However, the developers of all those browsers haven’t been very active (or successful) in one type of improvement that could potentially bring some massive results: going from 32-bit to 64-bit.

Why 64-bit?

Why is going from 32-bit to 64-bit an important step? Virtually all computers that you can find today are capable of running 64-bit operating systems. 64-bit operating systems enable you to use more than 3.25 GB of RAM, and increase the performance of your system in certain cases.

Memory management is also improved in 64-bit systems. In order to make use of this 64-bit capability, not only does the operating system need to be compiled for 64-bit machines, but the individual applications need to be as well. While 64-bit operating systems are capable of running 32-bit software (this is mainly the case for Windows; on other operating systems such as Mac OS X and Linux, it’s also possible but highly frowned upon), you won’t get the benefits that 64-bit software would provide.

The Windows 64-bit Situation

On Windows, there are no official 64-bit builds of any browser except Internet Explorer. Even then, IE is available in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavors in order to be more compatible with plugins, which back then were primarily 32-bit only. However, the major plugins are now available in the 64-bit flavor, so browsers now have some motivation to crank out some 64-bit builds of their own. This seems to be taking a while though with a number of hurdles to overcome.

Firefox has finally come out with a 64-bit nightly, but it’s nowhere near ready to be called stable. Instead, the developers of the Waterfox project have been working hard to get an unofficial build of 64-bit Firefox out and making it fast. While Waterfox began as an unofficial project, Mozilla is now supporting it and may start incorporating it sometime in the future to release official, stable builds of 64-bit Firefox.

As you can see in the screenshot above, Waterfox beats Chrome in the SunSpider benchmark, whereas Chrome usually beats regular Firefox.

Downloading and Installing

Getting and installing Waterfox is just as easy as with Firefox. Simply head over to their website’s download page, and scroll a little down to get the latest version. The page also states that you need to have the Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x64) installed, but this is not an issue for Windows 7 64-bit users, but rather for those on previous Windows 64-bit versions. Additionally, the page lists links to the 64-bit version of the most common plugins so that you can have a smooth Web experience with your new 64-bit browser.

Easy Transition

Waterfox is also very helpful when transitioning from regular Firefox because it uses the same Firefox profile as the 32-bit flavor. Therefore, any passwords, history, preferences, and add-ons that have been installed in regular Firefox will be instantly available upon first launch of Waterfox. As that implies, all add-ons made for regular Firefox also work 100% in Waterfox. The amount of work necessary to switch to the 64-bit Firefox browser is pretty minimal. To review, all you need to do is the following:

• Install Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x64) if necessary
• Install 64-bit version of plugins if not already done
• Install Waterfox

Conclusion

Waterfox really is a great browser, making the Firefox we all know (and some of us love) a little faster and happier in its 64-bit environment. Mac OS X and Linux users don’t need to be too jealous that Waterfox is a Windows-only project, as those two operating systems have had official 64-bit builds of all major browsers for a relatively long amount of time.

What do you think about this project? Is there something you’d like to add about 64-bit systems? Let us know in the comments!

Right now browsers are trying to improve everything about them – their speed, their looks, their standards support, and their feature set. Aside from the looks which can always be improved, everything else has a set limit or “end”, and eventually all browsers will reach that point. In fact, some signs are evident right now.

Web Standards

Standards support has once again been a big deal lately, more in fact than it has been in the past since the rise of Firefox. Thanks to HTML5, browsers are scrambling to gain support for all the new technologies. While not all browsers are on an identical level of support for HTML5, the playing field is still surprisingly level. Eventually, the HTML5 specification will be complete, and all the browsers will have full support for it. At that point, all browsers will be the same in that regard.

Extensions

Extensions is another important feature that has come into most browsers. It first started with Firefox, then Chrome came out with extensions, and more recently Opera added them as well. While Chrome and Opera‘s extension APIs are relatively limited compared to Firefox for now, they will eventually become as advanced as Firefox’s and then all extensions will spread to all browsers that support extensions. When all extensions are available for all browsers (as they would probably try to do in order to get the most users), it makes each browser less unique.

Other Features

Finally, other features that come out with one browser will be duplicated by others at one point or another. For example, Opera first came out with tabbed browsing, which was picked up by Firefox and finally Internet Explorer. Firefox’s “big orange button” that pops out the menu is eerily similar to Opera’s red menu button. Internet Explorer first came out with hardware acceleration for graphics, and now Firefox, Chrome, and Opera (soon) have an implementation of it as well. No matter what might be released by one browser, it will be implemented by the others if it is good enough.

Conclusion

Really, the only way browsers can separate themselves in the future is by their user interface. From a technical standpoint, however, they will all be virtually identical, and support all possible technologies found on the web. With that, it won’t matter what browser you use as you’ll be able to do whatever you want with any of them, and it’ll just come down to which one you support more or which one looks the prettiest.

What’s your take on the matter? Do you think browsers will become almost identical or will their paths spread apart greatly? Let us know in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

You may not have heard of a couple of these browsers, but each and every one brings a unique benefit to your portable arsenal. Don’t let the fact that you may not have heard of them stand in the way of finding your new favorite browser.

Avant Browser

We’ve already covered a nice and in-depth review of the Avant browser, but it’s time to rehash the software now that an official portable version is readily available on their official website.

Avant is like a souped-up version of Internet Explorer. One of the main differences is how well Avant handles Flash, in comparison. Avant is only a little slower than the current Firefox build, which puts it plenty ahead of IE’s speed. It’s also got a ton of features built in, like ways to disable on-page sound, scripting, and animations right out of the box.

You can download the official portable version here.

Pale Moon

What Avant is to Internet Explorer, Pale Moon strives to be alongside Firefox. Pale Moon is an alternative, slim-downed version of the Firefox browser that is built on Firefox’s official source code. The browser has been around for years and has been proven to use less memory than the original Firefox without the user being able to notice much difference alongside the powerhouse browser that Mozilla has on their hands.

You can download Pale Moon’s official portable release from this page.

Browzar

Browzar has a distinct advantage over the rest on this list in respect that the official build of the original browser itself is portable. Browzar leaves an incredibly small fingerprint and is one of the most secure and easy-to-use browsers that I’ve used right from a flash drive.

While it does lack somethings in the features category, Browzar can’t be beaten when you’re looking for something to jump on and jump right off with. Browzar will even clear every single bit of sensitive, session-specific data after closing.

You can download it here.

Opera@USB

I decided to save the best for last. While Opera may already be my favorite official browser in the first place, it is not the Opera team who developed this third-party portable port. Nonetheless, it’s flawless. It’ll even update alongside released Opera versions and still maintain it’s portable status.

Other than that, there’s really not too much more to explain about Opera@USB. It is simply Opera in a portable package. Give Opera a shot just for a few days and I promise you’ll start to fall in love a little. You can click here to download Opera@USB.

Though unheard of and maybe even a little obscure, these portable gems will help put your flash drive on the right track. If you enjoyed this list, check out 100 other portable applications that you may enjoy. Shoot me a line about any of these in the comments.

However, Epiphany is extremely simplistic, even in its user interface, and a technology that takes it back deep to the GNOME 2 days. Therefore, in the works is a new kind of browser (presumably still using WebKit as its rendering engine) that is more modern but still extremely easy to use and relatively simplistic.

Installation

Installation is slightly nontraditional. Instead of a package that gets installed, you’ll need to download the necessary files by clicking here to visit the correct page, click on the Downloads tab, and choose either the zip file or tarball. Open it, and extract the folder contained within to a location of your choice.

Next, you’ll need to go into the web folder, right click on the web.py file, choose Properties, and under the Permissions tab, allow executing the file as a program. Then close out that window, and double click on the web.py file. Choose run, and you should now be greeted with the upcoming GNOME browser.

Interface

As I noted before, the interface is indeed relatively simplistic. There aren’t a lot of buttons to click, and some are even hidden from immediate view (primarily the big button, top center, which you’ll see when you hover your mouse over it). The homepage is preset to Ubuntu’s main page, but this should be configurable in the future when the program is more fully developed. To navigate between pages, you have the back and forward buttons, along with the big button next to them. Click on that one, and you’ll be presented with the address bar where you can enter in your desired destination. The button all the way to the right that looks like a refresh button doesn’t do anything yet at the time of writing.

Pages Button

The main feature so far about this browser is what’s hidden behind the Pages button, which reminds me a lot of GNOME Shell’s Activities button. Once inside, there are three tabs that await you: Recent, Favorites, and Queue. As of yet, Favorites and Queue don’t do anything.

In the Recent tab, you’ll see a black area at the top and a white area at the bottom. The top black area contains all the current tabs that are open, while the bottom white area will contain recent pages that you visited (as soon as you actually visit them). This system works quite well and is similar to the way GNOME Shell handles applications. Therefore, you can see a working system of tabs in the browser, despite the fact that you can’t create or delete any yet.

Other Notes

Speed is easily noticed if you surf around for a while. All the pages feel snappy and don’t hesitate to load. The browser itself also follows closely to the desktop theme. Even Ubuntu’s scroll bars are used in the browser. I find this to be appropriate, as a browser made for GNOME 3 should follow suit with GNOME 3′s technologies, which includes such fancy scroll bars.

Conclusion

This new browser is turning into an interesting project for the GNOME desktop. While it shows lots of promise, it won’t be recommended for full use in the near future except for those who are daring enough to use it despite its lack of features or who value it’s massive speed. However, you’re welcome to occasionally throw out your copy of the browser and download a newer copy that will contain new features and other improvements. Eventually, before you know it, it’ll be a full-fledged browser ready for wide use on Linux.

How do you like this new browser? Do you like how it’s similar to GNOME Shell? Let us know in the comments!

In this article I will highlight the gesture navigation and guide you through the massive amount of settings you can control behind the scenes of this browser. I will also provide a general overview of Dolphin’s more standard features, many of which are mentioned above.

Gesture Navigation

Touchscreens are the most exciting characteristic of modern phones and tablets. Unfortunately, many apps don’t use the full potential of this key feature. While many functions can be controlled via intuitive use of touch buttons, some actions still require us to click our way through menus, much like we would do with an external mouse. This is where gesture navigation is more convenient and faster than clicking through menus.

To access gesture navigation in Dolphin Browser HD, touch the hand symbol in the bottom left corner.

You can then draw your gesture across the entire screen.

To view all gestures and access gesture settings, touch the > Draw a gesture button in the bottom right corner whilst in gesture mode.

Within gesture settings you can also add new gestures. Touch the respective button in the top right.

Here you can add gestures for custom URLs, to find something specific on the page, select text, save page, zoom in or out, search, and many more actions. Each action comes with a recommended gesture, but you can also create your own.

Behind The Scenes: Settings Galore

Dolphin Browser HD has a very simplistic interface and it does not look like much at first glance. However, through the browser settings you have access to a whole world of additional features and options. Click the > Android toolbar button highlighted in red in the screenshot below, then > More, and > Settings.

The degrees of freedom in terms of customization and additional features is almost overwhelming. In fact, it provides the same amount of depth as a desktop browser.

Within Dolphin settings, you can control basic preferences, such as default user agent (mobile or desktop view of websites), volume button action, screen orientation, net tab settings, and more.

The page content settings give you access to your preferred site layout as in text size, default zoom, text encoding, image loading, or enabled scripts and plugins. These settings are highly valuable as it allows you to customize the browser not only to meet your personal preferences, but also to better operate within the limitations of your Android device.

In data storage settings you can clear various stored browser data, for example the browser cache, HTML5 data, or Webzine cache. You can also change where downloaded files are saved, make a cache save to an SD card, or view advanced settings for individual websites.

The privacy & security settings evolve around preferences for cookies, form data, passwords, location awareness, security warning, and browsing history.

Under Backup & Restore you can backup and restore your entire browser settings, bookmarks, and web data to an SD card. You can also set a password for your backup. Here you can also import bookmarks from other browsers.

Furthermore, you can control the settings for the Dolphin Browser HD Webzine, sign up for updates, reset the browser to default, access the about page, go through the setup wizard, and create or access your Dolphin account.

Additional Features

Add-Ons

Are you missing a key feature? Maybe there is an add-on for it! There are more than 60 add-ons available for Dolphin Browser HD. Many popular add-ons have paved the way for inbuilt features. A list of add-ons sorted by category and reviews for each can be found on the Dolphin Browser Blog.

SideBars

Dolphin offers a left-hand (bookmarks) and right-hand (toolbar) sidebar, which open by swiping the browser window to the right or left, respectively. The Toolbar is home to add-on buttons.

Webzine & Speed Dial

Both these features find a home in new tabs and you can switch between them via two tabs embedded in the tab itself.

Some more features are found in most modern browsers:

• Multi-Touch-Zoom.
• Tabbed Browsing.
• Smart Address Bar.
• User Agent Switching.

Also see the list of Most Popular Features on the Dolphin Browser homepage for a commented overview.

If you like this browser, also have a look at the 5 Must Have Add-Ons For The Dolphin Browser On Your Android Honeycomb Tablet.

What is your favorite Android browser and if it’s not Dolphin Browser HD, how does it compare in your opinion?

In fact, thanks to the embedded references in applications that use VBA, you can input and output webpages via your own applications. If you’ve followed our past scripting articles, then you know we love VB script and VBA, like my article on maximizing windows, Paul’s on self-updating charts, and Saikat’s on sending out mass emails.

Using the approach below, you can use Word, Access or Excel to read HTML documents on the web, alter those documents, and then output whatever you want in a new browser window.

It may sound like something that only an experienced VBA programmer can do, but in this article I’m going to show you how you can do this yourself, starting with a basic procedure to output data from within your own application to a webpage.

Enabling Microsoft Internet Controls

The first step, no matter how you want to make use of the ability to input/output your own HTML via VBA, is to enable the Microsoft Internet Controls reference.

In Excel, you do this by clicking on the “Developer” menu item, clicking Design Mode, and then clicking on the “View Code” button. This may appear different in older versions of Excel, but essentially you need to find where you can launch the VBA code editor.

In the VBA editor, click on Tools, and then References.

In the References window, scroll all the way down until you see “Microsoft Internet Controls“. Check the box and then click “OK“.

Now, within your VBA code, you will be able to create objects that can get information off the Internet, and you can output your own HTML documents that the user can view in their own browser.

Inputting and Outputting HTML

The first thing that you’ll want to accomplish here is outputting information to HTML. Think about how much you can do once you can output information to a perfectly formatted HTML webpage. You can extract data from your Excel spreadsheets and output them in a nicely formatted report.

To create this feature, you’ll need to insert a command button on your sheet. Under the Developer menu, click on Design Mode, and then click the “Insert” button. You’ll see a dropdown of controls that you can add to your sheet.

In this case, click the button control and place it in your sheet. Make sure there’s some data in the sheet (or any sheet), that you want to output to a report when the button is clicked. Left click on the button to select it and click “View Code“.

Enter the following code:

Sub Button1_Click()

 Dim objIE As Object

 Dim HTML As String

 '----------The HTML CODE GOES FROM HERE AND DOWN----------

 HTML = "<HTML><TITLE>HTML Report Page</TITLE>" & _

 "<BODY><FONT COLOR = BLUE><FONT SIZE = 5>" & _

 "<B>The Following Are Results From Your Daily Calculation</B>" & _

 "</FONT SIZE><P>" & _

 "Daily Production: " & Sheet1.Cells(1, 1) & "<p>" & _

 "Daily Scrap: " & Sheet1.Cells(1, 2) & "<p></BODY></HTML>"

 '----------The HTML CODE GOES HERE AND ABOVE---------

 On Error GoTo error_handler

 Set objIE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")

 With objIE

 .Navigate "about:blank"

 Do While .Busy: DoEvents: Loop

 Do While .ReadyState <> 4: DoEvents: Loop

 .Visible = True

 .Document.Write HTML

 End With

 Set objIE = Nothing

 Exit Sub

error_handler:

 MsgBox ("Unexpected Error, I'm quitting.")

 objIE.Quit

 Set objIE = Nothing

End Sub

This code outputs the HTML that you’ve defined in that output string. As you can see from my example above, you can embed data from any sheet in Excel into your HTML string. Here is the resulting webpage report:

Now that you have HTML output working, the next step to make your VBA script work virtually like a web browser is to read in HTML from some website, manipulate the data, and then output it into an HTML output page.

Sub Button1_Click()

 Dim objIE As Object

 Dim HTML As String

 On Error GoTo error_handler

 Set objIE = CreateObject("InternetExplorer.Application")

 With objIE

 .Navigate "http://www.google.com"

 Do While .Busy: DoEvents: Loop

 Do While .ReadyState <> 4: DoEvents: Loop

 .Visible = True

 HTML = objIE.Document.Body.innerHTML

 .Document.Write "<html><title>My Own Google Results!</title><body><h1>This is an Edited Version of the Google Page!</h1>" & HTML & "</body></html>"

 End With

 Set objIE = Nothing

Exit Sub

error_handler:

 MsgBox ("Unexpected Error, I'm quitting.")

 objIE.Quit

 Set objIE = Nothing

End Sub

What I’ve done here is used the IE object to read HTML from Google into a text variable in VBA called HTML. I then placed my own HTML output text in the top of the page, and then outputted the same HTML to the VBA HTML output. This is what that looks like:

This is a very basic example of what this is capable of. But if you think about it, once you have the HTML from a webpage loaded into your VBA string variable, you can search for specific lines in the page, look for images, search out email addresses of phone numbers – or you could rewrite the entire input page into a new, edited version of the same page in whatever format you like and with any modifications you like.

Doing this would require a bit of string manipulation prowess – but nothing is impossible once you’ve read in the HTML source from the web.

Do you see any potential for using either HTML input or output in your own applications? Can you think of any cool uses for this script? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Out of 628 voters, 28% think Google+ is way better then Facebook, 12% think Google+ has no chance and that Facebook is here to stay, 25% believe there’s room for both and neither will take over, 20% think Google+ needs to improve if its to make an impression on Facebook, and 16% believe social networks as we know them are bound to disappear anyway.

Full results and this week’s poll after the jump.

All in all, more then 50% of the voters think Google+ is not going to take over Facebook any time soon. I guess the guys over at Facebook can relax, at least for a little while. But they shouldn’t relax too much!

This week’s poll question is: Which Browser Would You Install on Your Parents’ Computer?

The holiday season is officially upon us, and many will travel home from wherever they are, to take care of the old family computer (among other things). The browser scene keeps changing on us, and while Firefox 4 might not have been for everyone, Firefox 8 is a whole different story. Chrome and Safari are getting much more stable, and IE is not such a bad option anymore, either. So when you update your parents’ computer this year, what browser will you choose to install?

Why did you choose the browser you voted for? What makes it better for people who are not really computer savvy?

Raven takes site specific browsing technology and puts it together in one place, where you can download many of your favorite websites. If what I’ve described so far seems a little vague, let’s check out its features.

Web Apps

You start off using Raven by adding web apps to the Raven browser. The Raven Web Shop contains 50 websites, many of which you’re probably already very familiar with, including Amazon, Tumblr, Pandora, Mint, Google Apps, Angry Birds, and of course Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Dropbox. It’s also great that Apple’s new iCloud has been added to the mix.

This web app approach seems practical since most computer users have a set of sites they visit on a regular basis, and thus Raven might be a useful and easier way to access them. By having your favorite sites in one place, you can browse and do social networking with less clutter from open webpages.

Icons for each of your downloaded web apps appear on the left side of the browser in what is called the “Smart Bar” for easy access. Downloaded sites open within Raven similar to how they open in any browser, but the speed of download – at least on my Mac – seems a little faster. Raven includes features found in most other browsers – a history of pages visited, tabbed pages, and bookmarking.

Raven also includes an additional feature called Favorite, which the developers distinguish from bookmarks as site pages you visit on a regular basis. Whereas bookmarks might be what you reference only when needed. This feature also allows you to send selected favorites or bookmarks to the popular bookmarking site and mobile app, Instapaper. Hopefully integration for other sites will be forthcoming.

Each website/web app can have its own set of open tabs, which makes browsing sites easier. However, your history of visited webpages all get thrown into a single window/panel. I would like to see a separate History page, if possible, for each site/web app.

Site Specific Features

In the case of some social networking sites, like Twitter and Facebook, many of the features you use are available in the sidebar of Raven, such as mentions, direct messages for Twitter, and news feeds, events, etc for Facebook.

When you open iClouds in Raven, your Mail, Address Book, Calendar, and iWorks Documents pages get listed in the Smart Bar as well, saving you the trouble of linking back to the homepage of iCloud to access those pages.

These web-specific features are revealed in the Smart Bar only when a selected web app is in the forefront, thus again reducing the clutter of too many items in the browser.

Raven in still in its beta stage, so the developers admit that some users may experiences app crashes while the bugs are being worked out. However, I haven’t experienced a problem in my use of Raven. Although Raven has not replaced my regular web browser, I prefer to use it sometimes on my MacBook Air because it helps lessen the browsing clutter I experience with Safari.

Ravenco also says that they are developing a Revenco Software Development Kit (rSDK) which will provide other developers with a way to integrate web apps for Raven download. In this regard, it would great to see MakeUseOf available in the web store. Ravenco is also exploring and working on other features for Raven, so it might be a good idea to subscribe to their newsletter to get future updates.

For other articles about web browsers, check these MUO articles:

• 7 Best “New” Web Browsers With A Chance Against Chrome & Firefox
• 2 Anonymous Web Browsers That Are Completely Private
• 5 Useful Web Browsers For The iPad

Let us know what you think of Raven. It’s available for free download and requires the support of OS X Snow Leopard or above.

But is it really a good alternative to mainstream options, such as Internet Explorer, which the browser is based on? Let’s take a closer look.

Interface

If you’ve ever used Internet Explorer, you should not have trouble becoming acquainted with what is offered by Avant. The basics interface is similar to IE9 and important interface features like the URL bar, tabs, search bar and menu options are located in similar places.

There are also differences, however. The history, back and home buttons are in a different place, and this browser still relies on a more traditional text-based drop-down menu system located in the upper right hand corner of the browser. It’s a reminder of why this sort of menu was abandoned to varying degrees by the major browsers, as the huge selection of options can be confusing and intimidating.

On the other hand, users who are more-detail oriented will probably like the fact that so many important browser options can be changed without opening a sub-menu window. Even themes can be changed directly from a drop-down, and new themes are loaded instantly, with no need to reboot the browser or even the slightest annoying flash or visual artifact.

Features

Avant is absolutely crammed to the brim with features. Perhaps the most interesting, at least to geeks, is the fact that the browser can currently be downloaded with compatibility for two different browsing engines – IE9 and Firefox. You will need to download the Ultimate version of Avant to use Firefox rendering, but don’t worry. It’s also free.

There are other handy extras, too. For example, you can split any browsing window into two, and view different websites in each at once. It’s not much different from using Windows Aero Snap, but it exists in your browser so you don’t have to open two browser windows.

Another cool feature is video downloads. If you visit a site with video content, a small notification will appear asking if you want to download it. There doesn’t seem to be much that the browser can’t download, including YouTube videos. Once a video has been downloaded, it can be opened in VLC Player from the download manager.

Speed

No review of a browser would be complete without looking at how fast it is.

Subjectively, Avant is very pleasing. There’s no delay when performing any action, and even with multiple YouTube and Flash game tabs open, there was no delay when switching between tabs. Users with less powerful system might have worse results, but this was on an older Core 2 Duo processor, so it’s not as if Avant was brought to its knees by sheer lack of hardware power.

The only complaint I have is that, when dragging the browser around in a window, the contents lag the browser window itself slightly. You won’t often have to deal with this issue, and it’s minor when it occurs, but it is notable since other browsers don’t exhibit the same behavior.

Of course, subjective tests can only get you so far. Let’s see how the browser performs in the Peacekeeper browser benchmark.

Here we can see that Avant comes in last, but doesn’t lose by much to Firefox 8. This result is what you’d expect considering that Avant uses the IE9 browser engine. Chrome, as usual, easily outruns both Avant and Firefox 8 by a large margin.

Conclusion

I’ve used a lot of alternative browsers in the past, but often found flaws in them that would prevent me from using them full-time. With Avant, I find no such issues.

This browser is reasonably quick, very stable, and offers a ton of features. This is a good choice for users who want to standardize around the Internet Explorer browser engine but don’t want to use Internet Explorer 9. In fact, I don’t see why anyone would use IE9 instead, as Avant offers the same web compatibility but also a ton of additional features.

However, sometimes we forget that there are still some other browsers than the Big 5. Today, we’ll be looking at one of the fastest and most lightweight browsers outside of the Big 5.

About Midori

Midori is a relatively simple browser that currently tries to offer you the most of the web while keeping it simple and clean. In other words, it strives to support all of the Web’s standards such as HTML5 while keeping the browser user interface relatively simple. This results in an easy browsing experience as well as a speedy one. The browser should be available under all Linux distributions, while you can also download a Windows version from Midori’s website (more about that later).

Features

Startup and User Interface

One of the first things you’ll notice about Midori is that it has a quick cold-start time. The browser window loads almost instantaneously, with a fully loaded page around a second later. Once the window appears, you’ll see how uncluttered the user interface really is: there is only one row of buttons and the address bar, with a second hidden one until you open up more than one tab. The buttons themselves are fairly small, making each row relatively smaller when compared to the Big 5.

Rendering Engine

Midori uses WebKit as its rendering engine, the same engine used in Chrome and Safari. WebKit is well-known for being speedy while supporting the latest standards of the Web.

Default Search Engine

You may also notice that Midori’s default search engine is Duck Duck Go!, a privacy-aware search engine who’s main goal is to keep you and your searches as anonymous as possible. If you’d like to know more about Duck Duck Go!, you can read this page.

Preferences

If you want to find Midori’s options, they’ll be all the way to the right (similar to Chrome), hidden in the wrench-and-page icon. Midori doesn’t have as many options because of its relative simplicity. However, if you go into Preferences, one of tabs will say Extensions. In here, you can enable a couple of self-made extensions from the developers of Midori to slightly change your browsing experience to your liking. None of the extensions so far will do anything major, but the ad-blocking extension with options to add additional filters will definitely be a plus to many.

Private Browsing

Midori also offers a private browsing feature so that you can do your secret shopping without letting friends or family members know.

Available for Windows

As I mentioned earlier, Midori is also available for Windows, and it works just as well. However, some of the styling is off (because it has Linux dependencies), so it won’t look as nice as it does on Linux. Either way, functionality is not changed because of this.

Final Note

Don’t forget to note, as the site says, that Midori as a whole is still considered alpha software by the project (although it has been stable in my use), so be aware that over time new features may possibly still be broken, and that the browser isn’t even near completion until it gets out of alpha.

Conclusion

Midori is a great browser for those who want to use the Web instead of their browsers (well, you know what I mean). With great speed, ease of use, and helpful small functionality such as ad-blocking, Midori should be a choice for many who want to try something else or have a very low-powered machine. Try it; you just might like it.

What do you think about Midori? Is the browser a good idea? What do you like or don’t like? Let us know in the comments!