The Evangelist

It's been a while since I mentioned Opera in a post. The browser has a mere 1.50% of marketshare according to Wikipedia, coming in behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, and Google's Chrome. Considering Opera's quality as a browser and how many features it has pioneered before other browsers, it is surprising how little marketshare Opera has.

The Flock browser has come far since my last post about it in 2008.

Yet another new web browser has entered the fray, this time by a Tokyo, Japan-based company by the name of Lunascape Corporation.

Lunascape, while not open-source, is freeware. While it has been around in Japan for a little while, it is just getting started in the United States with an english release now that the company has an operation in San José, California.

The browser is based on Microsoft's Internet Explorer platform, so it only runs on Windows. There is a reason for this, however, so don't give up on it yet. Lunascape can switch between the Webkit (Chrome and Safari), Trident (Internet Explorer) and Gecko (Firefox) layout engines with ease. This doesn't make it a combination of the browsers listed above (so it isn't necessarily the fastest because one of the above is considered the fastest at the time) but instead a capable web browser for viewing different sites which may render better or faster using a certain layout engine instead of the other two. This could also make Lunascape a capable platform for web developers to test their site's compatilibity with a number of different layout engines all with one browser.

The company claims that the browser has the world's fastest JavaScript rendering engine.

Lunascape has several other innovative features including podcast aggregation, RSS "news-flashes," and mouse gesture capabilities (which can already been found in Opera). The browser also promises to be compatible with many Internet Explorer add-ons and Firefox plugins alike; an amazing feat.

The browser also sports the now nearly ubiquitous tabs feature as well as a built-in RSS reader.

I'm looking forward to trying out Lunascape for a while, and I'm hoping that the browser makes some waves in the market. New competition can only serve to encourage innovation, and there's nothing wrong with that.

For more information or to download Lunascape, you can visit their website at http://www.lunascape.tv/.

Mozilla has announced that they will stop updating the Firefox 2 series this December.

What will this mean? Firefox 2 and Thinderbird 2 will stop receiving updates of any kind, and all browsers based on Gecko 1.8 will at the very least not receive security updates from Mozilla. This means that Seamonkey 1.1, the original Flock browser, K-Meleon 1.1.1.5, Camino 1.5.5, Epiphany 2.16 and all older versions will no longer receive Mozilla security update.

Mozilla is encouraging users to switch to Firefox 3 to keep their systems secure. Those using third-party Gecko browsers should really update as well; there can really be little harm in it the way that browsers have been improving in speed these days.

This will mean that users who want Firefox on Windows ME or any older Windows operating system will have to stick with Firefox 2 despite the fact that support is stopping.

If you ask me, Mozilla is doing what is right. By killing of continued support, they can focus their efforts on developing new technologies such as Firefox 3. In the end, many users will benefit from this.

In the so-called browser war, we are always hearing of the battle between Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox. Alone, IE version 5, 6 or 7 has less marketshare than Firefox. Together, they have about 50.6% of the browser marketshare according to w3schools, while Firefox only has 43.7%. Apple's Safari browser has 2.6 percent of the marketshare. Opera, on the other hand, only has 2.1% of the marketshare.

Opera is a fast and memory-efficient web browser with many innovative features that gets far less attention than it deserves. Being a user of Firefox myself, I can say that Opera has features that even Firefox doesn't have (while conversely Firefox has some features that Opera lacks, such as find as you type).

Quick Find is a nifty feature that allows you to search the content of sites you have visited in the past to help find something on a page even if you forgot which website it was at. With Opera Link through the My Opera Service, everything gets synchronized across Opera browsers over multiple PCs, allowing you to keep your bookmarks and settings no matter which computer you are on. Speed Dial, which is much like the speed dial feature on a phone, brings up a list of up to 9 user-defined websites instead of about_blank when a new tab is opened. Mouse gestures are an alternative to clicking buttons in the browser or using key commands, which can be useful for some users who like to use the mouse. The download manager is comparable to the one in Firefox 3, plus it has Bittorrent capability, a big plus. The browser also has widget capabilities as well as a jumble of other features that I won't mention here because both Firefox and IE7 already have them.

What is also interesting is that Opera is working on a set of developer tools for creating websites and web applications known as Opera Dragonfly. This is an interesting move for Opera to release a set of tools for developing web pages and then make sure they are compatible with the browser. While other companies have made similar moves, they have never to my knowledge taken it this far.

Overall, my experience with Opera has been a good one. The browser behaves as one would expect it to for the most part, and it has some great features. While many of these can be attained in Firefox through other means including add-ons, Opera has really gone far to make an original browser, and has really come far from earlier versions.

Are you a member of many social networks? Do you feel like you have to run around to many different sites just to check up on all of your friends and contacts?

Then you need Flock, the Social Web Browser. Flock 2, based on Firefox 3, allows you to easily stay connected to your friends online. Flock makes it easier to share with others and to keep up-to-date when a contact updates their profile.

Flock is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.