins – Give your browser the look you want with skins, customizing icons, colors and styles.
• Language – Opera supports many languages and can easily be changed.

Accessibility

• Zoom – Zoom the contents of any web page from 20-100% using the zoom drop down or the +/- keys.
• User Style Sheets – Opera comes with a set of read-made style sheets, including accessibility style.
• Text Size and Colors – Change the text size and color, link styling or background color to your liking in the tools menu.

Web Development

• Standards Support – Opera supports all major web standards currently in use.
• Validate Code – Easily validate the HTML code of any web page by pressing CTRL+ALT+V.
• Small Screen Mode – You can see how a web page will look on a mobile phone or other small screen device using Opera by using the small screen mode
• Toggle Graphics and Style Sheets – Graphics and style sheets can be toggled on/off via the toolbars and shortcuts.
• Info Panel – The info panel shows details about the currently pen page such as MIME type, page size, character encoding, etc.
• Reload from Cache – Edit the source of any web page and view the results instantaneously.

Special Features

• Full-Screen Mode – Opera’s projection mode can be toggled by pressing the F11 key, which uses the whole screen for browsing and, if a projection style sheet is present, it displays ‘slides’ suitable for presentation.
• Kiosk Mode – Opera supports kiosk mode – a lock-down mode in which the browser can be used for unattended computers in public places.

Tutorials for the features included above can be found here. 

Get the latest version of Opera (9.24) here. 

Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and is included in Mac OS X, with a first public beta release on January 7, 2003. A beta version was released for the first time in June 2007 for MicrosoftWindowsXP and Vista, although it also unofficially works on Windows 2000. Safari has also been run unofficially on Linux, with with some problems.

‘The world’s best browser. The fastest, easiest-to-use web browser in the world, with simple, elegant interface, Safari gets out your way and lets you enjoy the web – up to 2 times faster than Internet Explorer’. 

The ’12′ Reasons You’ll Love Safari

1. Blazing Performance – The fastest web browser on any platform, Safari loads pages up up to 2 times faster than any other browser, which adds up to less time loading pages and more time enjoying them.
2. Elegant User Interface – A clean, sleek look will let you focus on the web instead of your browser. The browser frame is a mere one pixel wide, with a scroll bar only when you need it. No status bar by default – a single blue progress bar fills the address field as the page loads. Commonly used tools like a Google search field is built into Safari.
3. Easy Bookmarks – It is easier to manage your bookmarks with Safari. One click opens the single-window menu interface, where you can manage your bookmarks. Importing your bookmarks is easy, and Safari helps you find sites to bookmark.
4. Pop-up Blocking – Annoying pop-up ads and pop-under windows are blocked with advanced tools to protect from blocking pop-up windows you want displayed.
5. Inline Find – Easily locate any text on a web page using the Find command. Type a word in the Feed banner and Safari displays the found count and highlights matching terms while dimming the page below.
6. Tabbed Browsing – Advanced tabbed browsing, drag and drop tabs to rearrange them, open one in a new browser window, or merge all your current windows into one tabbed window. Tabsareresized depending on the number of tabs opened. You can set a bookmark for a set of tabs or revert to the tabs that were open before the browser closed.
7. SnapBack – SnapBack lets you instantly snap back to the original search results or to the top level of any website, and appears in the search field after you’ve clicked a link int eh search results page.
8. Forms AutoFill – Safari will help remember frequently filled forms with information from your Address Book or from previously completed forms.
9. Built-in RSS – The built-in RSS reader tells you when new articles or blog posts have been added to your favorite sites, so you never have to guess. With fully customized options, you can view or manage feeds more easily.
10. Resizable Text Areas – If you need room to type, you can resize text areas on any website, just by grabbing the corner of the area and dragging.
11. Private Browsing – Safari offers private browsing and Safari won’t save your searches, cookies, history of sites you’ve visited, download history, or other information you might have given.
12. Security – Safari uses robust encryption to ensure that your private information stays that way. Safari displays a lock in the upper-right corner of the browser if the site is secure. Also supportedareSSL versions 2 and 3, as well as Transfer Layer Security (TLS).

Download Safari Now 

Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE, is a graphical web browser developed by Microsoft and included as part of Microsoft Windows since 1995. It is the world’s most popular browser, peaking at nearly 90%. Internet Explorer is currently only supported on Windows operating systems.

Internet Explorer has been known to have security issues and problems loading web pages. However, it is included in this list due to its wide use, and may serve as an alternative for users who want to stick with an OS-compatible browser. 

Features

• Tabbed Browsing – View multiple sites in a single browser window, with easy switching from one site to another.
• Quick Tabs – Easily select and navigate through open tabs by displaying thumbnails of them all in a single window.
• Tab Groups – Tabs can be grouped and saved into categories for opening multiple tabs with a single click.
• Streamlined Interface – IE features a redesigned, streamlined interface that maximized the area of the screen that displaysawebpage.
• Advanced Printing – When you need to print a website, IE 7 automatically scales a webpage for printing, so the entire webpage fits on the page with optional print settings
• Instant Search Box – Web searches using your favorite search provider can be entered into a search box within the toolbar.
• Favorites Center – The favorites menu was redesigned with better viewing of Favorites, Tab Groups, Browsing History,andRSS Feed subscriptions.
• RSS Feeds – With automatic detection of RSS feeds, a single click can allow you to preview and subscribe to the RSS feed and read them directly in the browser.
• Page Zoom – Enlarge individual webpages, including both text and graphics, to either focus on specific content or to make content more accessible.
• Security Protection – Some of the many tools included to protect you against security problemsareActiveX opt-in, security status bar, phishing filter, cross-domain barriers, delete browsing history, address bar protection, international domain name anti-spoofing, URL handling security, fix my settings, add-ons disabled mode, and features unique to Windows Vista.
• Additional Improvements – IE 7 also includes improvements in CSS, application compatibility, alpha channel in PNG, group policy, international explorer administration kit, AJAX support, open search extensions, RSS platform, and improved platform compatibility.

Get Internet Explorer 7 Now 

IE Quick Reference Shortcut Guide 

Sea Monkey is an all-in-one internet application suite, which was formerly known as the “Mozilla Application Suite”. The package contains a web browser, a mail and newsgroups client, an HTML editor, web development tools, andanIRC chat client.

Sea Monkey is available for download on Linux, Macintosh (Mac OS X), and Windows. 

Features

• The SeaMonkey Project is a community effort to deliver product-quality releases of code derived form the former application, known as “Mozilla Application Suite”. The group is trying to ensure that the project continues despite the Mozilla Corporation shift to Firefox.

Navigator

• Tabbed Browsing – With tabbed browsing, you no longer have to view or open one page at a time, with support for a multiple tab homepage.
• Pop-up Blocker – Enables blocking of unwanted pop-up ads.
• Image Manager – Allows users to block images to block offensive images, thus speeding up web site load times.
• Find as you type – Lets users navigate a page by jumping from link to link or finding a word within a page.
• Other Features – Advanced security settings, password, download, and cookie managers, themes,mult-language/platform support, and web standards support.

Mail and Newsgroups

• Junk Mail Controls – Adaptive junk mail control can be personalized to block different types of spam mail.
• Managing – Color code and add labels and mail views to sort your mail. Multiple accounts support helps you manage all your mail through one interface.
• Support – SeaMonkey Messenger includes Enterprise ready features such as S/MIME, return receipts, address books, LDAP support, and digital signing.

HTML Editor

• The powerful, yet simple HTML editor supports dynamic image and table resizing, quick insert and delete of table cells,improvedCSS support, and support for positioned layers.

The Sea Monkey client is available for download here. 

Camino browser was designed by Mozilla as an alternative browser for Macintosh computers. It is styled to fit in with your Mac theme but is optimized similar to Firefox. 

Features

• The Camino Project was designed to create a browser that is as functional and elegant as the computers it runs on. The browser is secure, powerful, and ready to meet the needs of all users while remaining simple and elegant in design.
• If you are migrating form Firefox, there is a page created to help you easily switch to Camino browser.
• Camino 1.5 is a universal binary and runs natively on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs (Mac OS X 10.3/50 MB free hard drive space required).
• Spell-Checking – Camino includes the built-in spell-checker on every text field.
• Feed Detection – Support of RSS/Atom feeds in web pages, with an icon to read the feed or subscribe to it.
• Session Saving – ‘Session Saving’, or optionally remembering what pages you were visiting when you quit.
• Improved Tabs – Tooltips help you keep track of all of your tabs when you can’t read the titles, with advanced tools to manage your tabs.
• Pop-up and Annoyance Blocking – Camino includes both pop-up blocking, adblocking, plus a better interface as well as the ability to keep Flash animation from loading until you’re ready. The ability to disable all plug-ins is also available.
• Open Source – The product is 100% open-source software, so problems are caught quickly and updates are made sooner.
• Rendering Engine – Camino uses Mozilla’s Gecko 1.8.1 rendering engine, supporting the latest web standards.
• More Features – Camino includes compatibility with Safari Keychain entries, plus more options such as more migration functions, new options for the downloads windows, and more cookie control.

Download the Camino Browser for Macs here. 

‘Flock is a free web browser that makes it easier than ever to share photos, stay up-to-date with news from your favorite sites, and search the web. Flock gives users control over their web experience by integrating a variety of web applications and services into its browser, and making participation online easy. Flock’s design leverages a simple, elegant interface to deliver a powerful interactive experience that is accessible to power users and everyday mortals alike.’ 

Features

• Operating System Compatibility – Flock is compatible with Mac, Windows and Linux.
• Social Networking – Flock helps users be more proficient by reaching friends across multiple networks, staying fully connected, no matter where you are on the web, and you are able to see changes first.
• Sharing – Make simple tasks even easier by dragging and dropping photos and videos, text, and favorite links to share them with your friends.
• More Tools – With a photo uploader, you can edit and upload up to 1,000 photos at a time to popular photo sharing sites. The blog editor allows online or offline posting to popular blogging platforms as well as self-hosted blogs. A web clipboard enables users to grab your favorite photos, text, and links from the web and saving them in the browser’s web clipboard for later.
• Staying Informed – Flock lets you know when your friend has posted photos or videos, when your favorite sites update content, or when you have messages and site notifications. Also integrated with Flock is a Feed Reader to stay updated with your favorite sites, plusMediaMiniBar to instantly find photos and videos from popular photo and video sharing sites.
• Awards and Reviews – Flock has received numerous high scores and good reviews from users.
• Mozilla Background – Because Flock is based off of the same rendering as Firefox, you can edit the about:config properties to customize and enhance the browser.

Download Flock Browser here. 

Claimed to be ‘The Fastest Web Browser on Earth’, the Avant Browser features top of the line features with some features that aren’t on any other browser. Avant Browser is 100% free, with no limitations, adware, or spyware. 

Features

• Online Profile Storage – Allows you to save your bookmarks, configurations, etc. in an online storage account, with access to the profile from anywhere.
• AutoFills – Memorizes web passwords, and fills in passwords with one click.
• RSS Reader – Allows users to read RSS/ATOM feeds just like browsing web pages, and you can also add your feeds as bookmarks.
• Mouse Gestures – Use the mouse to perform frequently used operations.
• Pop-up/AD Blockers – Eliminate unwanted AD banners, flash ADs, and pop-up pages with the integrated blocking features to help save bandwidth. Other advanced options such as blocking the downloads of pictures, videos, soundsandActiveX components.
• Privacy Protection – Easily delete all browsing traces such as typed URLs, auto-completes, cookies, history,temporaryinternet files, etc.
• Tabbed Browsing – Simultaneously browse multiple pages, and stop, refresh, close, or rearrange pages with one click.
• Built-in Search Engine – Use the pre-installed search engine tool to quickly search the top sites.
• Screen Size – Features full screen mode and alternative full desktop mode with no clutter.
• Full IE Compatibility – All Internet Explorer functions, such as bookmarks, cookies, ActiveX controls, Java Script, and more can easily be transferred to Avant Browser. Avant was built around IE, but has many more improvements.
• Safe Recovery – All open web pages will be saved and reopened if the browser is shut down unexpectedly or improperly.
• Customizability – Easily customize the skin using the program called Avant Browser Skin Maker, or use skins created by other users.

Download Avant Browser here. (Users should have at least Windows 98 and Internet Explorer 6.0 Installed) 

‘Netscape Navigator 9 is available as a standalone installation for Windows, Mac, and Linux.’ 

Features

• Cross-PlatformNavigator is able to run on Windows, Mac or Linux.
• URL Correction – If you make common typos when typing in an address, they will automatically be fixed, i.e. .cmo –> .com.
• Link Pad – This is an area for holding interesting links that you won’t use again like bookmarks.
• Firefox 2 Compatible – All Firefox 2 extensions are also available for Netscape.
• Sidebar – The sidebar can be used as a “mini” browser” to keep pages in plain sight while you surf other pages, with drag and drop functionality.

Get Netscape Navigator 9 here. 

Other Browsers

Listed below are additional browser alternatives.

Windows Browsers

• TheWorld Browser – ‘TheWorld Browser provides a fast, safe, and easy way to browse the web. It will max our your internet experiences with many useful features than the others could ever offer. Give it a try, and we guarantee that we will never ship our browser with mal-wares.’ Compatible with Windows versions.
• Maxthon Browser – ‘Maxthon Browser is a powerful tabbed browser built for all users. Besides basic browsing functionality, Maxthon Browser provides a rich set of features to improve your surfing experience’. 100+ million downloads.
• Additional browsers can be found at Wikipedia’s List of Browsers page.
• K-Meleon – K-Melon browser is yet another browser based on the Gecko layout engine, and was created before Firefox, is completely free, fast, and customizable.

Mac OS X Browsers

• Lynx – Although only a text browser, Lynx is a good browser for those working on web development.
• Shiira Project – The goal of the Shiira Project is to create a web browser better than Safari. The browser is based on Web Kit and written in Cocoa. On the site are themes and screen shots to preview before downloading
• WebKit Open Source Browser – The web kit browser engine is the same one that Safari uses, and is intended for use by developers as a nightly build download is available.
• OmniWeb – The OnmiWeb browser ‘elevates your web user experience with more productive, more efficient, and more fun’. The OmniWeb browser features many of the top usability options such as tabs, shortcuts, ad blocking, workspaces, and more.

Linux/Unix Browsers

• Konqueror – Konqeror browser is a file manager and web browser for the K Desktop Environemnt and supports basic file management on local UNIX filesystems.
• Galeon – Galeon was built for GNOME, but also runs under other desktop environments. Based off the Gecko layout engine, it is fast, has a lightweight interface, and is fully standards-compliant.
• Epiphany – Built for the GNOME desktop, the Epiphany browser was designed to be simple and easy to use. It ties together many GNOME components to let you focus on the web content.

Credits: Wikipedia and official browser pages.