Seeing a bunch of lean code jockeys building the next generation of web browsers is a reality TV show I'd watch. Since that's probably not happening any time soon, I'll take the next best thing: Read/WriteWeb's
Web Browser Faceoff, by Alex Iskold. Iskold reviews six of the latest crop of web bowsers: Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 7, Safari, Opera 9, Flock, and Maxthon. I highly recommend reading his entire round-up, but in case your attention span ain't what it used to be, here's what he concludes about our trusty browsers:
- IE7: "Solid release, which is going to help Microsoft maintain the market leadership in the near future"
- Firefox: "We think that Firefox is going to continue narrowing IE's lead, but await with interest the next major version!"
- Safari: "It's a clean and simple web 1.0 browser, but needs a major feature boost in order to be a contender even on the Mac."
- Opera: "We can see why fans like this browser, but a bigger future depends on spicing it up and poring in the marketing dollars."
- Flock: "Great productivity browser for web 2.0"
- Maxthon: "Need to apply Occam's Razor (i.e. make it simpler), but definitely could be a contender because of solid service integration."
"Even though IE and Firefox are far ahead today," Iskold concludes, "we see that other browser like Flock and Maxthon are ramping up support for the latest web 2.0 services - making themselves stand out and attracting early adopters. ... Faceoff bottom line: This round of browser competition is going to be at least as interesting as the Netscape vs. IE ten years ago. And hopefully less one-sided!" Hear, hear!
Tags: faceoff, firefox, firefox 2, Firefox2, flock, ie7, internet explorer, InternetExplorer, maxthon, opera, opera 9, review, roundup, safari, web, web 2.0, web browser, Web2.0, web20, WebBrowser
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Comments
4
Subscribe to commentsMattOct 26th 2006 5:14PM
If you include Maxthon in this list then you should include Avant Browser(http://www.avantbrowser.com) its a IE clone just like Maxthon and with 14 million downloads on download.com alone it is definitely as big if not bigger than Maxthon in regards to popularity.
Le Blog ExuberanceOct 27th 2006 12:01AM
Too late; Microsoft has already squandered billions of dollars worth of human productivity with its lousy browser. Read "The Explorer Tax: How Microsoft's buggy browser costs us billions of dollars:"
http://leblog.exuberance.com/2006/03/the_explorer_ta.html
The best thing we can do as a community of web users is to promote Firefox over Explorer. We'll be better off with the web browser (a modern necessity) as an open-source public domain project, instead of something controlled by a single corporation.
EngadgetSucksOct 27th 2006 12:56AM
It's great that Firefox has become the new Mac--i.e., it's users are tiresome blowhards who never stop blabbing to the profoundly uninterested about how it will change their world and give them bigger penises. Please, just go away.
ogmanOct 27th 2006 3:30AM
"Great productivity browser for web 2.0"
Productivity? Sharing goofy pics, watching You Tube all day, and chatting with your friends is productive?