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Microsoft: Just Say No

Where's My Flying Car?

Information Wants to be Free?

SpeedText

There is a golden rule in politically correct web design, never tell the user they are using the wrong browser. Well screw that. I'll let you off using an old shitty browser if you are disabled in some way, have terrible hardware or are running somebody else's computer. If none of those excuses apply then you need a good slapping.

Download yourself a browser that can cope with HTML 4. Today.

Here are some alternatives:

Internet Explorer is free and it works. However, it has a downside, it's a Microsoft product.

Secondly it leaves your computer wide open to abuse by unscrupulous websites. Using Internet Explorer is like screwing around without a condom. There has never been a single piece of software in the history of computing that has attracted the interests of more people with evil intent than Microsoft Internet Explorer. It is a risk you need not take.

Thirdly it recognizes Microsoft specific code that Microsoft are trying to impose on the internet against the wishes of the internet user community.

Please don't use it, for your sake and the sake of the future of the internet and free communication within our species.

The more people who use standards compliant browsers instead the healthier the internet will be. Internet Explorer is ruining the internet, don't use it. Use Firefox. Use Opera. Use a browser that puts the interest of the user ahead of the interests of a greedy corporation.

Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is free and it works better than Internet Explorer and it is less likely to be hijacked by adware and spyware. Mozilla is the power behind Netscape, you can download Firefox for free, and it really is free, no adverts, no fees, no sneaky commercial tie-ins.

Firefox is powerful and it has some great tricks that Internet Explorer lacked for a long time, especially tabbed browsing and an effective pop-up stopper. Firefox is now stable (far more stable than Internet Exploder) and has hundreds of extensions available.

I weaned my wife and daughter off the monster that is Internet Explorer in March 2005 and they are happy to use Firefox. The constant battles to remove intrusive and persistent spyware are now over.

Firefox has lots of extensions available that allow you to make it work the way you want it to work, if you see the point of them. If you use Firefox (or are considering doing so) spend some time looking at these options, they might make Firefox into the ideal browser for your special needs or whims. For example if you absolutely need stuff read out in the voice of the Muppet Show's Swedish Chef you need Firefox and/or Thunderbird.

The Google toolbar makes Firefox even more powerful with easy searching for information, news, products to buy and images. It also displays Google's PageRank and site information. Last but not least it has an excellent spell checking facility.

The Fastest Browser on Earth is the claim, I'm not sure if that is entirely true, there are super-fast text only browsers and other spartan offerings out there but this is a lightweight sportscar compared to the lumbering SUV of Microsoft Internet Explorer. Fast, safe and capable. It takes longer to load itself up than Internet Exploder because Windows preloads most of IE with Windows. Opera opens up large pages faster than Internet Explorer or Firefox.

Opera is also a good option for those people who like to keep their browsers clean, when you tell it to wipe its cache it does just that. In contrast Internet Explorer is notorious for the number of hidden files it keeps which creates a demand for cookie and cache washing programs and other forms of digital snake oil for the paranoid.

Opera can be customized with various skins to give yourself extra control. There are many special features to explore. This is the browser for the power user, or for the user of an over-stretched computer struggling to keep up, Opera runs on low specification machines that cannot run Firefox or IE 6 and demands less of your computer's hardware. Opera for Windows will run on any hardware that can run Windows 95 and up, even version 8.5 (Voice browsing option requires Windows 2000 or XP)

Version 8 has added voice browsing on top of a huge range of options. As voice control is not going to appeal to everybody it is a separate download, at 10.5 MB it is 2.8 times bigger than the rest of Opera and it will only work with systems on Windows 2000 or XP with a microphone.

This is a browser that has it all in from the start. You don't have to download a lot of extensions, although you can download skins to change the look of the browser. In the 3.7 MB download you get mail, news, chat and RSS facilities right out of the box. More facilities than a suite for less megabytes than other stand-alone browsers.

It is packed with features for a very small download size.

In September 2005 Opera became FREE for the first time, with version 8.5

Opera is the safest browser to use, it has the best track record of being safe and secure. It was my preferred browser between May 2003 and March 2005. I changed to Firefox because Opera crashed just a little too often on my old computer. The crashes were all down to Windows Millennium Edition, an unreliable operating system. My new computer does not crash so Firefox and Opera are both equally, perfectly, stable so I can compare their advantages side by side. In May 2005 I went back to Opera. Version 8.5+ is terrific. Notes and the built-in spell checking (improved) are the telling features for me. There is no safer and faster way to browse the internet and see it as it should be seen. And now you can download Opera (in next to no time) and use it for free.

Opera 9 is better again with more additional features to make browsing easier. Opera is a mature, stable and fast browser.

Other great browsers are available (and plenty of crap ones)

Netscape

Download the latest Netscape browser from here. Version 7 of Netscape was a good browser, HTML 4.01 compliant, but there was a drawback, it was a commercially motivated browser that is free to the user, so there were subtle and not-so-subtle features built in to the software that served the interests of the Netscape Corporation rather than the user. Netscape 7 is based on Mozilla software but with a more commercial slant to it. Netscape 8 has just been launched, I'm not tempted, it looks very slick and very commercial, Republicans and Conservatives will probably love it. It seems to offer lots of new and profitable ways for the corporate world to interface with the user. If you have Internet Explorer set up with two or more 3rd party toolbars and you don't see why people have a need to badmouth AOL then Netscape 8 will probably be a great browser for you. OK you're sucking up to a US-based mega-corporation, but at least it isn't the one with the most obvious plan to take over the world. Well, at least it isn't the one that might actually succeed if we're not careful.

Earlier versions of the Netscape browser belong in museums, if I'm feeling charitable.

What's the problem with Netscape 4?

Is there anything right with it? You can't see any problem with having a twentieth century browser? If you use Netscape 4 you use the internet at your own risk. Web designers have given up on accommodating its many quirks, defects and shortcomings. If you use Netscape 4 and a web page doesn't work or doesn't look right then it is almost certainly your problem. Netscape 4 was never compliant with agreed international standards in the first place. Now so few people use it that it is quite unreasonable to expect web designers to care a damn about its users and their self-inflicted problems. That's just the way the cookie gets stomped on and ground into the carpet.

Netscape 4 is roadkill on the information superhighway.

K-Meleon

A very fast open source Windows browser based on the same Gecko layout engine as Firefox. Ideal for those with limited system resources, it is lighter and faster than Firefox. Ideal for those for whom Firefox is just too mainstream. Über geek chic.

Mac Options

Users of Macs have a wide choice of decent happy browsers: Netscape, Firefox, Opera and Mozilla suite all come in Mac flavour and in addition there is Mozilla Camino and Safari.

So many options, there's no excuse to use Netscape 4 or Internet Explorer! Be part of the solution.

Nobody owns the internet: make sure it stays that way.