Strong, innovative Web browsers emerge

By ANICK JESDANUN

Have Firefox 2? Go for an upgrade.

NEW YORK — With all the recent attention on the new Firefox 3 Internet browser, it’s easy to miss two strong, innovative rivals. Add it all up, and Microsoft Corp.’s market-leading Internet Explorer has some impressive challengers.

Opera 9.5, for instance, lets you share bookmarked Web pages and notes among several computers. And another browser, Flock 2, brings Firefox 3’s improvements to an already strong system for sharing photos and blog entries and linking friends on social-networking sites like Facebook.

Developed by the Mozilla open-source community, mostly volunteers, Firefox 3 showcases the “awesome bar.” Start typing anything into the address bar, and you’ll find letters and words jump around as Firefox 3 attempts to suggest up to 12 sites, with priority given to those you most recently visited or manually typed in.

Some people find the choices annoying, preferring how Firefox 2 limits matches to the start of previously visited Web addresses.

But I like that the new browser also looks at the entire address, the Web page’s title, bookmarks and the descriptive tags added to them. The way recommendations instantly change with each keystroke reminds me of the powerful desktop search feature built into Apple’s Mac computers.

Firefox 3 also brings speed and security improvements. Sites known to engage in “phishing” scams or the distribution of malicious software are now automatically blocked. The address bar turns partially green for sites that have passed vigorous background checks by outside parties.

The new browser also lets you launch Web-based e-mail rather than a standalone desktop program when clicking on basic “contact us” links within Web pages, though only Yahoo Inc.’s service is supported for now.

Firefox 2 users will do well to upgrade, and others should consider a switch.

Those drawn to Firefox 3’s “awesome bar” may also want to consider Opera Software ASA’s new offering, which checks the entire Web page visited for matches, not just the title and address. For example, if you type in the name of a movie, you’ll pull up mentions deep within news articles you’ve read.

Opera 9.5 also supports the security background checks and has its own security filters. But Opera won’t open up Web-based e-mail when you click on “contact us” links.

What Opera does have is a tool for more easily finding specific words or phrases within a Web page. Simply type the period and a few characters, and all matches are automatically highlighted, not just one at a time like most other browsers. (Apple Inc.’s Safari comes closest to matching Opera — you type control-F rather than the period.)

A handy feature called Speed Dial lets you see miniature versions of nine favorite sites at a glance. You click on any to load the full site.

The new version makes Speed Dial more useful by synchronizing your favorites across multiple machines when you’re logged on. This works with your bookmarks and a new feature called Notes, which lets you jot down shopping lists, directions and other text for retrieval elsewhere, including phones with Opera Mini software.