I was trying to get a good browser that supported both my programs and my alignment for my website. I downloaded ALL of the big ones. Opera, IE explorer 7, Firefox, netscape and msn (lol I wasn't getting lucky).
Though I havent gone in debth I have rated them as follows:
First: Opera
Opera has some features none of the rest have including mouse actions. It support both IE explorer made pages and Firefox made ones. Its easy to switch just by going to the options pannel. The theme is easy to change but the toolbar isn't quite what you would get from firefox.

Secound: Netscape
Just like firefox exept a really good anti-virius set-up. Netscape is good if you work for a company that can't get any type of virius. It has good themes and if you like firefox its easy to switch without learning new hotkeys.

Third: Firefox
Firefox is a great browser. It has a fully custumizeable tool bar and has good features. If you like your browser to be exactly the way you want it to be firefox is for you! Though not as good as Netscape some people don't like having all that extra anti-virius stuff that slows you down.
Forth: MSN
This browser is ok just has some major problems. Hardly custumizable (or it is hard to and I have not found out how to). The webpage only takes up 3/4 of the screen (the rest is toolbar). It does however support many scripts. If you don't mind a small screen MSN might be right for you.
Last: IE explorer 7
I strongly suggest you not get this browser. If you have it switch to anouther. It has many errors like a broken tabbed browser and random exiting out. The menu bar is somewhat costumizeable. A plus is IE explorer does run many of the programs that firefox and netscape can't run. If you really don't mind many bugs and popups you may want to try IE explorer.

This is all of them (at least that work on windows) I havn't put mac ones in yet because I don't have a mac. I think for macs suffary is good. I hope this helped you and didn't make you just more confused. If you like your current browser just stick with it don't download a new.
Note: This post may not be 100% currect it just gives the the general idea of the browser.
Thanks for reading even with my spelling errors (no google toolbar yet for Opera lol)
~Sparkx~

I want to Add my reviewing of FireFox, becouse im using it more then other browsers and here is some reasons do to so. Unlike 2005 web-browser Internet Explorer of the 6th version most widespread to the beginning, built-in in Windows, Mazilla provides higher level of safety of the user, it is capable to protect it from persuasive advertising, possesses a lot of new opportunities (blocking of emerging windows, opening of pages in tabs, instead of in the separate windows, the loaded expansions adding new opportunities, the loaded themes changing appearance). By development Mazilla Firefox the special attention was given support of standards W3C. Therefore sometimes a web-sites, written with infringement of standards counting upon viewing only in Internet Explorer, can be displayed incorrectly. Fortunately, such sites meet all less often, but even with such Mazilla Firefox is able to work correctly. Unlike other programs Mazila Foundation, being a set a web-focused of appendices, Mazilla - only a browser. Owing to it it less, is more quickly and easier in use. Also Mazilla Firefox gives some additional opportunities - for example, adjusted panels of tools. Though Mazila - a small browser on the size, it is one of the most flexible with ample opportunities of adjustment: the user can establish the additional themes changing appearance of the program, and the expansions adding new functionality.

Here are some distinctive features of FireFox:

- blocking of "pop-up"s;
- support tabs (number of pages in one window);
- the built in panel of search in search machines and dictionaries;
- so-called "Alive bookmarks" (Live bookmarks) - the mechanism of integration of RSS-streams;
- ample opportunities on adjustment of behaviour and appearance
- the small size of the distribution kit (nearby 5 MB), * support of set of expansions;
- excellent tools for a web-developer;
- automatic updating both the browser, and its expansions;

I have found that FireFox Best from other browsers!!!
and also Mozilla going to release 3rd FireFox version, at moment it passing Acid2 tests, and there is alfa version, developers of this product recomendate present users Firefox 2 to not use alpha version Firefox 3.

This post has been edited by Aka_Bar: Dec 17 2006, 06:34 PM

I also recommend Opera as a main browser, it has everything i need inside it and i usually always keep it open. It's frequent email checks let you know as soon as you have received an email, the download manager is simple to use and also supports torrents. From version 9 opera supports widgets which makes it more customizable. There are thousands of other themes to get if you don't like the default one, you can add your own search engines to the search bar and even give them a nice little keyword which really makes searching easy.
I also find opera lightweight (even though at the moment it is using up around 55mb of ram, not that it's a problem ) it starts in seconds and there is no sluggish performance

-HellFire

Type g "search words" in the address bar. Then find that in another browser.

All apart from 6, which I don't understand, are also true in Opera.

Opera is fastest on Windows, in some areas IE7 is faster than FF2. It was the first of many things, like tabs.

I like opera and firefox, but firefox gets my vote as my favorite for everyday stuff. Basically the extensions win me over heh. Both have alot to offer but I just prefer the general feel of firefox more, but that alone wouldn't be enough to sway me so the extensions finish that job. With tons of support for developers and the like the extensions simply give me features I never expected to be built into the browser while I can avoid the extraneous features I would never use.

I'd never say anything bad about either as they are both pretty dang solid. I haven't used netscape enough to fully judge it but what I have seen I wasn't a huge fan, not sure why. IE...well... yea that speaks for itself. haha.

I installed fire fox just 5mins ago it is totally different to my old one, it will take me some time to get use to this. It looks weird when I look at WebPages now. But it dose look better than the old one I installed years ago. It is easy to use. But I think I will take a look at internet explorer 7 before I decide which one I will use. Which one is better for virus protection fire for or internet explorer 7?

Well flashdiamond, firefox is better for virus protection relatively to IE7. MS has improved IE7 a lot, but still it has too many bugs.

My recommendation goes to Opera. Opera simply rocks. Firefox is good too. (I have never used netscape or MSN). IE... well, IE6 was pathetic. IE7 is ok, but nowhere near firefox or opera.

Since Firefox is opensource, we get a lot of extensions for it. Because of that Firefox offers a lot of features, but opera is not open source. (It is free, but not open source). Hence extensions available for it are less. Even then, it has a lot of features which no other browsers offer. Like mouse guesture, inbuilt bittorrent client etc.

I like firefox

So you recommend netscape? I haven't had that browser on my computer in a very long time. I'm tempted to try it out just to see if what you're saying is right. I'm leaning more toward making Opera my first choice and Firefox my second choice because of the frequent crashing of the firefox browser. But Firefox is so customizable that it's hard to make the switch.

Internet explorer is just too vulnerable to attack. And then if you have a so-called illegal version of Windows on your computer, you can't download the new IE anyways. Even though that version of Windows came with my computer.


So it's firefox all the way for now. But I"ll check out the Netscape

wow, you're not serious ? You'd prefer MSN Explorer above IE7 ? Afaik MSN Explorer is more like a skin around the Internet Explorer core. I've tried it once and immediatly disliked it, it was slow ... realy slow .
Opera is indeed a good browser for general use, tough I think Firefox still supports more sites because of it's popularity (a good example is Google Picasa). Opera is a lot better for security reason ... not many people are using it so why would someone bother looking for possible exploits ?

I can't give an opinion on Netscape, a friend of mine uses it and I must admit it looks good, but I don't know how well it renders websites.