Web Browsers for Windows - Other than Firefox and Opera

In his article on the Web Browser Wars, Neil Henry discusses the relative merits of Firefox and Opera as opposed to Internet Explorer, but as he suggests, whether we like it or not, IE still rules the browser scene in Windows. However there are many of us who aren’t satisfied with IE and are using an alternative browser in windows. Are you one among them? If so, which browser are you using?

Let me guess - Firefox? Opera?

These are the two browsers most used by windows users as an alternative browser and have been discussed numerous times. Today I am going to talk about a few lesser known browsers which can give Firefox and Opera some competition. So here goes the list.

Seamonkey is a complete Internet suite in continuation of the former Mozilla Application Suite featuring a browser, a mail and newsgroup client, html editor, etc. The very advantage of Seamonkey lies in this ‘Complete Package’.

The facts that go against Seamonkey is that it is kind of buggy and also the look and feel is not that nice.

K-Meleon is a fast, minimalist browser which is highly customizable. It’s based on the Gecko engine (same as Firefox) and has a bookmarking system which lets you to use IE, Opera or Mozilla's Bookmarks system.

Mouse gestures can be enabled in K-Meleon with the mouse gesture plug-in, which is customizable. K-Meleon toolbar, menus and keyboard shortcut can also be customized to a large extent. It has a Popup blocker. Although it’s a simple and lightweight browser, it can be skinned and it claims to be one of the simplest browser to skin. Another mentionable K-Meleon feature is its macros which helpexpand its functionality. You can also customize or create your own macros.

Apple’s Safari has ruled the Mac world for a long time. But it is not so long since Safari for Windows was launched. The launch of Safari for Windows was marred by the automatic Apple software update controversy. Controversy or not, Safari claims to be the fastest browser in Windows, and there’s a certain amount of truth in those claims. Moreover it is sleek and simple concentrating on usability rather than the look of the browser.

The problem with Safari is that even after a stable release it is still buggy and although browsing is fast, with Safari it is hard on the system resources.

Maxthon is a sleek, fast web browser that allows for older webpages to be opened easily. It has two rendering engines -- Trident and Webkit -- that can switch between each other other in order to find out which engine is best for viewing a particular website. No longer will you need to switch browsers to open up a website that is optimized for certain web browsers such as IE.