Webware100

Safari is Apple's Web browser. It's one of the more speedy browsers around, and it was one of the first Web browsers to introduce a built-in RSS reader. It's currently in its third iteration and has traded blows with Firefox to provide the fastest browsing experience on the Web with its rendering engine.

Safari began as an in-house replacement to Microsoft's Internet Explorer for Mac, which Microsoft didn't update or improve on at the same rate as it did for its Windows counterpart--and eventually dropped shortly after the release of Safari.

In 2007, Safari got quite a bit of attention for its inclusion as the default Web browser in Apple's iPhone.

Winner: Apple Safari (Apple.com/Safari)
Category: Browsing

Opera is one of the oldest browsers around. It's also made its way into all sorts of consumer electronics, including mobile phones, gaming portables, and even home video game consoles. Opera has combined many technological services into its desktop Web browser and is commonly regarded as the first to implement tabs for viewing multiple Web pages in the same window.

Opera also has a built-in BitTorrent client. Users who want to partake in the peer-to-peer file-sharing technology can do so while continuing their other browsing habits. There's also Speed Dial that gives people the chance to list as many as nine of their favorite sites, which show up as preview thumbnails on their browser's start page. Clicking them goes right to the site. It's essentially a page full of bookmarks, but it's quite pretty.

Opera's latest beta includes an improved built-in mail client, as well as a new service called Opera Link that syncs up your bookmarks between your computer and your mobile phone without the need to use a third-party bookmarking service.

Winner: Opera (Opera.com)
Category: Browsing

My Yahoo is a customizable start page that users can fill with a variety of personalized content feeds. Like some other single-page aggregators, My Yahoo centers around its directory, which is filled with all sorts of feeds--some from third-party sources, while others are in-house Yahoo content. People can mix and match, move things around, and custom-tailor their page however they please.

In addition to content, users can also pick from a wide variety of themes to decorate their page. Each of these themes can be customized, including color and font.

Winner: My Yahoo (My.Yahoo.com)
Category: Browsing

Maxthon has been downloaded more than 140 million times and is one of the few browsers to have mouse gestures as a standard feature. Users can hold the right mouse button and use a variety of motions to emulate clicking navigation buttons. It's also got a built-in RSS reader and a screen-capture utility. Its development started when the creator, fed up with the lack of customization in Microsoft's Internet Explorer, decided to make his own browser.

While Maxthon doesn't show up as a major contender in most market share reports, it's worth noting it's the second-most popular browser in China and holds 30 percent of the market there as of late April 2008.

Winner: Maxthon (Maxthon.com)
Category: Browsing

Apple's iPhone got a lot of buzz for its sleek exterior and amazing interface. It was also one of the first mainstream devices to ship with an innovative take on mobile Internet browsing with its finger-friendly version of Safari. Safari Mobile shares the same rendering engine as its big brother. The major difference is that instead of tabs, it can have up to eight windows open at a time that users can parse through with their fingers.

To scale large Web sites to such a small screen, Apple employs gestures to let users zoom in and around the page. This interface led to a huge outpouring of specially developed Web apps and services designed specifically to suite the device and its innovative interface.

Despite the excitement, one of Safari Mobile's major shortcomings has been the lack of Adobe Flash, which has quickly become an integral part in many popular Web sites for sharing media.

Winner: Apple iPhone (Apple.com/iPhone)
Category: Browsing

Internet Explorer is Microsoft's latest Web browser and the most dominant Internet browser on the market. In version 7, Microsoft has added tabs and extensions, letting users add additional features and functionality. It's also been given a face-lift that brings it a bit closer to the look and feel of Windows Vista.

Internet Explorer 7 is also the first version of Explorer to handle RSS feeds, the popular Web content syndication standard.

Internet Explorer comes as the default browser on all PCs that ship with the Windows operating system and has been the target of nearly all security exploitations because of its market saturation. Version 8, which is set for release later this year, is already drawing interest from many site creators for its promise of standards compliance.

Winner: Internet Explorer 7 (Microsoft.com)
Category: Browsing

iGoogle is Google's customizable start page. Users can add any number of gadgets to their page that can be custom-tailored to link up with all sorts of Web services and serve as mini applications or newsfeeds. One of the features that makes iGoogle especially neat is it can be customized with different themes that change by what time of day you're looking at the page. Users can create their own themes that go into the same directory that houses the thousands of developer-created gadgets.

Last year, Google also launched the capability to create your own gadgets with no coding knowledge required. Users simply plug in the datafeed and customize the shape, size, and coloring--the service does the rest. There are seven gadget presets to choose from, and using the same technology, you're able to customize many preexisting gadgets created by others to fit the look and feel of your iGoogle page.

Winner: iGoogle (Google.com/ig)
Category: Browsing

Google Reader is a Web-based RSS feed reader. Users can subscribe to as many RSS feeds as they want, then browse them in a lean and simplistic two-pane story browser that feels a little bit like Gmail. RSS feeds give users a visually simplified version of Web content. In addition to photos and text, Google Reader will also display embedded video clips from several popular services.

In addition to reading stories yourself, you can share them with others. Google Reader gives users the option to create sharable feeds of subscribed stories, including the ones they mark as being interesting. In 2007, Google expanded the sharing feature by integrating your list of shared stories with buddies on Google's IM network Google Talk.

Google Reader works on any browser; there are also versions for mobile phones, the iPhone, and the Nintendo Wii.

Winner: Google Reader (Google.com/Reader)
Category: Browsing

Firefox is a free, multiplatform browser. Its popularity is second only to Microsoft's Internet Explorer among Web browsers, but unlike IE, it has open-source code. The result has been an avid development community, filled with people eager to squash bugs and create new functionality. Firefox also has the option to create and use extensions that can add new features or services right on top of the user experience. These add-ons have gotten so popular that Firefox creator Mozilla has created its own directory for users to search and sort through them.

2008 brings the year of Firefox 3, which sports an updated look and an updated rendering engine that's several times faster than the one that came before it. It's also got built-in antivirus protection, a save function that lets you save the tabs you had open upon quitting, as well as the beginnings of a new offline support system that lets sites built parts of their page that work offline.

Winner: Firefox (Mozilla.com)
Category: Browsing