Time for another (Browser) War
Published May 19, 2005
Opera has made the first move of the year in Browser War part II. As many will recall, a few years ago Netscape, Internet Explorer, and several other less influential web browsers enaged in what is now known as the "Browser Wars". From the Guardian,
By 1997, you might remember, the internet had finally caught on. At the time, the most popular web browser was Netscape Navigator. It had 72% of the market, compared to Internet Explorer 3's 18%. But then, in the October of that year, came IE4. It was much better than Navigator, and - in an action that would later see Microsoft prosecuted for antitrust violations - came with a business plan that sought to destroy the relatively tiny Netscape. This it did: by the next year, with the launch of Windows 98 and IE coming free and preinstalled, Netscape was in deep trouble. Eventually bought out by AOL, it saw its market share plummet. Today, just over 94% of all web users are working with IE.
With the fall of Netscape, and the rise of Firefox (a more appropriate name would have been Phoenix, but that's a whole different story, as FF was originally called this), Internet Explorer has risen as the leader of the pack. But late last year, IE has been challenged. Not just by Firefox, but by Opera. Opera has always been known as that "third browser no one uses". Actually, upon Opera 8's release Tuesday April 19, a Slashdot user mentioned that the release would only affect a few dozen people.
In early November, Firefox 1.0 was released to much fanfare. It reached its one millionth download in less than 100 hours, proving that internet users were ready for something new. The security issues in Internet Explorer were finally being exposed as the threat they were, and with IE slow to move in updating (aside from a few "hotfixes"), Microsoft's product was dead in the water. And then Opera did the unexpected, it cleaned up its version 7, added a few more features, and released it as Opera 8. Firefox made headlines when it reached 1 million downloads in 100 hours, Opera barely registered as newsworthy when it reached over 1 million in 96 hours.
- Time for another (Browser) War
- Published: May 19, 2005
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Internet, Sci/Tech: Software
- Writer: Andrew Hughes
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Yeah, I haven't had time to completely go through Netscape 8 yet, but I plan on writing up a review within the next few days.
So what specifically does Opera 8 change in the current browser space that is a quantum leap forward? I can't see much that catches my eye.
They've cleaned up the UI (not that big of a deal, I know). It not prevents phishing through Internationalized Domain Names, support for gmail and other sites requiring xmlhttprequest, and user javascript (some geek tool that I don't use too often). Then there's the voice function, now you can browse by using a microphone (interesting...). But, aside from that, it's just a repackaged Opera 7, which is why 7's registration codes work with 8.
firefox owns all other browsers
Opera rocks! Its my browser of choice followed by IE and lastly Firefox. I've gone through several versions of Firefox and their name changes, but found myself going back to IE. I've found Firefox (including the latest version) to be slow, and the fanboy-ism is downright annoying. IE is way faster,and so is Opera minus the security problems. The F12 toggle is waay cool, and everything just works, and works real well and fast!
Opera is one of the coolest things ever with a feature called mouse gestures. I don't know if the other browsers have it, but I don't think they do. Mouse gestures let you do tons of stuff with a flick of the mouse, for example, you hold the right button and go down and up and let go pretty fast, and you open a new page. If you click right and then left, you go back, if you click left then right, you go forward. It is so conveniant.
OK - I'm running Opera 8.0 now - it's not bad - but not very different, as yet. They have continued the age-old tech tradition of messing with words, using 'page' to refer to 'tab'.
Will tell you how this browser pans out in a while
Well, it's not really tabs, actually. Long story, but look up Multiple Document Interface. That's what Opera uses.
Well, it's not really tabs, actually. Long story, but look up Multiple Document Interface. That's what Opera uses.
great, the comments section choked a little, and i come across as an idiot.
Could you repeat that just one more time
Andrew for those who missed it the first
six times? LOL! Just kidding dude.
It has happened to others before.
seems like all the other posts got modded out. Thank the good Cosmic Muffin.
Opera is smaller than firefox, and has more features. If you want speed and low memory/hard drive use... Operas the way to go.
Add your comment, speak your mind
(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/29764)
Netscape 8 was also released last week - worth checking out if one would like to play around with different rendering engines, and believe that the medium dictates the message.