Now that things are covered on the fronts of security, we’re ready to
delve into the web. Whether it's the fact that using Internet Explorer
has been deemed a security threat or that it's crawled to match
competitor's features, most PC enthusiasts and heavy web users today use
a third party application to get the job done.
Firefox
Almost guaranteed to be the first web browser people run to after
ditching Internet Explorer. It has come to hold the greatest usage share
of all the third party browsers (21.53% as of January 2009, 41+% of
TechSpot visitors) and features the widest selection of free extensions
which allow users to mold the browser to their needs.
Firefox
is also equipped by default with tabbed browsing, a spellchecker,
download manager, live bookmarking and more to accommodate your general
purpose browsing, so even if sifting through the 6,500+ add-ons (
addons.mozilla.org) for nifty extensions isn’t your game, the vanilla package should suit you well.
Opera
You know, until I pulled a bit of research on the actual numbers it never occurred to me that
Opera
only held roughly 0.70% of the desktop usage share (as of January
2009). Surprisingly, it holds a greater share in browser usage with
mobile devices and is the only commercially available web browser
supported on the Nintendo DS and Wii. Regardless, it’s a worthy browser
alternative, in our opinion crushes IE and offers good competition to
Firefox.
Its feature-set is packed with both the usual suspects and some unique
elements. Some of which include an integrated BitTorrent, IRC and email
client and “Speed Dial”.
Safari
Developed and released back in 2003 by Apple,
Safari has been the
default browser for Macs
since OS X 10.3 (Panther) as well as the iPhone and has been available
for Windows XP and Vista since June 2007. Safari doesn’t offer much, if
any more than other browsers in their default state and lacks the
expandability that Firefox has, making this a lesser choice if you like
to personalize your browser. For vanilla use, it still makes for a
robust choice.
I would have to guess that a bulk of Safari’s usage share comes from
OS X users
that simply haven’t taken a step outside the box, and not people using
it on Windows (in a similar situation, IE still holds around 67.55%).
Nevertheless, it’s a browser that carries its weight and deserves to be
mentioned.
Google Chrome
Launched recently in September 2008,
Google Chrome
has already accumulated a following and is accepted as a quick, stable
and secure web browser. Chrome does not yet support extensions (apart
from GreaseMonkey), but that is
an upcoming feature that could have it expanding its user base pretty quickly.
Mail Clients
Unless you are content with your OS built-in email client, you will be
glad to know there are a few good contenders that won't cost you a dime.
I personally gave up on desktop mail clients about 5 years ago and I’ve
been using strictly browser based “webmail” (more specifically Gmail),
and I haven’t once looked back, but for those of you that rely on
them...
Mozilla Thunderbird
Thunderbird's
performance and feature-set is claimed by most to be superior to the
competition which isn’t surprising as it is similar to Firefox in that
it can be endlessly molded with tons of potential extensions. By default
it features a Bayesian spam filter, the ability to handle RSS accounts
and act as a simple news aggregator, government-grade security and
everything that you’d expect in a mail client stamped with the “Mozilla”
name.
Opera Mail (M2)
M2
is probably the second option for those that are trying to remain
independent of Outlook. It is seamlessly incorporated into the Opera
browser, as such it is almost required to be relatively light and due to
that nature it is a bit less versatile than Mozilla Thunderbird. It
also lacks the overall expandability that Thunderbird offers but
nevertheless it is a very well rounded mail client that is probably only
suited to those that use Opera as their default web browser.
Outlook 2007
I would venture to guess that there are only a few types of people who truly use and appreciate
Outlook
these days: those that are forced to for work, those that have stuck
with it from the beginning, and those that can actually make use of the
seemingly unnecessary features.
Outlook packs a mail client with a journal, address book, task lists,
calendar with significant dates, reminders, fax, etc. Not only are you
probably not going to use half or more of the features, Outlook doesn’t
even match Thunderbird and Opera Mail for security and you must pay for
it.
And a last minute addition,
Mulberry
is an open-source desktop email client that seems to have a rather
large loyal following, though it's support isn't quite as big as that of
Thunderbird for obvious reasons.
On the next pages: Top App Messaging, Torrents
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