WAR OF THE BROWSERS

While the new IE 8 claims to pack new features, it will not take too long for Firefox to release an add-on with the same features. And with Chrome and Firefox in the open source domain, they will still retain the customisation advantage over IE 8. With the two new releases and Firefox’s ever-growing popularity, the browser wars have just reloaded.

INTERNET EXPLORER 8
Downloading and installation: The 15.9 mb IE 8 setup file download took around 22 minutes on a 256 kbps broadband Internet connection after which it took a while longer to instal. IE 8 first scans for malicious software and then requires some update downloads and finally a systems restart for the user to begin surfing the web. Strangely enough, if express settings are used during the installation, IE 8 sets up Google as the preferred search engine and not Microsoft’s own Live search.
New features: IE 8 does not seem different from the earlier IE 7 user interface, but packs some new features including colour-coded tabs, activities, webslices, improvised phishing protection and new malware protection, a new favourites bar, automatic crash recovery and ‘in private’ browsing. Thankfully, IE 8 comes bundled with an “emulate IE 7” feature, which helps render pages as IE 7 does, as several pages are not yet capable of rendering pages for IE 8.
Colour-coded tabs: These improve the overall customer experience by inter-relating web pages. If you click on a link on one page, a new tab will open up right next to it and both tabs will be of the same colour, allowing users to easily identify the pages they are viewing. The new favourites bar is a one-stop access to not only the favourite links, but RSS feeds and webslices as well.
Webslices: This is by far IE 8’s best gift to the Net. As the name implies, a webslice is a piece of a website, which once subscribed to appears on the favourties bar. In essence, Webslices allows users to subscribe to content within a particular website, much like feeds. IE 8 automatically keeps track of the subscribed slices within a page and updates the information on the favourites bar on top of the browser.
Activities: Another innovation is the Activities or Accelerators feature, which adds to the IE 8 advantage. Activities gives users immediate information about online services that they use the most, be it maps, blogging or online searches. For example, if a user comes across a useful bit of information in Wikipedia, just highlight the text, right click and immediately blog the entry. The tool even allows users to immediately translate the highlighted text or get a definition from an encyclopaedia or dictionary.
Enhanced security: The IE 8 also boasts of improvised phishing filters and malware protection. While version 8 comes fully equipped with a safety filter to prevent phishing, the version also includes malware scanning, in which IE 8 actively scans a downloading webpage for malicious and harmful content. Here, IE 8 throws up a warning pop up where a user can either block the threat or allow it.
Crash recovery: Microsoft has adopted the recovery feature from Firefox, dubbed automatic crash recovery. Unlike Firefox, in which the whole browser crashes and is then recovered, in IE 8 only the misbehaving tab crashes.
In private: Finally, IE 8 has added an ‘in private’ browsing option, which allows reasonably anonymous surfing. In this mode, IE 8 suspends browsing history, cookies and other identifying information. The feature is particularly useful when surfing in an Internet café or on a public network.

GOOGLE CHROME
Trust Google to first announce its new browser on the Google blog and then bring out a comic book, albeit technical, about the browser’s features and why Google has ventured into the realm of browsers.
Downloading and installation: The download file is a measly 474 kb and takes just a couple of minutes to download on a 256 kbps connection. As the installation begins, Google automatically downloads additional information from the Internet and sets up the browser on the desktop, all within 10 minutes. However, Chrome is now available only for Windows; Mac and Linux versions are expected soon.
New Features: The Google blog claims their idea was to develop from scratch a new web browser which is adapted to handle the needs of surfing the web in the present and is based on current application needs. Though most features seem “borrowed” from Firefox, Chrome comes with its own new features to boot.
Omnibox: Chrome merges the address and search bars into a single entity christened the Omnibox. The Omnibox not only contains suggestions for URLs, but also includes auto complete search suggestions from Google.
Downloads: Each download is loaded in the bottom of the webpage itself. No need to select specific folders as they are all saved in a separate folder in My Documents. Just click on the download icon to access the files.
More real estate
The most striking feature of Chrome is the enlarged cyber real estate space. Chrome does away with traditional browsers and sports a Spartan look, which does take some time to get used to. The tabs have been pushed right to the top of the page, with just an address bar below that and only the web page below. It reminds one of surfing in IE or Firefox in full screen mode. Chrome also bumps off all toolbars and menus seen in other browsers and just maintains two inconspicuous icons next to the address bar.
New tab design: The tab design is the most striking feature in Chrome. Here, each tab behaves as its own browser and each tab comes with its own menus and toolbars. Also, similar to IE 8’s colour coded tabs, Chrome places related tabs next to each other. Users can also play with the position of the tabs, move them around and even expand them to new windows. Moreover, everytime you open a tab, the frequently visited sites are displayed in a speed dial format.
Speed: With a special emphasis on speed, Chrome boasts of a new Java script virtual machine called V8. According to Google, existing Javascript machines were designed for smaller programs where performance was not too important. However, realisation that web applications now use a browser’s capabilities to the fullest, led to the invention of V8. Speed tests show Chrome is as quick as Firefox and leaves IE lagging way behind.
Desktop icons: A feature that exists only on the Mac-oriented Safari browser, the shortcuts option in Chrome allows users to create desktop, quick launch and start menu shortcuts.
Incognito: Similar to IE 8’s ‘in private’ browsing, Chrome allows users to surf the web anonymously. Interestingly, the incognito gives users the feeling of doing something clandestine as the window is darker and has a detective-like character in the top-right corner of the browser.
Task manager: The task manager allows the user to view what process is using how much memory to optimise performance. Also, in the event of a crash, the user can shut down the quirky tab through the Chrome task manager and not affect the other open tabs. To preserve Chrome’s stability, Google opens a separate process for each tab in the Windows task manager and an additional process to control the other processes.
Whether Chrome is a serious venture to up the competition in browser market or just another of Google’s experiments to test the playing field is anybody’s guess, but within just a few days of its release, Chrome is already shining.