Internet Explorer 7 RC1

The Good: Microsoft’s latest entry into the web browsing scene, Internet Explorer 7 Release Candidate 1 is still in the development process, but has already made leaps and bounds in progress compared to its predecessors. Microsoft has finally caught on to tabbed browsing. Also, IE 7 has integrated RSS support. Perhaps its most exciting feature is its use of algorithms, as opposed to white lists, to prevent phishing by phony sites. However, we found that this feature didn’t always live up to standards, as we were able to load several pages we knew to be harmful without any warning from IE. Otherwise, it seems as if Microsoft has finally caught on to the future of web browsing … Now it just needs to catch up.

The Bad: While all these new features are nice, they’ve been available on browsers like Firefox and Opera for quite some time now. Not to mention, both are faster and safer than IE 7. Also, IE 7 is not open-source. Therefore, there will be no nifty little extensions or widgets for IE users. All in all, IE 7 is a nice try, but we recommend moving to Opera 9.0 or Firefox as soon as possible.

Firefox 1.5

The Good: With growing popularity Mozilla Firefox 1.5 has, as of late, become a leading browser choice. This browser’s effectiveness has earned it awards such as the recent recipient of PC World’s 100 Best Products of 2006. Taking into account that Mozilla has only been around for three years it has changed the world of web browsing in strides. Firefox has an intuitive interface including tabbed browsing to control your websites with ease. Also Firefox is customizable to let you control how it looks and runs. Worried about making the switch? Firefox allows you to switch from your current browser with no effort, and all of your previous information is saved. All that and open source and RSS technology, no question this is one competitive browser.

The Bad: The pitfalls of Firefox are slim yet they do exist. Some websites don’t work with Firefox, for starters. Also, remember Firefox is new to the game and not even to its 2.0 version. So with more people latching on to Firefox more and more problems may arise that are unforeseen. Also, Firefox is capable of the same perks as Opera, but one must download extensions to get what one needs.

Opera 9

The Good: Light-years ahead of the competition, Opera’s latest release and our top pick is intuitive, stylish, open source, fast, secure and used by less than two percent of internet users (according to http://www.w3schools.com). Aside from the aforementioned features, Opera 9.0 has great intuitive features like double-clicking a word to bring up an options box with dictionary and search options, an integrated download manager (with support for BitTorrent), direct access to Google’s related pages features, password managing … the list goes on. While Firefox is capable of all of these things, Opera comes integrated with them. We also found that Opera is noticeably faster at loading pages.

The Bad: Some sites, insert frown, do not load in Opera, i.e. ebills.utm.edu, insert big frown … Other than that, there really is nothing else wrong with Opera 9.0. Other than ebills, we say if a site doesn’t load in Opera, it’s not worth going to.

Safari 2.0

The Good: Lets face it, many of us are Mac users and browser options are limited, but (Hurray!) Safari 2.0 for OS X Tiger comes to the rescue. This browser is a sleek and advanced option beyond the standard Internet Explorer. Among its impressive features, Safari offers the most current options for today’s browsers. The new standards are all there including tabbed browsing and open source. Built in to Safari is new RSS technology which makes RSS easier and faster for those who are total news junkies. Another neat little perk is the ability to archive web pages for viewing offline. The real bread winner for Safari is its unbeatable speed. Safari beats out Internet Explorer, Netscape, and Firefox when speed of browsing is concerned. Safari is integrated into Macs to allow for further use with other OS X software.

The Bad: Even with growing popularity, Macs are still not the standard in computing. This causes Safari to be limited in many ways. First, Safari cannot be used by PC users because it does not support Windows. Some web sites have issues with Safari. Most importantly, the fact that Safari is not universal makes it hard to truly get behind.