Until recently the choice of competent browsers was fairly limited, between the sublime (the rock-solid and speedy but text-only Lynx) to the ridiculous (Netscape Navigator 4.7, an improvement over earlier releases but still too crash-prone for me), but that situation is about to change radically.
Like many others, I've been waiting for ages to dump my Netscape browser, which has a 50/50 chance of freezing on any Web page containing Java. It looks like we are about to be rewarded for our patience.
The reward is not, however, the new Netscape 6. Everyone seems to have their own reason for hating it -- some for its refusal to support LDAP, some for its huge memory footprint, and some for what many call its broken interface. I have yet to read a review with more positives than negatives, and my own experience with it hasn't been great, either. Worst of my complaints is how Netscape 6 seems to want to be far more than a browser; it would completely replace your desktop environment if you let it.
Of course, unless you've been under a rock for two years, you know that Netscape 6 is based on the Mozilla open source chassis. Mozilla has been developing a fully functional browser in parallel with Netscape. Now available at Milestone 18, the pure Mozilla browser is coming along well on its own. People I've spoken with say Mozilla is more stable than Netscape 6, and it includes LDAP support as well as all of Netscape's nicer features, such as its solid adherence to HTML standards.
But to me, Mozilla wants to do too much on -- and to -- your desktop. Sorry, but I don't think we need to reinvent the wheel. Linux desktops are already plentiful and of good quality. How about something that works with an existing environment rather than trying to replace it?
Nimble browsers
Open source software invites developers to dive in to address weaknesses.
Browsers such as Galeon and
SkipStone have jettisoned
the mail-reading and page-making cruft
in favor of smaller and faster browsers that still have most of Mozilla's
browsing strengths. Rounding out this category of speedy browsers we have the Opera browser, now free, and the Links
browser (not to be confused with its predecessor Lynx), one of ZDNet's most
popular open source downloads.
Desktop integration
In the open source space, Microsoft's practice of integrating Web services
tightly into the desktop environment, rather than just sitting on top of
it, has more appeal than many would like to admit. I suspect the most
popular model to be adopted in the open source world will -- horror! --
follow in Microsoft's path.
Two examples of this model, which I'll cover more closely in a future
piece, are KDE's Konqueror and
Eazel's Nautilus. These apps
have the potential to make separate third-party Web browsers as redundant
in the open source world as they already are in the Windows world.
One thing's for certain: You have plenty of options for Web surfing. Those who like tight integration between browser and desktop can have it; those who don't have plenty of useful alternatives. And that's good -- as we've seen so often in the world of open source, one size need not fit all.
Which browser model do you prefer? Tell Evan in the TalkBack below or in the ZDNet Linux Forum. Or write to Evan directly at evan@starnix.com.
