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Best Free Web Browser
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Here's a set of COMPARISON tables of the above mentioned web browsers. Here's a list of the LAYOUT ENGINES used in the browsers described across various sections in the article. |
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Introduction
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This article is divided into three sections 1) MEGA WEB BROWSERS includes the most popular, powerful and heavyweight browsers 2) LIGHTWEIGHT WEB BROWSERS includes the browsers that provides the best performance with respect to memory and CPU consumption and 3) OTHER BROWSERS includes browsers that haven't been discussed in both the above categories. Back in the early 1990s when the World Wide Web was young, there was only one web browser worth using Netscape, which had evolved from Mosaic. Then Microsoft gave us Internet Explorer and subsequently started including it with their OS. Thus began the browser wars, and IE eventually emerged as the clear winner. Since then of course there has been a virtual explosion of browsers. Some are designed to be minimalistic and others target specific users such as those majoring on social networking. There are also clones of established browsers like Firefox and Google Chrome which seek to improve on the original by being “leaner” or offering different features. When it comes to web browsers, everyone has an opinion. Every web browser will have a specific feature set that appeals to some but not to others. The criteria used for selecting browsers in this review are as follows:
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Discussion
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MEGA WEB BROWSERS
User Interface The new UI is minimalistic, pretty and polished. The tabs lie above the address bar and are easily draggable, while cycling between tabs has become lot easier. The status bar is gone, floats into view when you mouse over a link or while a page is loading. The orange Menu Bar is now squished into the top left corner, where it lets you pull down a list that gives you access to all the browser options. The home button and the dedicated bookmarks button (star to bookmark) have been shifted to the far right and the stop and reload buttons are now transformed into a single button towards the right of the location bar (ie address bar), also known as the Awesome Bar. The button goes green while you're typing into the address bar and then turns Red (Stop) while the URL is being resolved. The search box lies to the right of the location bar, and various search engines can be customized. Features If you type/select in the location bar the address of a tab which is already open, the Switch to Tab feature will let you switch straight to the open tab of interest. App tabs pins tabs as favicons in the tab bar on the far left, which glows when updated. Tab panorama organizes tabs into manageable groups that can be named, organized and edited (press Ctrl+Shift+E). The address bar has a dual function (paste&go and paste&search). Firefox Sync lets you synchronize browser bookmarks, history, passwords and even open tabs between different computers. Firefox can be personalized through add-ons and themes (Personas). Add-On manager opens up as a tab now with various options Add-Ons (popular & featured), Extensions, Appearance and Plugins; of note, the Get Add-ons tab includes a search box to call up available add ons from AMO (addons.mozilla.org). Video rendering supports Google’s WebM and the open source Egg Theora format. Manual updating is done through the About option in the Help menu. Performance, Memory Usage, Stability The new Jagermonkey javascript engine running on top of Gecko 2.0 rendering engine makes it 6 times faster than FF3. Nevertheless, FF is still a memory hog and RAM usage increases dramatically as more add-ons are used. Plugin processes are separated from the main process by plugin-container.exe, thereby providing better stability. Freezing and crashing is greatly reduced than its former version. FF4 scored 97/100 in the Acid3 test. FF4 uses Hardware Acceleration of the CPU (harnessing the power of the GPU rather than the CPU to render web page graphics) and has full WebGL and 2D experimental support. Security Minor security improvements like Content Security Policy (blocks cross site scripting attacks) and HTTP Strict Transport Security ( prevents login info from being intercepted) have been implemented. Instant WebSite ID gives users personal analytics data about websites. Do Not Track blocks websites from installing cookies. Forget This Site removes any evidence of the site on computer. The customization capability of FF is unparalleled by any browser. Though the development of FF4 was long and rough, the fruits of the work can be clearly seen in its newest version. HTML5 support, hardware accelerated graphics, improved CSS3 support, good looking fonts, 3D video, multi-touch in Win7, crash protection and FF sync are some of its features that show to the internet world who the real KING is!
If Opera Turbo was the main highlight in its earlier version, release of version 11 provides further surprises. A faster javascript engine with improved HTML 5 support, CSS3 rendering, and a one-third reduction in disk burden with respect to the last version (despite the new features) makes us WOW. Opera was one of the pioneers of tabbed browsing. Now, the introduction of Tab stacking makes working with multiple tabs a whole lot easier by letting you drag and drop tabs one over the other to create a stack. Hovering around the tabs displays thumbnail previews - a unique feature. Reopening closed tabs has been made easier thanks to a clickable bin icon in the menu bar. Visual mouse gestures allows you to perform most basic actions with a flick of the wrist, and holding down the right button brings up a visual guide. A smarter and Safer address bar hides protocol information and provides information on site security level (Ash web, Yellow secure, Green Trusted, Blue Turbo). An enhanced mail panel and newly the introduced Support for Extensions (in addition to the existing widgets framework) enables us to personalize Opera even more. A handy mention goes to the so-called 'big 3', a set of functions which makes Opera stand out from other browsers... Opera Link (merges all bookmarks across all opera browsers), Opera Turbo (speeds up page loading) and Opera Unite (share content with other Opera users). Speed dial with up to 9 dials (can be configured for more), search engine customization options, a Personal bar, notes synchronization, pop up blocking and an integrated mail client truely shows how rich a browser can be. Quick find helps users to recall the pages they visited, by typing any text of that page in the address bar. Plugins can be switched on and off to decrease page load times and increase security. Other respectable features include tab previews, newsgroups support, built in session manager, password and download manager, page zooming, Google search predictions and an inline spell checker with support for over 51 languages. Despite its promising offerings and pioneering features, Opera does not have the benefits of back up from a large organization or user community - unlike other top browsers such as IE, Safari, Chrome and Firefox.
With version 9 Chrome has three new main features. Chrome instant search loads up web pages in an instant (default switched off, check tools menu). Start typing the name of any website and Chrome instantly guesses which site you are trying to visit and opens it automatically. WebGL support - the cutting edge hardware accelerated 3D graphics - gives support and access to Google's new Chrome Web Store to find web applications and extensions for the browser. Reassuringly, the 9 security flaws of its previous version have now been dealt with. Google Cloud Print lets you print remotely to printers connected to another PC (tools -> options -> under the hood). Chrome has been always known for its impressive usability, ease of use and a clean minimalistic streamlined interface with powerful tools.The Chrome interface gives more room to the pages you are visiting. The tabs are dynamic and detachable. Hence, dragging and dropping of tabs between windows has never been easier. Since each tab exists in its own environment, when a page crashes in one tab the issue doesn't spread to the others (though memory leak seems to be a concern here). When opening a new tab you can get a visual sample of most visited websites, recently closed windows, applications & bookmarked pages. Omnibox (an all in one purpose bar for web search, history, address bar and suggestions) and Incognito window (private browsing mode) are the two major terms merged with Google Chrome. Downloads appear at the bottom of window (phew... I hate it when pop ups hit the window every time I download). The 'star' icon bookmarks a page and the 'spanner' one provides access to Chrome's controls and customization options. Both of these appear on the right. On the left, and an 'earthly' icon provides the security level information about the website you're visiting (when not using SSL, in which case a 'lock' icon appears). Chrome extensions appear only as icons to the right of the location bar, thereby maintaining a uniform look, while limiting customizability. Sidebars are not yet available. The extension, bookmark and download manager features are not so robust. Chrome provides broad search engine control and customizability. It's easy to tweak privacy settings and toggle flash plugin, inbuilt pdf reader, javascript, pop-ups etc. Chrome excels in account syncing and you can sync themes, autofill entries, extensions and bookmarks via a gmail account. Automatic updating, auto blocking of harmful websites, translation features and a pdf viewer are all baked inside the browser. Being a leader in HTML5 implementation, Chrome is surely making waves in the browser world.
Its looks didn't seem too appealing to me and lack of Aero support makes me wonder whether Apple can code right for Windows. Fast? ...Definitely, and its new Nitro javascript engine (formerly SquirrelFish) on top of Safari's WebKit engine definitely makes it feel very fast, almost one-third more than its previous version, rivalling King Chrome. Performance has been improved thanks to graphics hardware acceleration (smoothes rich media), DNS prefetching and improvements in the Nitro Javascript engine and page caching. The url bar is smarter and shows previously visited sites and top hits, as well as URLs in the history and bookmarks, but it still isn't smart enough, as Chrome provides a unified one (location bar & web search). The new tab page is vivid and presents a 3D gallery view of the 12 most visited sites and a cover flow history view. Tabs are kept below the navigation bar with forward and back buttons, location bar, search box, current page menu and preferences menu. The customization options, which add a new spicy feel, include opening into new tab, tab focus, confirmation when closing multiple tabs, and visual indicators for multi-tabs. The search box is alongside the address bar and the search engine of choice can be customized (default Google, Yahoo, Bing). Extensions in Safari are disabled by default (ever wondered right now its useless) and sandboxed (for child protection, security and scalability). Also, the browser extension framework urges developers to create extensions in html, javascript and css, and to fill forms to package and distribute them through the Safari Developer Program. The best feature yet in v5 is the Safari Reader, an adaptation of bookmarklet "Readability". Safari identifies a web page as an article by heuristics and thus presents a "reader button" in the location bar. At the bottom of the reader window the window buttons let you zoom in and out, e-mail and print. The reader actually strips out pictures and video, and we have pure scrollable text view without any ads, widgets, sidebars, header, footer in a white overlay window (note images still don't print). Safari learns which sites are your favorites and presents them under the top sites icon on the left in a cover flow navigation layout along with the history by switching tabs. The bookmarks bar brings forth "Collections" which can be customized to display by default history, bookmarks menu, RSS feeds, and imported favorites. Other features include pop up blocking, inline find, snapback (go to the first level without hitting back buttons), resizable text fields, private browsing and more. While scoring 100% in Acid3 test, surfing has been a near pleasure on Safari.
Interface Stripped down interface, clean and simple, more focus on web content now than the browser frame, with transparent top and side borders. Square edged tabs lie alongside the address bar by default (they can be moved down via the context menu). The status, menu and tool bars are all gone by default, while the button icon uses new artwork. The New Tab page opens up thumbnails of frequently visited websites (which can be disabled for privacy), with a bar showing the frequency of visits. Reopen closed tabs and previous browsing sessions with In-Private browsing is also included along with a ‘Discover other sites you might like’ icon and a Suggested Sites feature in the new tab window. The Home button with the Favourites star button (managing bookmarks) and a gear shaped Tools button (controls access to all options) lies to the upper right corner, while the back (significantly larger) and forward buttons are present to the left. Features “One Box” combines the search box within the location bar. Hence, navigation to sites and viewing of browsing history and favourites can be done in the same box. The Auto-suggest feature is turned off by default and various search providers can be customized. The new Pinned Sites feature docks sites to the taskbar (click, hold & drag tab) as favicons and custom jump lists and overlays can be provided. Multiple sites can also be added to a pinned site icon. Tab sandboxing prevents a single tab crash from taking down an entire page. In-Private browsing provides an anonymous browsing mode. The IE9 Notification Bar alerts users when visiting webpages containing insecure and secure content, and this in-turn is less intrusive by appearing at the bottom of the browser. The long awaited new Download Manager is now included. Performance, Standards and Stability Inclusion of GPU acceleration now shoves the rendering tasks to the graphics card. This especially accelerates rendering of HTML5 graphics. The new JavaScript engine Chakra is now lightyears faster than its predecessor. IE9 utilizes WebM video codec. Crashing has now been almost eliminated and the browser is highly stable. For the tabs, Hang Recovery mechanism comes into effect when a website script runs forever and Crash Recovery restores unresponsive tabs or reloads groups of tabs to the last good configuration. Add-on performance advisor provides an intuitive page which shows the time taken to load the installed add-ons while disabling unwanted ones. Security A Tracking Protection feature which blacklists bad sites auto-populates while visiting them (sites can be manually added too) and prevents the browser from downloading various tracking devices (JavaScript and pixel images). A Do Not Track feature compliments it by a header based solution, preventing advertisers from tracking your activities. The new ActiveX filter blocks all ActiveX content by default, while allowing you to activate them when needed (by toggling a ‘line crossing circle’ icon). Unsafe downloads are flagged using a reputation mechanism through the SmartScreen filter which protects users from phishing sites. Internet Explorer has now resurrected from re-cycle bins to a respectable position, earning a sweet spot in this category for the first time. IE has finally found its ground and made its best shot to stop the market erosion caused by FF and Chrome. The "yet another browser" perception tag has changed.
COMPARISON OF WEB BROWSERSIf you're really keen to compare the web browsers described above, along with tens of other browsers, you can look at the big comparison tables here (Wikipedia). Alternatively, the following tables summarize results of benchmark tests reported at Tom's Hardware website here. The main numbers in these tables are rankings from 1 to 6, where '1' is best. (The rankings for performance, efficiency and conformance were made after rounding up exact results.) The overall rankings at the foot of each table also take into account relative differences in performance in multiple tests. The browsers tested were Firefox 9, Opera 11.60, Google Chrome 16, Safari 5.1.2 and Internet Explorer 9. |
Apple's new 
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1= | 1= | 1= | 2 | 1= | |
| Youtube | 2 | 1 | 1= | 1= | 3 |
| Yahoo | 2= | 4 | 1 | 2= | 2= |
| Amazon | 2= | 1 | 2= | 3= | 3= |
| Wikipedia | 4 | 1 | 3= | 3= | 2 |
| eBay | 2= | 3 | 1= | 2= | 1= |
| craigslist | 1= | 1= | 1= | 1= | 1= |
| Huffington post | 3= | 3= | 2= | 1 | 2= |
| Tom's Hardware | 2= | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2= |
| Uncached Load Times | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| Cached Load Times | 4 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| 1st:Chrome 2nd:Safari 3rd::Firefox,Opera, Explorer | |||||
| 1st:Oper,Firefox 2rd:Safari 3rd:Chrome 5th:Explorer |
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kraken | 1 | 4 | 1 | 5 | 5 |
| Sunspider | 1 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Peacekeeper | 5 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| 1st:Chrome 2nd:Firefox 3rd:Opera 4th:Safari, Explorer | |||||
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 tab(cold) | 2= | 3= | 2= | 1 | 3= |
| 8 tab(cold) | 3 | 2= | 2= | 5 | 1 |
| 1tab(hot) | 1= | 1= | 1= | 1= | 1= |
| 8tabs(hot) | 3 | 1 | 2= | 5 | 2= |
| 1st:Opera 2nd:Explorer 3rd:Chrome 4th:Firefox 5th:Safari | |||||
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 tab | 5 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| 40 tabs | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 5 |
| 1st:Safari 2nd:Opera 3rd:Chrome 4th:Firefox 5th:Explorer | |||||
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ecma | 1= | 1= | 1= | 2 | 1= |
| Acid3 | (100) | (100) | (100) | (100) | (100) |
| HTML5 | 3 (314) | 2 (325) | 1 (344) | 4 (252) | 5 (141) |
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| -39tabs (10sec) | 5 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| -39tabs (2min) | 3 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 1 |
| 1st:Chrome 2nd:Explorer 3rd:Firefox,Opera,Safari | |||||
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| JSGameBench | 1 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 2 |
| GUIMark 2 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 5 | 2 |
| Canvas 2D | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| 1st:Explorer 2nd:Firefox 3rd:Chrome 4th:Safari 5th:Opera | |||||
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H/W acc'n stress test | 1= | 3= | 3= | 5 | 1= |
| Psychedelic browsing | 2 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 1 |
| 1st:Explorer 2d:Firefox 3rd:Chrome 4th:Opera 5th:Safari | |||||
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOM | 2= | 1 | 2= | 4 | 5 |
| CSS | 5 | 2 | 1= | 1= | 3 |
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vector Charting | 3 | 1= | 4 | 1= | 2 |
| Bitmap Gaming | 3= | 1= | 3= | 1= | 1= |
| Text Columns | 2 | 1= | 3 | 1= | 1= |
| GUIMark2 Flash | 4 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 3 |
| Flash BenchMark | 4= | 3 | 4= | 1 | 2 |
| 1st:Safari 2nd:Opera 3rd:Explorer 4th:Firefox 5th:Chrome | |||||
| Firefox | Opera | Chrome | Safari | Explorer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| GUIMark Java | 1= | 3 | 1= | 4= | 4= |
| Encog Silverlight | 2= | 1= | 3 | 4 | 2= |
LAYOUT ENGINES USED
Portable version available: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
Firefox Extensions https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions/
Gizmo's IE to Firefox Migration Guide http://www.techsupportalert.com/firefox.htm
Changing the Language Pack http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Changing+the+language+pack
Portable version: Upon setting up the program, click "Options" and select "Stand-alone installation".
Many non-English languages are supported through language files, located here http://www.opera.com/download/languagefiles/
Adblock List + Element Hiding Filters: http://www.fanboy.co.nz/adblock/opera/
Offline Installer http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?standalone=1
Portable version available http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/google_chrome_portable
Chrome Web Store https://chrome.google.com/extensions/?hl=en-US
Chrome Themes https://tools.google.com/chrome/intl/cy/themes/index.html
Safari Extensions: http://extensions.apple.com/
Help & How to's http://windows.microsoft.com/en-IN/internet-explorer/help/ie-9
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Editor
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Thank you for reading the article. This software category is maintained by volunteer editor George.J. Registered site visitors can contact me Here. |
You think, it could be improved or your favourite Web Browser is not present in the article? 
Please do post your feedback and suggestions in the comments section below. Also don't forget to rate this article 
You are welcome to join the discussion in our forum here
http://www.techsupportalert.com/freeware-forum/internet-web-apps-and-networking/
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Anupam, George informed me about that missing browser with 1/43:
Xtravo Web Browser:
http://xtravo.jawoco.com/
OK, no problem.
Have come across such browsers in the past few days.
Browzar, mentioned some comments below is one.
Another one, Wipeout was mentioned in the lightweight browsers category.
QtWeb 3.7.5 is out:
http://www.qtweb.net/qtweb.php
No significant development taking place since a long time. They have only updated the Qt Framework since last two releases. Quite disappointing.
NetGroove:
http://www.rcpsoft.net/netgroove.html
Chrome Plus is CoolNovo now:
http://coolnovo.com/
Sleipnir 3 is out.
http://www.fenrir-inc.com/us/sleipnir/
how come there is not an option to update srware iron like chrome and dragon? been using srware for a couple of days but can't figure out how to update it. if i do an over the top won't that add another 60-70 mb to my computer because it's like adding another new download of srware iron?
When you're downloading and installing a new copy of SRWare Iron, the previous files get overwritten by the new version, instead of simply adding to the earlier version, unless you're installing into a different folder directory. This means that there won't be any change in folder size.
Iron and Dragon are privacy and security enriched versions of Chrome respectively. Iron is designed to be privacy centric and is not connected to the server for downloading updates, unlike Chrome, which connects via google updator and auto-updates in the background without even asking the user. During this update process, according to their privacy policy, Google Update requests include information like:
1. whether Chrome was used in the last day
2. number of days since the last time it was used
3. total number of days that Google Chrome has been installed
4. sends a non-unique four-letter tag to Google which contains information about how you obtained Google Chrome (non-personally identifiable) and is shared with everyone who obtained Google Chrome the same way.....
The same system is also present with the extentions installed.
Everything happens silently and in the background. Even though auto-updating might be good to fix security holes as early as possible, people who are privacy centric may claim that they should be atleast notified and provided an opt-in or opt-out l in such an event.
Thanks and hope you have a good weekend! :)
Opera 11.61 released today. This is a recommended security and stability update.
Here is the download link http://www.opera.com/browser/
Sadly a little heavier in resource usage than the ultra light 11.60
http://getswiftfox.com/
http://swiftweasel.tuxfamily.org/ (it looks like the software is not being actively developed anymore).
Browser comparison table updated: Chrome 16, Firefox 9, Internet Explorer 9, Opera 11.60 and Safari 5.1.2
Does the latest version of Opera have equivalents such as NoScript, AdBlock Plus,and Better Privacy that I currently use in Firefox? Does Opera work well yet with Yahoo mail? I tried a year ago and noticed the pages did not load completely with that Opera version.
Individual choice, but works for me.. http://www.palemoon.org/
Have you found it significantly faster than the latest FF release? I did not but still liked the browser on its on merits.
No faster for me either, but its stable on my 64bit system and many of the FF add-ons work perfectly.
In all honesty, the split second differences between the many browsers means little in actual use.
NotScripts and BlockIt are Opera altenatives to NoScript addon in Firefox. NotScripts is better than NoScript in some ways, in that it has 3 types of script blocking modes but the extention is little complicated to setup than NoScript. But there are short guides for it.
For Adblocking, Opera Adblock and NoAds Advanced are Opera alternatives.
I don't use Better Privacy because I don't feel any need for it. These flash (LSO) cookies are stored at # %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\#SharedObjects\ and %APPDATA%\Macromedia\Flash Player\macromedia.com\support\flashplayer\sys\. You can delete them here or you can setup CCleaner to delete flash cookies. Here's a useful article on flash cookies, what it does and how to manage them. http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/2653-An-Introduction-to-Flash....
As for page loading, Opera 11.60 edges out Firefox 9 to take the top spot (read the comparison of web browsers in this article) for Page Load Reliability and Yahoo Mail runs smoothly on Opera. I've had no problems.
Here are my expectations for a browser, which I have yet to see satisfied:
1) Regardless of how many tabs are open there is ONLY ONE process produced. Multiplying processes by the number of tabs is a programming joke. You might as well have multiple instances of the program. You have saved very little and you burden the machine.
2) When the browser starts, all tabs from the previous session and their history (back arrow capability) are reloaded if desired.
3) If a site contains an table it can be copied and pasted into Excel or Word and is still a table.
4) It will not time out on sites telling you the page can't be loaded when it really could as shown by using either the back arrow or reload.
5) It will not take upwards of 20 seconds to load a web page even if a dozen or more tabs are open
6) It will not crash from overload, low memory, a large set of temp files or a large number of history files.
Not a single browser I can find does ALL of the above.
Very interesting browser :
Browzar : http://www.browzar.com/
Portable. But, last released on 2008. Not being developed anymore it seems, but its really interesting. Less than 250 kb! And its quite fast too!
There were rumours that this one is an adware. I hope George will take a look at it and make a final judgement.
Yes, it's been a controversial browser and computer experts have slapped hard at the browser way back during 2006 and now it has almost died down. Back then, most of these complaints were aimed at the search engine used in Browzar which was powered by Yahoo Search Marketing (previously known as Overture) that gave loads of crappy ads and sponsored results, hence labelled as "adware", but ever since, it has ditched the search engine and had struck a deal with ask.com and is now using it as it's search engine (sponsored results does appear still, the same as with other search engines but not too much like what it had with the former search engine). Other major issue was that, the default homepage cannot be changed. But by going to Tools menu it can be customized. There is no preferences panel still, and the browser is least customizable. You have to live with it, which is why I won't be using the browser.
These are my first impressions, I need to play around with it more to see if any issues surface.
I have been using Browzar for almost an hour now and read various reports on internet. Other reasons why Browzar was criticised are that the ActiveX components were downloaded and the index.dat file didn't clean up automatically when you close the browser. For your information "Index.dat" files usually store information about the web addresses and cookies of the sites you visit using Internet Explorer. But from version 2, it cleans up automatically and ActiveX components are no longer downloaded. Also some negative press was made that cookies that were opted to be remembered previously on IE was hierarchially read & displayed by Browzar. But now it "forgets" them. Also now it includes secure file deletion. The only problem for now I find is that, the search engine cannot be customized. But they say that, by typing google, ixquick etc in search bar you can still use these search engines. But hey, this is not the purpose of search bar right. What are they thinking? Except this and that the browser is compartively slow, everything else looks fine to me.
Forget about the reports on the internet. It was all about the previous version. It has all died down with the new version. I'll recommend Browzar to anyone who wants that extra bit of "privacy" without any hassles. It deletes every traces on close and doesn't require any user intervention. Browzar 2.0 is safe and good to go.
For a list of updated Browzar 2.0 Features (and also how it has listened to user feedback and implemented/corrected them with new version) as well as FAQ go to Features and FAQ
Is it the case that 'Browsar' is still being maintained/updated then? I tried it out and thought it was quite good and definitely an interesting project. It's not too much hassle to go to another search engine, and I can see uses for this.
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/gnomes-upcoming-browser-linux/
QupZilla:
https://github.com/nowrep/QupZilla
" ... QupZilla is a new and very fast QtWebKit browser. It aims to be a lightweight web browser available through all major platforms. This project has been originally started only for educational purposes. But from its start, QupZilla has grown into a feature-rich browser.
QupZilla has all standard functions you expect from a web browser. It includes bookmarks, history (both also in sidebar) and tabs. Above that, you can manage RSS feeds with an included RSS reader, block ads with a builtin AdBlock plugin, block Flash content with Click2Flash and edit the local CA Certificates database with an SSL Manager."
I am impressed by the browser. I have written a short intro about it in the forum, here :
http://www.techsupportalert.com/freeware-forum/showthread.php?p=66250
Don't know why we didn't hear of this one before. Thanks a lot Panzer.
GJ, I think you will have to include this one in your review. Its a worthy browser, and one to keep an eye on.
Interesting. Looks good. The site is actually here though :
http://www.qupzilla.co.cc/
Anupam, ESET blocked this website for me...
"Access to the web page was blocked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. The web page is on the list of websites with potentially dangerous contents." ip address: 31.170.161.238 http://www.qupzilla.co.cc/js/scriptaculous.js?load=effects,builder
http://www.qupzilla.co.cc/js/lightbox.js
http://www.qupzilla.co.cc/js/builder.js .......
Harmful javascript's present?
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