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Web 2.0: The ‘other’ Web browsers

Matt Hewitt,
Grand Central Magazine

Safari sports a very clean, unobtrusive user interface. The toolbars take up minimal room and the status bar is hidden by default. The browser is gray in order to put the emphasis on the page it is displaying. If you are accustomed to the Mac user interface, Safari will feel very familiar. Photograph by Matt Hewitt
(Click here for more images.)

Flock 2.0

Flock specializes in social networking, media, and Web mail services. The browser integrates with over 20 different sites, including Facebook, Flickr, Digg, YouTube, Twitter, Pownce, Yahoo Mail, and Gmail.

The best thing about Flock 2.0 is that it is based off the Firefox 3.0 code, so all of the basic features of Firefox 3.0 – including the updated smart location bar, password manager and favorites system – are there to be used.

Switching to Flock 2.0 is also made easy by importing your favorites, passwords and Web history.

People sidebar

The people sidebar appears on the left side of the screen, showing contacts and friends that you’ve acquired through various social media sites.

An example: if I visit Facebook, all of my Facebook friends appear in this sidebar, and I am able to interact with them in the sidebar as well as view their status updates. I can drag URLs or photos I have found on the Web to a friend's name to share it with them; or with just one click, I can view my friend's photos.

The sidebar works similarly for other social services, with features tailored to the specific site. When log into Flickr, I can view people’s photo streams; and when logged into Twitter I am able to send messages and post links.

Media bar

The media bar appears toward the top of the screen, below the location bar. Its main function is to display photo and video feeds from different media sharing services such as Flickr, YouTube, Picasa and Photobucket.

From this bar, you e-mail videos or photos; or use the integrated blogging software to write about them. This feed also can show Digg news stories. When your friends upload photos, or when Digg or YouTube feeds get updated, the media bar button will glow orange to let you know there is new content to view.

Mail

Flock offers integration with Yahoo Mail, Gmail and AOL Mail. This allows you to easily share Web pages with your mail contacts, check for new messages or compose a new message.

Clicking the mail button will give you quick access to your most recent new mail arrivals in your inbox, and will also glow orange when you receive mail.

Opera has many of the same features of other popular browsers, including popup-blocking capabilities, a quick search bar and a tabbed interface. Photograph by Matt Hewitt
(Click here for more images.)

Blog editor

Flock features a blog editor that can be integrated with a LiveJournal, Blogger or Xanga account. It can also be integrated with a self-hosted blog.

With the blog editor, you can post new entries, insert photos as well as save drafts. The blog editor features a check-as-you-write spell-checker and offers suggestions by right-clicking on the word that is underlined.

Web clipboard

The Web clipboard opens in a sidebar and is a place to temporarily store photos, URLs and text. When browsing the Internet, people tend to bookmark every interesting page they come across, or copy and paste text and links into a text editor to read at a later time.

The clipboard allows you to easily drag and drop these things into a sidebar so that you don’t have to have research scattered across your computer. The clipboard integrates with the afore-mentioned blog editor so that you can post things that you've previously stored.

Photo uploader

The photo uploader is a mini-application that allows you to upload photos to several different photo Web services. The uploader supports dragging and dropping, as well as cropping and tagging. Based on the service you’re uploading them to, you can choose to add a description, make them public or private, or tag your friends in them.

My World

“My World” is the customizable default homepage in Flock.

Once you begin adding services to the browser, the homepage displays status updates from your friends; video streams from YouTube; photo streams from Facebook, Picasa and Flickr; as well as a list of your favorite RSS feeds.

Safari

Safari is a Web browser created by Apple Inc. It is the default browser in OS 10.3 and greater. It is also the only Web browser included with the iPhone.

In 2007 a Windows version was released. Safari includes all of the basic features found in the present generation of Web browsers, including a tabbed interface, password manager, auto-complete and a search toolbar. In addition, Safari has the following to offer:

Clean Mac-like user interface

Safari sports a very clean, unobtrusive user interface. The toolbars take up minimal room and the status bar is hidden by default. The browser is grey in order to put the emphasis on the page it is displaying. If you are accustomed to the Mac user interface, Safari will feel very familiar.

Fast JavaScript execution

JavaScript execution is twice as fast on Safari as it is on Firefox and Internet Explorer, according to Apple. This means that complex Web pages with lots of Java content will open faster. Apple also claims that Safari opens regular Web pages twice as fast.

The best thing about Flock 2.0 is that it is based off the Firefox 3.0 code, so all of the basic features of Firefox 3.0. Photograph by Matt Hewitt
(Click here for more images.)

Color management and font rendering

Safari features unique color management and font rendering technologies. Fonts look ultra bright and crisp on the screen, and colors tend to look better in Safari than in standard Web browsers. Some find that fonts look a little too bold, but I think the font rendering makes Web pages easier to read.

Opera 9.5

Opera has many of the same features of other popular browsers, including popup-blocking capabilities, a quick search bar and a tabbed interface. But there are a few things that make Opera unique.

Speed dial

Speed dial is a customizable homepage that is divided into nine squares, each with their own visual link to a Web site you use most often. With one click, you can visit your favorite Web site. These squares can be changed to any Web site you want.

Mouse gestures

Opera features mouse gestures, a unique way of browsing the Web with as few clicks as possible. Rather than clicking the backward, forward or refresh buttons, you just click and drag your mouse to the left to go backwards, or to the right to go forwards. These shortcuts are customizable, so you can use whatever gesture is most comfortable for you to browse the Web.

Widgets

Opera includes its own widget system, comparable to the sidebar gadgets in Windows Vista, Google desktop search gadgets, or OS X’s Dashboard widgets.

Widgets are mini-applications that can be programmed to do simple things such as show you the current time, display a mini to-do list or display how much hard drive space is left on the computer.

Opera’s widgets will float on the desktop as long as the browser is open. Unfortunately, when the browser is closed, so are the widgets. Each widget is also listed as a separate program on the Windows taskbar, which can be cluttered if you download too many of them.

Bit Torrent

Opera includes a mini BitTorrent application. This is useful when trying to download a torrent file. Both torrents and regular file downloads can be paused and started at a later time. It is also possible to download multiple files at the same time, as well as a single file from multiple sources.