Around the Browsersphere #11

Posted on July 11th, 2008 | No Comments »

Since my last installment of Around the Browsersphere was posted back toward the beginning of May, there’s simply way too much going on to get all caught up without breaking things up a bit.  Therefore, this eleventh edition will focus solely on the “minor players,” or the web browsers not named Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera or Safari.

Avant

Flock

Konqueror

Maxthon

SeaMonkey

Others

I’m hoping to catch up on the major players soon, so stay tuned.

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The Add-on Argument

Posted on July 9th, 2008 | 5 Comments »

In a few blog posts I’ve read recently, I’ve witnessed at least two backers of separate web browsers claiming that their respective browsers have an edge over Firefox because they don’t require all the add-ons Firefox does in order to behave the way a user expects them to.

First off, over at the Maxthon Blog last week, a Maxthon user was quoted as having said the following about Firefox 3:

I’m sure Firefox has add-ons that can compensate for its apparent lack of features but…my hard drive says it was nice knowing you but you have to go.

Given that the Maxthon Blog reminds me of a certain other source of information, I took the opinions there with a grain of salt.  However, I soon spotted a similar refrain at a much more trustworthy source.

Opera Watch has an article titled Guardian: Forget Firefox - I’m going back to Opera for browsing and email which quotes The Guardian columnist Andrew Brown as having said the following of Firefox 3:

With the release of Firefox 3, I mounted a private celebration: I went back to using Opera 9.5 as my main browser. This wasn’t just perversity. Firefox without its add-ons is clearly inferior to Opera. Firefox with enough add-ons to make it really useful is very much slower.

Although the reasoning behind Firefox’s add-on architecture has been well-publicized by Firefox spokesmen like Asa Dotzler and there are obviously those out there who appreciate that architecture, it appears that the latest approach by those supporting other web browsers is to suggest that the add-ons approach to feature support contributes to both a lackluster default set of features and excessive bloat once the desired features have been added.

So what’s your take?  Is Firefox’s add-on approach the right approach, or is it better to try and target a larger set of features out-of-the-box?

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The Browser Wars in China

Posted on May 11th, 2008 | No Comments »

An interesting article over at Mobinode sheds some light on the current state of the browser wars in China.  The following is an excerpt:

There is no doubt that Maxthon is still the No.1 Chinese browser in the market, but we can see that the competition is getting more intense. Tencent has its so called TT browser bundled with QQ for a long time, Firefox is more and more accepted by high educated Internet users; If you search for ["Browser" in Chinese], there are a couple of Chinese browsers which are good alternatives. I have tried one called EnjoyIE developed by a team based in Beijing. Even though the founder told me that he was doing this for his own interest, but the fact is that this browser has already got 2 millions users and for me it is working even faster than Maxthon.

The article also goes on to discuss the mobile space, in which an up-and-coming browser called UCWeb is showing promise with upwards of 25 million users.

Be sure to read the entire article, because it’s certainly interesting to see how the browser wars are shaping up overseas.

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Around the Browsersphere #10

Posted on May 11th, 2008 | 5 Comments »

There are some rumblings in the browsersphere as of late with a Firefox 3 RC1 release right around the corner, news that the latest service pack for XP isn’t compatible with a pre-installed IE8 Beta 1, etc.  So let’s get caught up.

General

Avant

Firefox

Flock

Internet Explorer

Konqueror

Maxthon

Opera

Opera Mini

Safari

Minor Players

Web Standards

Holy cow.  That’s a lot of information.  The browsersphere is a bustling place.  Hopefully you found something useful in all that.

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Maxthon 2.1 Released

Posted on May 11th, 2008 | No Comments »

Maxthon 2.1 (officially version 2.1.0.1870) was released on Thursday, May 8th.  The new release features improved stability, better performance and “hundreds of bug fixes,” according to Maxthon Resources.

If you’re interested in the full rundown on all the changes in the new release, TechConnect Magazine has a pretty good summary.

You can download the new release from maxthon.com.

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Twitter Watch #1

Posted on April 28th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Thanks to Tweet Scan, I can get a semi-real time feel for what’s going on in the browsersphere.  So what are people Tweeting about?

And just as a heads-up, I’m interested in following folks on Twitter that are browserphiles like myself, so drop a comment (or email at browsersphere [at] gmail [dot] com) and let me know who you are on there if you don’t mind being “followed.”  And I’m Bernzilla on there, for anyone who might be interested.

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Around the Browsersphere #9

Posted on April 28th, 2008 | No Comments »

Last time around, I didn’t get any feedback on the format of these “Around the Browsersphere” posts, so I’ll give a slightly more organized approach a try and we’ll see how it goes.

Camino

  • Camino 1.6, which features a customizable toolbar search field, software update capabilities, a scrolling tab bar, etc., was released on the 17th.

Firefox

Flock

Internet Explorer

Konqueror

Maxthon

Mozilla

Opera and Opera Mini

Safari

SeaMonkey

Minor Players

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Around the Browsersphere #8

Posted on March 9th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

With at least a couple more Firefox 3 betas on the way, the release of IE8 Beta 1 and the official release of the Acid3 test, there’s a lot going on in the browsersphere these days.  Let’s jump right into it…

Amazingly enough, there’s a lot more to post about, but that should hold you over for a little bit.  I’m interested in hearing if Browsersphere visitors are more interested in somewhat random links like this or if it would be preferable to have the links broken down by the web browser to which they correspond.  If you have any thoughts on that, please leave a comment.

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Around the Browsersphere #7

Posted on February 19th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Believe it or not it’s been over three months since the last edition of Around the Browsersphere, so we’re long overdue.  Let’s get to it…

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Lists of Firefox Alternatives

Posted on November 11th, 2007 | No Comments »

I ran across two lists of Firefox alternatives tonight, the first of which is War of the Web Browsers: The Underdogs.  It covers Avant, Flock and Opera, while Download Dispatch, Weekend Edition covers those plus Maxthon and a browser I hadn’t yet heard of: Slim Browser.

Mozilla needn’t be too worried, though.  As this Digg post points out, Firefox still tops Google’s list.

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