Web Browser Guide

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Even though other computer security applications and firewalls are meant to protect your personal information, they are not foolproof. There are many bugs in your programs that can be exploited by hackers, since incomplete software programs don’t really protect every area of your computer. In some cases, the operator error makes it easy for hackers to get into a computer. One of the easiest ways for these hackers to circumvent a firewall or other security software is to slip dangerous codes into something that you want to download. It is impossible to be 100% protected, but you can still do something to protect your computerized information from identity theft.

Opera is one of the more popular browsers today on the World Wide Web. Opera is a free and super fast web browser designed to make life on the Internet easier. Opera is a Web pioneer that delivers tabbed browsing and features lots of other innovative tricks for quick navigation including speed dial.

Why choose Opera? It is safe, powerful, secure and fully customizable. The Opera Web browser is more secure and faster than other browsers available on the market. Opera delivers a far-richer feature set than any other Web browser and offers robust security. Whether working from home, going to work, developing Web sites or looking for a solid, quick browser that can help you quickly access the Internet, Opera can deliver superior Internet experience.

Source: opera.com

As time went on many webmasters started to realize the need to take into considerations evolving smaller browsers. Fortunately, many other operating systems and alternative browsers with better security over Windows and Internet Explorer became available.
One small project which is called NetCaptor merged MDI together with tabs to come up with “tabbed browsing”. It gave way to the emergence of countless web browsers like Opera, Mozilla Firefox, Safari…to name a few. Mozilla Firefox continues to lead the pack. Safari became a huge success and is now the main browser for those using the Mac OS X. And the Opera continues to make innovations and is also gaining a grate number of followers.

Browsing on a mobile phone is akin to reading off a website from the early 90’s: text-heavy, very little images, slow, and cumbersome. This is more likely due to both your phone’s hardware and web browser. With the advent of better and more technologically capable phones, you’d expect some improvements with the browser as well. Well, here comes Skyfire to make your mobile web viewing so much better.

The new mobile browser brings the true internet (like you’d experience from your desktop or laptop computer) to Windows Mobile smartphones. Flash-advertisements, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook – any and all web-pages load in speedy fashion thanks to Skyfire’s behind-the-scenes server-magic. With integrated Flash support, animated/interactive advertisements come to life, embedded videos play in the browser, and Flash-based web-pages are finally viewable.

Available for Windows Mobile 5 and 6. It can be integrated whether your smartphone is touch or non-touchscreen. It is currently still under beta testing.

More info on this site.

Web browsers have evolved from a simple text based interface to a more complex, more enjoyable and more human appreciative experience. The incorporation of graphics, audio and movie to the capabilities of web browsers have not only made it more appealing but more so functional to the needs of the users.

With the introduction of graphical interface to web browsers, the experience of surfing the Internet finally had a different feeling than reading a book in the library. Introduction of rendering engines helped in developing more graphics based web browsers. Some of the more common web browsers are:
• AOL Explorer
• Altimit OS Web Browser
• Avant Browser
• Bento Browser (Built into Winamp)
• Enigma (super fast browser)
• Maxthon
• Slim Browser
• NeoPlanet
• NetCaptor
• Many other Internet Explorer shells
• Yahoo! Browser (or partnership browsers eg. “AT&T Yahoo! Browser”; “Verizon Yahoo! Browser”; “BT Yahoo! Browser” etc.)
• iRider
• Smart Bro
• UltraBrowser
• Mozilla Firefox (formerly Firebird and Phoenix)
• Netscape (version 6 and newer)

Source: en.wikipedia.org

Mosaic is attributed by most scholars as the reason that led to the internet boom of the 1990s. Mosaic is a software application which made the Web popularly relevant and exploded the revolution, information revolution that is. Mosaic hoped to rectify the limitations of previous web browsers that abound on the Internet. The work of Mosaic transformed the appeal of the Web from niche uses in the technical area to mass-market appeal.

This development practically opened up the Internet to the world. In particular, students from the University of Illinois made two important changes to the web browser that catapulted its appeal. The addition of graphics in addition to boring text-based software and most importantly, they ported it to the more popular Microsoft Windows operating system which was used by over 80% of computer owners worldwide.

Source: en.wikipedia.org

If you think you are using the best program to view the web, think again! You should consider innovation and security. The battle between Netscape and Internet Explorer ended by the end of the 90’s as Microsoft Internet Explorer dominated the web. But not long after, it became obvious it is not doing any good to the World Wide Web. Innovation became very minimal from 2001 through 2004. Also, not everyone patronized Internet Explorer. There are still a few die-hard users of Netscape. While those people using Linux based or UNIX operating systems don’t have the option of using Internet Explorer. And those using Macintosh, though they can use IE, they have a different version to the Windows version used by many for testing. Thus the resurgence of interest to have other choices available.

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Another good use for automation software lke Macro Expert is functional testing–that is, checking whether the functions on a website respond properly or not. You can also use macros to check whether links are alive or not. In other words, Macro Expert can do these repetitive web testing tasks at the click of a button.

A lot of firms also share their data with partners or with in-house staff and affiliates. So for instance you don’t use an online database, you can use automation software to automatically update all copies of the data once there are changes to it. If you use Macro Expert, for instance, you can just build a macro for synchronizing data files.

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Here’s one example of how you can use automation software with your browser. With Macro expert, as you navigate through the pages, you click on the links, select the buttons, or login to complete fields and pages. Macro Expert thenn identifies the objects and will build them into a macro file as you go.

Macro Expert also records web activity which can be played back later. You can then save these macros locally on your own computer your own use, or maybe share them with others by embedding them somewhere in your intranet. this could be very useful for team or workgroup environments, where you might need to access one single set of information across the network.

For example, if you’re too forgetful to remember passwords, or if you find filling forms too tedious, you can do these the first time only, and record a macro. When you need to perform these tasks again, you just replay the macros that you recorded. It’s as easy as that.

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The web browser plays an important role in the internet world. Since most people are using web applications and websites everyday, it may be necessary to automate the web browser to perform repetitive web tasks such as keying in user information, filling in forms, filling in passwords, and even accsesing your favorite sites.

Many web tasks involve writing some text informs, entering passwords, navigating through sites, and logging in to your e-mail account, and many of these are repetitive operations. Macro programs can help automate web tasks by simulating user activity. These are capable of driving a web browser, analyzing the objects that you click on, and recording what you do. An example of this tool is called Macro Expert, which we will expound on later.