Information about Comparison Of Web Browsers
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Character encodings Dynamic HTML Font family HTML editor HTML element HTML scripting Layout engine comparison Style Sheets Unicode and HTML W3C Web browsers comparison Web colors XHTML |
| Market share for September 2007[1] |
|---|
| Internet Explorer - 77.86% |
| Firefox - 14.88% |
| Safari - 5.07% |
| Opera - 0.87% |
| Netscape - 0.72% |
| Opera Mini - 0.39% |
| Other - 0.20% |
Web browsers by year
A rough estimation of usage share by percent of layout engines/web browsers, see usage share of web browsers.
See also microbrowser
General information
Basic general information about the browsers: creator/company, license/price etc.- ^ There are four different products which all carry the name Netscape: Netscape versions 1 to 4, properly called Netscape Navigator, was a browser based on the original Netscape engine. Netscape 4 also was available as an Internet suite, properly called Netscape Communicator. Netscape 6 and 7 was a new Internet suite based on the Gecko engine and the Mozilla Application Suite user interface. Netscape 8, properly called Netscape Browser, is a new browser based on Firefox that can use both the Gecko (Firefox) and Trident (Internet Explorer) engines. Netscape resumed use of the Navigator name from Netscape Navigator 9.0 beta 1. See Netscape for more info.
Release history
A brief overview of the release history.| Browser | First public release | First stable release | Latest stable release version date | Latest testing release version date | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Date | Version | Date | Version | |||
| Amaya | November 14, 1996 | 0.9 | November 14, 1996 | 0.9 | [ 9.55] (July 10, 2007) | [ none] (n/a) |
| AOL Explorer | June, 2005 | 1.0 | July, 2005 | 1.1 | [ 1.2] (November, 2005) | [ 1.5] (March, 2006) |
| Arachne | December 2, 1996 | 1.0 Beta 2 | 30 April, 1997 | 1.02 | [ 1.90;J1] (August 14, 2006) | [ n/a] (?) |
| Avant | ? | ? | ? | ? | [ 11.0.46] (October 6, 2006) | [ none] (n/a) |
| Camino | February 13, 2002 | 0.1 | February 14, 2006 | 1.0 | [ 1.5.1] (August 17, 2007) | [ none] (n/a) |
| Dillo | December, 1999 | 0.0.0 | December, 1999 | 0.0.0 | [ 0.8.6] (April 26, 2006) | [ none] (n/a) |
| ELinks | December, 2001 | ? | December, 2001 | ? | [ 0.11.3] (April 15, 2007) | [ none] (n/a) |
| Epiphany | December 22, 2002 | 0.4 | September 8, 2003 | 1.0 | [ 2.18.3] (1 July 2007) | [ 2.19.5] (9 July 2007) |
| Flock | October 24, 2005 | 0.4.9 | - | - | not yet released | [ 0.9.0.2] (August 2, 2007) |
| Galeon | June, 2000 | 0.6 | June, 2000 | 0.6 | [ 2.0.3] (September 18, 2006) | [ CVS] (Current) |
| iCab | February 17, 1999 | Preview 1.0 | February 17, 1999 | Preview 1.0 | [ 3.0.3] (August 18, 2006) | [ none] (n/a) |
| Internet Explorer | August, 1995 | 1.0 | August, 1995 | 1.0 | [ 7.0] (October 16, 2006)[#endnote_PlatformIE †] | [ none] (n/a) |
| Internet Explorer for Mac | January 23, 1996 | 2.0b | April 23, 1996 | 2.0 | [ Discontinued] (none) | |
| K-Meleon | November 26, 2000 | 0.2 | November 26, 2000 | 0.2 | [ 1.1.2] (August 8, 2007) | |
| Konqueror | October, 2000 | ? | October, 2000 | ? | [ 3.5.7] (May 22, 2007) | [ none] (n/a) |
| Links | November 24, 1999 | 0.8 | November 24, 1999 | 0.8 | [ 0.99] (December 23, 2003) | [ 2.1pre30] (August 6, 2007) |
| Lynx | July, 1993 | ? | July, 1993 | ? | [ 2.8.6] (October 11, 2006) | [ none] (n/a) |
| Maxthon | ?, 2002 | 0.1 (as MyIE2) | September 8, 2005 | 1.0.0250 | [ 1.5.9 build 30] (November 28, 2006) | [ 2.0.2.2961] (?) |
| Mosaic | April 22, 1993 | 1.0 | April 22, 1993 | 1.0 | [ Unix: 2.6; Mac OS, Windows: 3.0] (Mac OS, Unix: 1996; Windows: 1997) | [ Unix: 2.7b5; Mac OS: 3.0b4] (1996) |
| Mozilla | December 7, 1998 | "Preview" | March 19, 1999 | M3 | [ 1.7.13] (April 21, 2006) | |
| Mozilla Firefox | September 23, 2002 | 0.1 | September 23, 2002 | 0.1 | [ 2.0.0.6] (July 30, 2007) | [ 3.0a7] (August 3, 2007) |
| Netscape | April 5, 2000 | 6 Preview Release 1 | November 14, 2000 | 6.0 | [ 7.2] (August 17, 2004) | [ none] (n/a) |
| Netscape Browser | November 30, 2004 | 0.5.6+ | May 19, 2005 | 8.0 | [ 8.1.3] (April 2, 2007) | [ 9.0b3] (???) |
| Netscape Communicator | June, 1997 | 4.0 | June, 1997 | 4.0 | [ 4.8] (August 22, 2002) | [ none] (n/a) |
| Netscape Navigator | October 13, 1994 | 0.9 | October 13, 1994 | 0.9 | [ 4.08] (November 9, 1998) | [ 9.0b3] (August 16, 2007) |
| OmniWeb | 1994 | 0.5 | March 17, 1995 | 1.0 | [ 5.5.4] (February 14, 2007) | [ 5.6 sneaky peek 4 (v611)] (June 27, 2007) |
| Opera | September, 1996 | 2.1b1 | December, 1996 | 2.1 | [ 9.23] (August 15, 2007) | [ 9.50 alpha] (September 4, 2007) |
| Safari | January 7, 2003 | 0.8 | June 23, 2003 | 1.0 | [ 2.0.3 (417.8) (Mac OS X)] (January 10, 2006)[#endnote_PlatformSafari †] | [ 3.0.3 (522.15.5)] (July 31 2007) |
| SeaMonkey | September 15, 2005 | 1.0a | January 30, 2006 | 1.0 | [ 1.1.4] (August 3, 2007) | [ none] (n/a) |
| Shiira | ? | ? | ? | ? | [ 2.2] (July 16, 2007) | [ none] (n/a) |
| WorldWideWeb | December, 1990 | ? | February 26, 1991 | ? | [ 0.18] (1994 ?) | [ none] (n/a) |
| w3m | 1995 | ? | ? | ? | [ 0.5.2] (May 31, 2007) | [ none] (n/a) |
| Browser | Date | Version | Date | Version | Latest stable release version date | Latest testing release version date |
| First public release | First stable release | |||||
- ^ As of February 2007, at least Windows XP SP2 or Windows Server 2003 SP1 is required to install the latest version (v7) of Internet Explorer for Windows. Internet Explorer 6.0 SP1 is the last version that supports Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0 SP6a, and Windows 2000. Internet Explorer 7 is bundled with Windows Vista.
- ^ Safari is included with Mac OS X and the latest version is always available only from the OS install or OS updates.
Operating system support
The operating systems the browsers have been compiled to run on without emulation; for the given browser/OS combination, there are seven possibilities:- No indicates that it does not exist or was never released.
- Partial indicates that while the browser works, it lacks important functionality or is extremely unstable compared to versions for other OSs (that is to say it has roughly alpha or pre-alpha quality). It is still being developed however.
- Beta indicates that while a version of the browser is fully functional and has been released, it is still in development (e.g. for stability).
- Yes indicates that the browser has been officially released in a fully functional, stable version.
- Dropped indicates that the latest stable version of the browser does not work on the operating system, although an older version is available that does. The number in parentheses is the last known stable version which was officially released for that OS.
- Terminated indicates that while the browser works (e.g. Internet Explorer for Mac), development has ceased and no new versions will be released; the number in parentheses is the last known stable version.
- Included indicates that the browser comes pre-packaged as part of or has been integrated into the operating system.
| Browser | Windows | Mac OS X | Mac OS 9 | Linux | BSD | Unix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amaya | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| AOL Explorer | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Avant | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Camino | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Dillo | Partial | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| ELinks | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Epiphany | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Flock | Beta | Beta | No | Beta | Beta | No |
| Galeon | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| iCab | No | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
| Internet Explorer (Trident) | Included | No | No | No | No | Dropped (5.0) |
| Internet Explorer for Mac (Tasman) | No | Terminated (5.2.3) | Dropped (5.1.7) | No | No | No |
| K-Meleon | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Konqueror | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Links | Partial | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Lynx | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Maxthon | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Mosaic | Terminated (3.0) | No | Terminated (3.0) | Dropped (2.6) | Dropped (2.6) | Dropped (2.6) |
| Mozilla | Terminated (1.7.13) | Terminated (1.7.13) | Dropped (1.2.1)[4] | Terminated (1.7.13) | Terminated (1.7.13) | Terminated (1.7.13) |
| Mozilla Firefox | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Netscape | Terminated (7.2) | Terminated (7.2) | Dropped (7.02) | Terminated (7.2) | Terminated (7.2) | Terminated (7.2) |
| Netscape Browser | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Netscape Communicator | Terminated (4.80) | No | Terminated (4.80) | Terminated (4.80) | Terminated (4.80) | Terminated (4.80) |
| Netscape Navigator | Yes | Yes | Dropped | Yes | No | No |
| OmniWeb | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Opera | Yes | Yes | Dropped (6.03) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Safari | Beta | Included | No | No | No | No |
| SeaMonkey | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Shiira | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| WorldWideWeb (NEXTSTEP only) | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| w3m | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Browser | Windows | Mac OS X | Mac OS 9 | Linux | BSD | Unix |
- Further information: Operating system support of historical web browsers
Browser features
Information about what common browser features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons).| Browser | Bookmark managing | Download managing | Password managing | Form managing | Spell checking | Search engine toolbar |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amaya | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| AOL Explorer | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Avant | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No [#endnote_IESpell †] | Yes |
| Camino | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dillo | Partial | No | No | No | No | Partial |
| ELinks | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | No | No |
| Epiphany | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Flock | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Galeon | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| iCab | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Internet Explorer [#endnote_ActiveX †] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No [#endnote_IESpell †] | Yes |
| Internet Explorer for Mac | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| K-Meleon | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Konqueror | Yes | Yes [#endnote_KonqDownload †] | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Links | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
| Lynx | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Maxthon [#endnote_ActiveX †] | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No [#endnote_IESpell †] | Yes |
| Mosaic | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Mozilla | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mozilla Firefox | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Netscape | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Netscape Browser | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | ? | Yes |
| Netscape Navigator | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| OmniWeb | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Opera | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [#endnote_OpForm †] | Yes [#endnote_OpSpell †] | Yes |
| Safari | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SeaMonkey | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Shiira | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| WorldWideWeb | Yes | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| w3m | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Browser | Bookmark managing | Download managing | Password managing | Form managing | Spell checking | Search engine toolbar |
- ^ Internet Explorer is the only browser to natively support the Component Object Model (popularly known as ActiveX). Most other browsers use the NPAPI plugin architecture. ActiveX is more powerful than NPAPI in terms of the control it affords over the browser, but it is specific to Windows whereas NPAPI is cross-platform. There is a third-party plugin that adds partial ActiveX support, that is available for certain older versions of Mozilla Suite, Mozilla Firefox and Netscape Navigator. The default settings in earlier versions of Internet Explorer allowed the automatic download, installation, and running of new ActiveX controls with minimal user intervention - this made it possible to use ActiveX on web pages to install viruses, spyware, etc. onto a user's computer.
- ^ Spell checking can be added by installing an add-on like ieSpell.
- ^ For the download manager kdenetwork needs to be installed.
- ^ On Linux and Windows, Spell checking requires GNU Aspell to be installed.
- ^ Opera can auto-complete forms with your personal information and website usernames.
Accessibility features
Information about what common accessibility features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons).| Browser | Tabbed browsing | Pop-up blocking | Incremental finding | Ad filtering | Page zooming [#endnote_PageZooming †] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amaya | Yes | N/A | ? | No | Yes |
| AOL Explorer | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| Avant | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Camino | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Dillo | No | N/A | No | No | No |
| ELinks | Yes | No | Yes | N/A | N/A |
| Epiphany | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [#endnote_EpiphanyAdBlock †] | No |
| Flock | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Galeon | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| iCab | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Internet Explorer | Yes | Yes | No [#endnote_IEFind †] | Yes | Yes |
| Internet Explorer for Mac | No | No | No | No | No |
| K-Meleon | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [#endnote_AdBlock †] | Partial |
| Konqueror | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Links | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| Lynx | No | N/A | No | N/A | N/A |
| Maxthon | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Mosaic | No | N/A | No | No | No |
| Mozilla | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [#endnote_AdBlock †] | No |
| Mozilla Firefox | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [#endnote_AdBlock †] | No [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4821] |
| Netscape | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [#endnote_AdBlock †] | No |
| Netscape Browser | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [#endnote_AdBlock †] | No |
| Netscape Navigator | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [#endnote_AdBlock †] | No |
| OmniWeb | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Opera | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [#endnote_FilterINI †] | Yes |
| Safari | Yes [#endnote_MacTab †] | Yes [#endnote_SafariPopupBlock †] | Yes | Yes | Yes [#endnote_iPhoneZoom †] |
| SeaMonkey | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partial [#endnote_AdBlock †] | No [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4821] |
| Shiira | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes |
| WorldWideWeb | No | No | No | No | No |
| w3m | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
| Browser | Tabbed browsing | Pop-up blocking | Incremental finding | Ad filtering | Page zooming [#endnote_PageZooming †] |
- ^ Page zooming is different from text resizing, as it resizes not only characters, but also multimedia objects and web page layout. Not yet available in current Gecko (1.8, e.g. Mozilla Firefox 1.x/2.x: fixed by 'Web Developer' extension), but will be in Gecko 1.9 (2007, e.g. Mozilla Firefox 3)[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4821].
- ^ K-Meleon, Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape, and SeaMonkey support simple domain name-based blocking for images. More advanced regular expression-based Ad filtering for Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox can be added with external software such as the AdBlock extension. Selective CSS can also effectively hide ads.
- ^ Epiphany supports AdBlock as an official extension, in the epiphany-extensions package.
- ^ Opera 9 introduced a content blocker for webpages. http://labs.opera.com/news/2006/02/07/2/. Earlier releases support wildcard protocol/domain/path and filetype blocking using a filter.ini http://www.schrode.net/opera/url_filtering/ file. More advanced Ad filtering for Opera can also be done with external software .
- ^ Tabbed browsing turned off by default in Safari.
- ^ Does not allow selective blocking of pop-ups—can only block all pop-ups, or none.
- ^ Page zooming only supported in the iPhone version of Safari.
- ^ Several extensions are available through the Windows Marketplace http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/category.aspx?bcatid=834&tabid=1&wa=wsignin1.0, including "Inline Search for Internet Explorer"http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/details.aspx?view=info&itemid=3012162 (emulates Mozilla's find bar).
Accessibility features (cont.)
Information about what common accessibility features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons).| Browser | HTML access key | Tabbing navigation | Spatial navigation | Caret navigation | Mouse gesture | Text-to-speech | Voice control |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amaya | ? | Yes | ? | Yes | No | No | No |
| AOL Explorer | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| Avant | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No |
| Camino | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No [#endnote_MacGestures †] | Yes [#endnote_MacSpeech †] | No |
| Dillo | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
| ELinks | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Epiphany | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Partial [#endnote_EpiphanyGestures †] | No | No |
| Flock | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Galeon | ? | Yes | ? | Disabled | Yes | No | No |
| iCab | Yes | No | No | No | No | Yes [#endnote_MacSpeech †] | No |
| Internet Explorer | Yes | Yes | No | No | No [#endnote_IEGestures †] | Partial | No |
| Internet Explorer for Mac | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No |
| K-Meleon | Yes | Yes | No | Disabled | Yes | No | No |
| Konqueror | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes [#endnote_KonqGestures †] | Yes [#endnote_KonqSpeech †] | No |
| Links | No | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Lynx | ? | No | No | ? | No | No | No |
| Maxthon | Yes |