Netscape and Internet Explorer aren't the only browsers, believe it or not. Rose Vines looks at the others and why you'd use them.

Chances are, if you surf the Net you surf it using either Netscape's Communicator or Navigator or Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Between them, Netscape and Microsoft have snared over 90 percent of the browser market.

Given this overwhelming dominance, it may come as a surprise to discover there are over 100 Web browsers available on the Net today.
Some of these alternative browsers are fossils from the early days, written as early as 1993 with little in the way of development for several years. Others are right at the cutting edge of browser technology, designed specifically to test the very latest tools and standards on the World Wide Web. Others are niche players, developed to satisfy the needs of a particular type of Web surfer -- youngsters, speed demons, the disabled, the jaded.

Despite the disadvantages, there are many good reasons for choosing an alternative browser:

Speed and size: The latest versions of IE and Navigator are big. There's no way you can stick them on a floppy and install them on another machine and, if you download them from the Net, you'll spend hours doing so. They're also not lightning fast -- support for all the latest features such as Javascript doesn't come without a payoff in performance. Some of the alternative browsers are no more than a few hundred kilobytes in size and balance their limited feature set with quick browsing.

Additional features: Despite their bulging feature sets, IE and Navigator don't have it all. Neither has Mosaic's auto-surfing and site mapping feature. Neither has Opera's excellent screen zooming. Neither has an interface designed to make it easy for young people to use.

Fewer features: Less is sometimes better. The slimmer alternatives are often easier to learn to use as well as being faster.

Text-mode: Glitzy graphics and animations are lost on many surfers. For those who are visually impaired or who have outdated hardware a text-mode browser is the only way to surf the Web. Such browsers make it much easier on braille and voice-enabled computers, as well as making very few demands on your hardware.

Hardware restrictions: Not everyone has a computer that can handle IE 4 or Navigator 4. An alternative browser can be a saviour for people running old machines and old operating systems.

You hate Microsoft, but want a free browser: It may not be a smart reason, but there are certainly people who feel this way. By the way, despite what many people seem to believe, Netscape is not free. It's free for 90-day evaluation or for use by students, teachers, educational, religious and non-profit organisations. For all others, it's pay up.

A different perspective: There's more than one way to view the Web -- alternative browsers give you a chance to see it differently.

Testing the Web: Some browsers, such as Amaya, let you test Web technologies that are still under development. You can also use the browsers with cut-down feature sets to test your own Web site's viewer-friendliness.

Choosing among the alternatives

Your guide to alternative browsers

BrowserWatch ( www.browserwatch.com ) lists over 50 browsers in its Browser Boulevard, with numbers over 100 when you count variations on different operating systems. Yahoo has most of these plus some additions in its browser listing (check the Computers, Internet, Software, WWW, Browsers section).

While many of these browsers don't run on PC operating systems, plenty do. How do you choose among the contenders?

The first thing to do is define your needs. Perhaps you want a non-Windows-95 browser or a browser that will run on an old 80386 machine. Perhaps you're after a small browser that also manages your e-mail. Or perhaps you find many Web sites unreadable because of the small print.

You'll find browsers that match each of these needs. The 'gotcha' is that the browser that meets your needs may not have the most attractive feature set. While a lot of the alternative browsers support graphics, sound, forms, tables and so on, many of them don't. Some don't even support the HTML 2.0 standard, let alone HTML 3.2 or HTML 4. That means you'll miss out on some of the snazzier attractions on the Web and many sites won't work properly.

Of course, you can always use more than one browser. If you already have IE or Navigator installed but want additional options, most of the browsers can run alongside each other, even simultaneously.

You can also use earlier versions of Navigator or Internet Explorer. Some people are still using version 2 of these packages and a lot of people are using version 3. The older versions are not as demanding as the latest releases and, in the case of Internet Explorer, they don't burrow into the operating system in the way IE 4 does.

If you're after better browsing performance but otherwise enjoy the features of IE or Navigator, you shouldn't go looking for another browser at all. Instead, customise your browser. Both IE and Navigator let you turn off graphics and sound loading, as well as allowing you to customise how they handle script languages.

Of the alternatives, Opera is a standout. All it requires is OS/2 or any Windows operating system running on an 80386 or better. For $US30 registration (you can try it for free first) you'll get a full-featured browser that's very fast. About the worst thing you can say about it is it lacks Java support. Well worth trying.