What are good browsers for OS X and higher on MacBook (Pro)?

Question

I might've asked this one before. But due to recent Netscape problems, (and no one answering the question), I'm getting my MacBook next week instead of three weeks from here. I'm just doublechecking to make sure. Shall I get Firefox or Mozilla or other browsers like them and forget about IE's and Netscape's latest updates? Let me know. I hope this would fix all of my Internet problems, and offline problems, including being able to use the Edit Bar, next week? I won't divulge a list of problems I've had with this computer here, even if it's not too long. So let me know. The more the merrier of a list of browser gives the winning answer 10 points.

Answer 1

There are no OS X versions of Netscape or IE anymore.

Available alternatives:

- Mozilla Firefox (-> http://www.mozilla.com ) - cons: User interface doesn't integrate overly well (yet) with Mac OS X
- Camino (-> http://www.caminobrowser.org ) - basically Mozilla Firefox with a user interface explicitly written for Mac OS X.
- Safari - comes with Mac OS X.
- OmniWeb (-> http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omniweb ) - commercial browser, uses the WebKit engine Safari uses as well
- iCab (-> http://www.icab.de ) - made by a small German company.
- Opera (-> http://www.opera.com )

Answer 2

I like Apple's own Safari browser best. After that, Firefox is good. I've just downloaded Camino to check it out, seems okay so far. Opera's not too bad. IE's not available for Mac any more, nor is the latest version of Netscape last time I checked.

I'd say I've had most trouble in the past when I used either IE or Netscape, so even if they are available I wouldn't bother with them.

Answer 3

Safari

Answer 4

AT TOP NO.1 > MAXTHON,
WHICH EVEN I ALSO USE!

Maxthon (formerly MyIE2) (pronounced "max-ton") is a freeware browser. From its early MyIE2 roots, Maxthon has developed a growing user base and has recently (early 2006) received commercial backing for its upcoming version Maxthon 2.0, currently in beta. It uses Trident, the same layout engine used by Internet Explorer as its default layout engine, but can use the Gecko technology used in Mozilla Firefox as well.

Maxthon seeks to provide many rich features, but without losing any of the compatibility of Internet Explorer. Maxthon offers many enhancements over Internet Explorer. However, if used with the Trident layout engine, it is subject to the advantages and disadvantages of that engine such as security vulnerabilities, although it has more security tools than Internet Explorer. [1]

In January of 2006, Maxthon Developers partnered with Microsoft in its booth at the Consumer Electronics Show, where they announced that Maxthon is compatible with the U3 standard for USB flash drives.

Contents
1 Features
2 Future of Maxthon
3 See also
4 External links




Features
Maxthon offers many features, some listed here:

More memory efficient than MSIE[citation needed]
Tabbed document interface
Programmable mouse gestures
Automatic updating service named MaxUpdate
Saves any open tabs in case of program shutdown or system crash
Undo for any tabs accidentally closed for up to 16 tabs
AD Hunter - an ad-blocking utility that blocks pop-ups, banners, and float ads in webpages, beside the ability to make an exception list or a black list of any URL.
Flash & ActiveX blocker
Customisable tab and interface - tabs may also be locked to prevent snooping and/or accidental closure
External utility bar - a toolbar that allows you to open third-party programs
Skinnable
RSS reader
Supports many Internet Explorer plugins as well as Plugins of its own
Partial Gecko engine support with the use of a third-party program
A search toolbar with 8 different search engines (user extendable)
Groups - the ability to bookmark & open multiple pages simultaneously. The contents of a group cannot be opened independently of one another and is more useful for bookmarking pages on a selected topic (eg Research)
URLs aliases' feature - open URLs by just a word in the address bar.
Simple collector - a small notepad-like utility, used to collect any text from webpages. You can customize the font and the background, also the transparency level of its window. You can also write scripts in it and run them in the current webpage
Integrated web services - user extendable but default includes translators, Google's cached version of pages, Whois and anonymous web proxies.


&

NO.2 MOZILLA

Historically, Mozilla had been used internally as a codename for the Netscape Navigator web browser from its beginning. It was a contraction of Mosaic killer, referring to the hope that the project would unseat Mosaic as the web's most popular browser, and making reference to the name of the fictional monster Godzilla.


Mascot of Netscape
Mozilla was the mascot of the now-disbanded Netscape Communications Corporation, formerly called Mosaic Communications Corporation. Initially, the mascot took various forms, including that of a helmeted astronaut or "spaceman", but the eventual choice of a Godzilla-like lizard was no doubt thought to go well with the Godzilla-like name. It was designed by Dave Titus in 1994.

Mozilla was featured prominently on Netscape's website in the company's early years. However, the need to project a more "professional" image (especially towards corporate clients) led to it being removed. Mozilla continued to be used inside Netscape, though, often featuring on T-shirts given to staff or on artwork adorning the walls of the Netscape campus in Mountain View.

When Netscape acquired the website directory NewHoo in 1998, they rebranded it the Open Directory Project with the nickname "dmoz" (Directory of Mozilla) due to its similarity to the Mozilla project. An image of Mozilla was placed on every page of the site, which remains the case today, despite Netscape's disbanding after its acquisition by AOL.


Part of user agent string of many browsers
Main article: User agent string
When users visit a website (via a user agent such as a web browser), a text string is generally sent to identify the user agent to the web server. It is known as the "user agent string". The Netscape web browser identified itself as "Mozilla/" followed by some information about the operating system it was running on.

Because the Netscape browser initially implemented many features not available in other browsers and quickly came to dominate the market, a number of web sites were designed to only work, or work fully, when they detected an appropriate version of Mozilla in the user agent string. Thus, competing browsers began to emulate (cloak or "spoof") this string in order to also work with those sites. The earliest example of this is Internet Explorer's use of a user agent string beginning "Mozilla/ (compatible; MSIE ...", in order to receive content intended for Netscape, its main rival at the time of its development. This format of user agent string has since been copied by other user agents, and persists today even though Internet Explorer has come to dominate the browser market.



Mozilla project
[edit]
Mozilla Foundation
Main article: Mozilla Foundation
"Mozilla" is sometimes used to refer to the free software / open source software project that was founded in order to create the next-generation Internet suite for Netscape. The Mozilla Organization was founded in 1998 to create the new suite. On July 15, 2003, the organization was formally registered as a not-for-profit organization, and became Mozilla Foundation. The foundation now creates and maintains the Mozilla Firefox browser and Mozilla Thunderbird email application, among other products. The Mozilla trademark is held by the Mozilla Foundation as of 2006.


Mozilla Corporation
Main article: Mozilla Corporation
On August 3, 2005, Mozilla Foundation announced the creation of Mozilla Corporation, a wholly-owned for-profit taxable subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation, that will focus on delivering Firefox and Thunderbird to end users. It will also oversee marketing and sponsorship of the products.


Mozilla Application Suite
Main article: Mozilla Application Suite

Mozilla 1.7.8 displaying Wikipedia's main pageIn March 1998, Netscape released most of the code base for its popular Netscape Communicator internet suite under an open source license. The name of the application developed from this was named as Mozilla, as it was used as the codename of the original Netscape Navigator. After a series of lengthy pre-1.0 cycles, Mozilla 1.0 was released on June 5, 2002.

The suite was well known as the open source base of the Netscape suite (versions 6 and 7), and its underlying code base (most notably the Gecko layout engine) became the base of many standalone applications, including the Mozilla Foundation's flagship products Firefox and Thunderbird. To distinguish the suite from the standalone products, the suite is often marketed as "Mozilla Suite", or the more lengthy "Mozilla Application Suite".

The Mozilla Foundation no longer maintains the suite, so that their developers can focus on Firefox and Thunderbird. The suite has been unofficially superseded by SeaMonkey, an Internet suite developed by the Mozilla community that is based on the source code of the Mozilla Suite.


A collective name for all Mozilla-based browsers
For simplicity, the word Mozilla is often used to refer to all Mozilla-based browsers. For example, when it is said that a website is usable by Mozilla browsers, it means that it is usable by Mozilla Suite, Firefox, Camino, Netscape 6, etc. In some older Internet statistics programs, the term "Netscape 5.x" is incorrectly used to refer to these browsers because the user agent string starts with Mozilla/5.0.

Mozilla application framework
Main article: Mozilla application framework
The term "Mozilla" is also used to refer to the Mozilla application framework, a cross-platform application framework for writing applications that can run on multiple operating systems. It consists most notably of the Gecko layout engine, but also the XUL user-interface toolkit, the Necko networking library, and other components. This is the core that all Mozilla-based browsers and applications are built from.


Mozilla codebase
Source code for Mozilla software projects such as Firefox, Thunderbird, and XULRunner are managed collectively in a single CVS repository. This large codebase is referred to as the Mozilla codebase, the Mozilla source code, or just "Mozilla".

The Mozilla codebase was originally released under the Netscape Public License. The license was updated to version 1.1 and renamed to the Mozilla Public License. The Free Software Foundation and others noted that a GPL-licensed module and an MPL-license module cannot be legally linked, and they recommend that developers not use the MPL for this reason.[1] To address this concern, the Mozilla Foundation relicensed the codebase in 2003 under the GNU General Public License and GNU Lesser General Public License as well as the Mozilla Public License.