Camino 1.5 Released

[iMav]

[g5g5]

[Chris..S]

For standards compliance, try the Acid2 test.

[g5g5]

[DMXell]

Well, in terms of the first tabbed browser, that'd have to be the NeWS text editor way back in 1988, its use fits the definition. Several other browsers implemented it (less popular, like iBrowse). The first popular browser was Opera in 2000. Mozilla then adopted it in 2001.

As for the fastest browser out there, it's hard to find information on the net relating to this (that's current). Obviously if we were going for the overall fastest browser, it'd be a purely text-based one. But since we are (I think) wanting the fastest text and image browser I'll only be able to point to a mildly updated source. The browsers aren't up-to-date, though it does have Firefox 2.0, I should point out that in the article Opera is several versions old (latest is 9.21, in the article it's 9.01).

http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html#winspeed

On Linux you'll see that Opera is clearly the fastest, on Mac's Camino boots up the fastest (cold and warm start) though Opera wins out on the remaining tests (this is for Mac OS X, OS 9 is different).

Now for the most secure browser. Here I’ll point you to several Secunia reports (these are the people that find security faults and report them to the maker’s of the programs).

Mozilla Firefox 2.0.x - http://secunia.com/product/12434/
Opera 9.x - http://secunia.com/product/10615/
Safari 2.x - http://secunia.com/product/5289/
Omniweb 5.x- http://secunia.com/product/4157/
Internet Explorer 7.x - http://secunia.com/product/12366/

Here you’ll see that both Opera and Omniweb are the most secure with all of their found security flaws patched. Mozilla Firefox is the second (or is it third?) most secure from what I tested, though there may be more secure ones out there. Then Safari is the third most secure browser from what I looked at, and lastly Internet Explorer as the least secure of them all.

So, in this case Mozilla Firefox (and probably Camino, though I couldn’t find it on the list) are not at all secure with over 50% of their security flaws unpatched. Opera and Omniweb currently have zero known security flaws and are thus more secure.

Now here comes the easiest one to answer of your questions. Web standards compliance. Chris actually answered it here. Take the acid2 test (http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html). The experimental Mozilla Firefox 3 passes it, but Firefox2 doesn’t. This test is used to determine web standards compliance.

Here’s the wikipedia article. Everything on it is factual, you can test it yourself if you don’t think so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid2

As you can see Opera, Omniweb, Shirra, Safari and a few others pass it. And, like I said, the experimental Firefox version does as well, but the browsers that most people use (Firefox 2.0.x and IE 6 and 7) fail utterly.

Now here comes the hardest question to answer: browser extensions. Truth be told, I cannot find a source that tells you the sure-fire first browser to use them. However, I believe I can provide something that’ll at least show you that Firefox wasn’t the first.

This source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/browser/ext/overview/overview.asp shows that Internet Explorer 4.0 had extensions first, now to save you the trouble, Internet Explorer 4.0 was released in 1997, way before Mozilla Firefox’s time. I don’t know if Opera got them before Mozilla Firefox or not though, so this one will require your own research, I can just prove that neither were the first.

Hope I helped you, if you need anything else (information-wise) just ask.

[Chris..S]

Firefox 3.0 (Gran Paradiso) pass.

[Chris..S]

Sorry, x-post with DMXell above.

Acid2 is most likely the best test of standards compliance available. It isn't, however, complete and it doesn't take into account upcoming standards, eg. CSS3 & SVG. Both Opera and Mozilla are making big strides towards including these in their browsers (I don't know the who did what first or best).

I do know that I can find non-standard behaviour in HTML/CSS2.1 in both Opera and FF3.

Personally, for web development I find nothing beats Firefox + Firebug and Webdeveloper + Paste&Go. For web browsing I prefer to use Camino (I can't say I've noticed any real difference between C1.0.4 and C1.5). In my experience Opera is fastest. It'll display pages in an instant over connections where FF/C seem to hang for ever. However, I just don't like using Opera, I couldn't tell you why.

[Yvan256]

Clearly, what seems to come out of this discussion is this: Opera, Safari and Firefox are great browsers (not to mention other browsers based on the same rendering engines as Safari and Firefox).

Internet Explorer, not so much. I can't speak for MSIE7 however, as I don't have access to a recent Windows system.

[TyPod]

Camino used to be my favorite browser, until it slowed down considerably. I might give this update another try to see if it increased the speed on some browsing tasks.

[DMXell]

[aquaman]

[DMXell]

[TonyMontana]

Thanks for the detailed research in this matter DMXell. Very informative indeed.
_________________
MacMini 2.0GHz C2D (2009)
MacMini 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo
Dell Mini 10v *OSX 10.6.4*

[aquaman]

[DMXell]