Recently, when I wrote blogs about Internet browsers, I talked mostly about the two main browsers that have captured most of the public's interest: Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and Mozilla Foundation's Firefox.
But, there are two other browsers out there that are quite good and should receive some digital ink every now and then...Opera and Maxthon. With the release of the new version of Opera, I have decided today is that day.
Touting fast performance and new security features, Opera Software this week launched Version 8 of its Web browser for Windows and Linux. The browser is available for free download from the Opera Web site in four languages: English, German, Dutch and Polish. Additional languages will follow. Opera also released a beta edition of Version 8 for the Macintosh computer.
Key new security features in Opera 8 include a security information field that displays the trustworthiness of banking and shopping Web sites.
This field, which is automatically started when the user visits a secure site, measures security levels in a range from one to three. It also displays the site's certificate owner of record, so users can judge whether they feel secure enough to execute purchases and credit card transactions on the site. The feature aims to lower the possibilities that users will sign into a "spoofed" site that dupes them into executing fraudulent transactions that result in the theft of cash or their identity.
Opera officials claim that the browser's tight coding and speedy rendering engine make it the fastest browser in the market for loading pages and displaying text. The browser also offers fast navigation features such as providing keyboard shortcuts and giving users the option of opening all of their favorite pages at once.
The browser includes a tabbed interface to give users rapid access to navigation features. It is also highly self-contained, with no need to download extensions to gain access to special features or enhancements, according to Opera officials.
The browser also has a new voice feature that lets users surf the Web using voice commands and have the computer read documents aloud for them. The voice feature is currently offered in English only and runs on Windows 2000 and XP.
Click here to read more about the new Opera.
Meanwhile, Maxthon continues to update their browser. So far in 2005, they have updated the browser six times, which tells you they are sincere in their continued support for their product. Some are security updates while others are fixes to previous versions including speed updates. You can see the update features on their website.
One great addition is they have made their sidebar extremely functional, adding RSS feeds that allows you to add your own favorite blogs and create your own catagories. I am really enjoying this feature. As blogs are becoming a huge factor on the Internet, this is an extremely valuable addition. This is not available in Firefox yet.
But their sidebar also offers other functions such as favorite, weather for your selected cities, browsing history, and a resourse menu with several valuable functions like maps, world time zones, on-line stocks, and many more to numerous to name here. It has been fun exploring all the features that Maxthon has.
Unlike Opera and Firefox, Maxthon uses the Internet Explorer engine, which makes it subject to some of the security flaws that keep popping up in IE. But since both Microsoft and Maxthon keep addressing security issues, I have not found this to be a problem.
What is my favorite browser? I just can't answer that because I haven't figured it out yet. I like all three alternate browsers for different reasons. In fact I like all three better than I like Internet Explorer. Each has features that I love. Right now, I lean slightly more towards Maxthon because of the new features they have added, like easy access to RSS feeds.
But, the problem is that no matter which of the three alternate browsers you chose, you still need to have Internet Explorer as there are a few web sites that don't work well with anything but IE. For instance, I must write this blog in IE because I have had problems with the spell checker in the other browsers. My stock trading company also has difficulty with alternate browsers, especially when I try to run real time stock trackers.
But, since IE comes built-in to Windows, I don't find all this too much of a problem. Do you have a favorite browser? If you do, please drop me a line and let me know.
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