Web Browsers act as the window for all of us to access the entire web arena. Coming in new shapes clubbed with exciting features they have come of age from being just simple browsing tools to smart browsers. There are many browsers available from the likes of Microsoft, Google, Mozilla and more. Some most popular web browsers are:
Many players in market but IE is still leader in markeshare. Internet Explorer was developed by Microsoft and was the default browser in all the machines powered by Windows from the year 1995. From the year 2002 to 2003, Internet Explorer reached its peak by being the browser for 95% PCs across the globe. Today Internet Explorer has a market share range starting from 16.7% to 32.31% in different parts of the world.
Mozilla Firefox is an open source and free web browser that was developed for systems powered by Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. The browser has been developed by the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation. It is the 3rd most widely used browsers worldwide with a reach of 25%. It is much more popular in the countries like Poland, Germany and Indonesia.
The web browser Google Chrome was developed by Google and is a freeware. The first stable release of Google Chrome was in the year 2008 and as of now it is the most widely used browser accounting to 32.76% of worldwide usage. It is a secure, stable and fast browser with a wide variety of unique features.
4. Apple Safari
Apple developed the web browser named Safari mainly for the iOS and Mac OS X operating system. However it is also available for other operating systems now. It works on almost everything like iPod Touch, iPhone, iPad, Pc and Mac. It attracts a web mobile traffic of 62.17% and has a market share of 8.72%. It is fast, secure and even helps in checking spelling and grammar.
5. Opera
Opera Software is the developer of the web browser and the Internet Suite named Opera. Over the globe 270 million users use this free web browser on the personal computers or mobiles. Apart from its popularity as a desktop browser, the Opera mini browser used in mobiles, has gained huge popularity and is by default used in several handsets.
6. Maxthon
The freeware Maxthon web browser also known MyIE2 is basically for Microsoft Windows and is also available for the Android devices in the name of Maxthon Mobile. The latest version i.e. Maxthon 3 supports WebKit as well as Trident rendering engines. It has been the top scorer on HTML5Test.com where web browsers are ranked on the basis of related and standard specifications along with the support they come with.
7. Konqueror
Konqueror is a web browser as well as a file manager which comes with file viewer functionality for local files. It also checks the files that are in disk image and files on remote ftp servers. It can run on operating systems similar to UNIX and even on Windows operating systems. KHTML is the layout engine of Konqueror and considered to be an integral part of KDE desktop environment.
8. Seamonkey
SeaMonkey is basically a cross platform open source Internet suite that is absolutely free. It has many components like a web browser, news client program, an email, IRC client and HTML editor. It is regarded as a community driven effort to develop an internet application suite that has all the features.
9. Rockmelt
RockMelt developed by Eric Vishria and Time Howes is a social media web browser which is available for free. It supports both the operating systems Windows and Mac OS X. It integrates a surfing technique that focuses on social media and Google search. It is a part of the cross-platform web browsers family and uses the WebKit layout engine.
10. Camino for Mac
Camino is a GUI based, free and open source web browser designed for the users of the Mac OS X operating system. Aqua user interface is used by Camino and integrates variety of services related to Mac OS X and lots of other features like Bonjour or Keychain.
11. Lunascape
Lunascape Corporation based in Tokyo, Japan developed the web browser named Lunascape. The Lunascape web browser supports three rendering engines which are Trident, Webkit and Gecko. It is possible for the users to switch seamlessly between the different rendering engines. The company was launched in the year 2008 and is currently located in Sunnyville, California.
12. Slimbrowser
FlashPeak introduced the web browser known as Slimbrowser which uses the rendering engine Trident by Microsoft Corporation. It boasts of a wide range of features like form filler, in-built pop-up killer, hidden sites, auto login, online transaction, URL Alias etc. The multi-process architecture of the browser helps in improved performance and stability.
13. Avant Browser
This freeware web browser developed by Anderson Che supports the rendering engine, Trident and is feature-rich, ergonomic making it much more flexible than Internet Explorer. It can be run on all operating systems above Windows 2000 and its latest version supports the Gecko rendering engine. It can be found in 41 different languages whereby the today download has surpassed the 22.5 million mark.
14. Omniweb For Mac
Developed and marketed by Omni Group, OmniWeb is a proprietary web browser. It is only available for the Mac OS X operating system. It is free and instead of WebCore it uses the custom WebKit version. It supports universal binary style sheets that are user defined improvements in ad-blocking.
Since these days most people rely on the internet for their business as well as personal needs, the web browser definitely plays a major part. With the advancement of technology we can expect more developed and enhanced browsers to enter the market.
