a new front opens in the browser wars

the browser wars go back a long time. originally, the first graphical browser was mosaic (1993-1997). another web browser, based on mosaic, was the next entry to the market, called netscape navigator (1994-2007). then in 1995 came another web browser also based on mosaic, called microsoft internet explorer. all 3 of these web browsers were cross-platform, running on windows, mac os, and unix (although version 5 of microsoft internet explorer was the last cross-platform version and newer versions only work on microsoft windows). mosaic was the first browser to dominate the market, but its market dominance fell to netscape by the end of 1994. netscape had a few years of dominance, eventually being overtaken by microsoft internet explorer in 1998. after netscape lost its dominance, it got bought out by aol (america online), which later acquired time warner to become aol time warner in 2001, and then the company was renamed time warner in 2003 when aol became unpopular among investors. anyway, since 1998, internet explorer has dominated the web browser market, as it still does to this day. when internet explorer 7.0 came out, it was rebranded from microsoft internet explorer to windows internet explorer.

something else happened in 1998, though. netscape created the mozilla organization to develop a new web browser, which would be based on a technology code-named “gecko”. later on the mozilla organization became the mozilla foundation and now the mozilla foundation has a for-profit subsidiary, the mozilla corporation. what is this mozilla project all about? well, basically they started out with netscape 4, took out everything that could not legally be open-source, and made it open-source as the mozilla suite, so that they could have lots of programmers from all over the world work on it for free and not have to pay anybody. netscape made official releases of its netscape browser that were basically just the mozilla suite with a few minor changes, mostly branding it all netscape, starting with netscape version 6 (they skipped version 5 because they thought version 6 was so much better than 4). the mozilla suite lasted from 1998 to 2006. it was discontinued in 2006 because of the remarkable success of its successor project, mozilla firefox, which was first started in 2002 under the name mozilla phoenix, then all the releases in 2003 were called mozilla firebird, and in 2004 it was finally renamed to mozilla firefox permanently and got its first official (non-beta or alpha) release, version 1.0. firefox is now the favorite browser for most tech-savvy users because of all the firefox extensions that make it more powerful than any other browser. there are other mozilla-based browsers still being made (although both netscape and the mozilla suite were discontinued): seamonkey is the semi-official continuation of the mozilla suite, flock is a social-networking-oriented browser based on firefox, camino is a mac os x browser based on firefox that aims to integrate with the mac environment, and there are several others such as epiphany and k-meleon.

another great browser besides mozilla firefox is opera, which was first started as a research project in 1994 by a telecom company in norway, and branched off into its own company, opera software asa, in 1995, still to this day based in norway. their first public release was in 1996, version 2.0, and they have made tremendous progress since then; for instance, they were the first windows browser to pass the acid2 test, and opera has always been faster than internet explorer or any of the netscape/mozilla-type browsers, as well as using less memory and cpu time and less hard disk space, all while having the most features built-in. however, opera lacks the ability of mozilla firefox to have extensions, and not as many web sites work with opera for the simple reason that opera’s market share is not large enough for web developers to care about making their sites work with opera. despite these difficulties, opera has persevered over the years and always managed to have a very innovative web browser that is ahead of the curve in many ways.

another web browser that has been quite influential is also little-known. konqueror is the default built-in web browser for linux’s k desktop environment, or kde, which is free and open-source. development on konqueror began in 1996. the rendering engine modern versions of konqueror are based on, khtml, was first introduced to the public in konqueror 2.0, which came as a part of kde 2.0 in the year 2000. khtml is faster than the gecko rendering engine used by netscape/mozilla-type browsers, which is faster than the trident rendering engine used by internet explorer. apple inc. (makers of apple computers, mac os x, ipods, iphones, etc.) decided to make its own web browser for macs and so they developed an open-source modified version of khtml called webkit, and released a web browser based on webkit called safari in 2003. starting with mac os x version 10.3, safari came as a standard part of the operating system and the default web browser. in 2007, apple released a version of safari for microsoft windows that only supports windows xp and newer versions, after porting all of webkit to windows xp. and yesterday, on september 2, 2008, google released a web browser of its own called google chrome, based on apple’s webkit, which in turn is based on konqueror’s khtml. currently google chrome only exists for windows xp and newer versions, but google is planning on also releasing it for mac os x and linux. google challenges all the other players in the market with its new browser, although i will personally be sticking with mozilla firefox for all my day-to-day use.

so, what modern browsers are available nowadays? here is a list of most of them, from most recently updated to least recently updated:
google chrome - version 0.2.149.27, released september 2, 2008, for windows xp or higher
flock - version 1.2.5, released august 29, 2008, for windows 2000 or higher, mac os x, and linux
windows internet explorer - version 8.0 beta 2, released august 27, 2008, for windows xp or higher
opera - version 9.52, released august 20, 2008, for windows 95 or higher, mac os x, linux, freebsd, and solaris
camino - version 1.6.3, released august 7, 2008, for mac os x
konqueror - version 4.1.0, released july 29, 2008, for linux, freebsd, solaris, and mac os x
mozilla firefox - version 3.01, released july 19, 2008, for windows 2000 or higher, mac os x, and linux
seamonkey - version 1.1.11, released july 15, 2008, for windows 2000 or higher, mac os x, and linux
safari - version 3.1.2, released june 30, 2008, for windows xp or higher and mac os x

and what is so great about google chrome? well here is a neat comic strip about it. basically it is designed like a multi-tasking operating system so if one web page crashes or a plugin on a web page crashes, it does not take down the rest of the web browser with it. maybe someday i might switch to it as my primary browser. but i am doing just fine with mozilla firefox and all my extensions that make it more powerful than any other browser. google chrome is too simple for me: there are no menus at the top, and i hate that. windows vista, office 2007, and internet explorer 7 all introduced the dubious new “feature” of not having menus at the top, making them much less usable. i am not pleased to see google following that bad example set by microsoft. menus are needed for the user to be able to control what is going on, and almost all web browsers have plenty of menus for doing just that. hopefully google is going to add in more menus and features later. it is true that google chrome is amazingly fast compared to other web browsers, possibly even the fastest one out there. but that is not really my main concern as a customer. my main concern is functionality and mozilla firefox is still #1 in that regard by a huge margin, with all the firefox extensions out there to add on capabilities. but i am sure plenty of people will start using google chrome as their primary web browser anyway, since they have other priorities.