Monday, March 06, 2006
Browser Wars: the next phase
I'm not the only one looking to dump Firefox. And while some are too easily lured by Microsoft's big-game tactics, I still want to find an alternative.
A quick look at the browser market reveals little: Mozilla, of course, has their usual salvo of choices, buggy Gecko crap, or buggy Gecko crap for Mac. Opera is a [not bad] browser which doesn't beg for lots of attention, but still retains a steady following. There are other Gecko spin-offs, like Netscape, the browser everyone loves to hate. Then, there's always Internet Explorer, now out with (finally) a new beta 7 version, which I recommend everyone stay away from. Beta software is for sadists. But a deeper dig resulted in more alternatives to the Big Three:
K-Meleon is [another] gecko browser that promises lighting fast speeds (unless you're on dial up), free, open source, lightweight, customizable, bla, bla, bla (we've heard it all before, haven't we?)
The Silis Web Browser offers another alternative. Also open source, and planned for the Erica OS project (whatever the hell that is.)
The Grail Internet Browser is platform independant, written in Linux.
And (you knew there had to be one) a Java Extensible Web Browser (JXWB) offers all the unexpectability of Java in a platform independant package.
Even the Mozilla zealots are getting sick of Firefox; they're working secertly on a new, improved version, to be released whenever the monkeys get through dinking around with the source. (Lost link, will post when found)
If you're not too daring (and I'm not either these days) then you might want ot just fix the old browser you have (probably Firefox, right?) and try to hack it out for a few more months until the holy grail of browsers is released (not that that'll ever happen.)
One of the biggets problems with Firefox (and, ironically the biggest attractions) is teh extention modules. Right now, on my machine (WinXP sp2) Firefox is using (are you ready for this) 80,164 megs of memory. (Holy crap, I think that's a new record.) I have about ten open pages, in tabs. Just as many extentions installed (one of them actively running: Forecastfox). This, my frends, is a ridiculous amout of memory for a web browser. IE use to run between 12 and 20, on a bad day. Just part of the reason Firefox is so slow. One alternative (to deleting the piece of crap) is to make a new profile, one that doesn't run so many (or any) extentions. Of course, Mozilla doesn't make this step easy, but follow the directions and you might get somewhere (or, completely crash your system.) Either way, good luck; you're going to need it.
P.S. For the curious and desperate, I should post this link: Evolt's Browser Archive. You never knew there were so many, did you? ¶ 6:40 PM
A quick look at the browser market reveals little: Mozilla, of course, has their usual salvo of choices, buggy Gecko crap, or buggy Gecko crap for Mac. Opera is a [not bad] browser which doesn't beg for lots of attention, but still retains a steady following. There are other Gecko spin-offs, like Netscape, the browser everyone loves to hate. Then, there's always Internet Explorer, now out with (finally) a new beta 7 version, which I recommend everyone stay away from. Beta software is for sadists. But a deeper dig resulted in more alternatives to the Big Three:
K-Meleon is [another] gecko browser that promises lighting fast speeds (unless you're on dial up), free, open source, lightweight, customizable, bla, bla, bla (we've heard it all before, haven't we?)
The Silis Web Browser offers another alternative. Also open source, and planned for the Erica OS project (whatever the hell that is.)
The Grail Internet Browser is platform independant, written in Linux.
And (you knew there had to be one) a Java Extensible Web Browser (JXWB) offers all the unexpectability of Java in a platform independant package.
Even the Mozilla zealots are getting sick of Firefox; they're working secertly on a new, improved version, to be released whenever the monkeys get through dinking around with the source. (Lost link, will post when found)
If you're not too daring (and I'm not either these days) then you might want ot just fix the old browser you have (probably Firefox, right?) and try to hack it out for a few more months until the holy grail of browsers is released (not that that'll ever happen.)
One of the biggets problems with Firefox (and, ironically the biggest attractions) is teh extention modules. Right now, on my machine (WinXP sp2) Firefox is using (are you ready for this) 80,164 megs of memory. (Holy crap, I think that's a new record.) I have about ten open pages, in tabs. Just as many extentions installed (one of them actively running: Forecastfox). This, my frends, is a ridiculous amout of memory for a web browser. IE use to run between 12 and 20, on a bad day. Just part of the reason Firefox is so slow. One alternative (to deleting the piece of crap) is to make a new profile, one that doesn't run so many (or any) extentions. Of course, Mozilla doesn't make this step easy, but follow the directions and you might get somewhere (or, completely crash your system.) Either way, good luck; you're going to need it.
P.S. For the curious and desperate, I should post this link: Evolt's Browser Archive. You never knew there were so many, did you? ¶ 6:40 PM
