Science Fair Project Encyclopedia

Science Fair Project Encyclopedia Contents Page

Comparison of web browsers

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of web browsers. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date.

Contents

1 General information

2 Operating system support

3 Browser features

4 Accessibility features

5 Accessibility features (cont.)

6 Web technology support

7 Protocol support

8 Image format support

9 References

10 See also

General information

Basic general information about the browsers: creator/company, license/price etc.

	Creator	First public release date	Latest stable version	Cost (USD)	Software license	Current layout engine
Amaya	W3C, INRIA	November 14, 1996	9.1	Free	W3C	?
Camino	Mozilla Foundation	February, 2002	0.8.3	Free	MPL, MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license	Gecko
Dillo	Arellano Cid, Geerken, Rota, et al.	December, 1999	0.8.4	Free	GPL	?
ELinks	Baudis, Fonseca, et al.	December, 2001	0.10.4	Free	GPL	?
Epiphany	GNOME	December, 2002	1.6.0	Free	GPL	Gecko
Galeon	GNOME	June, 2000	1.3.18	Free	GPL	Gecko
iCab	iCab Company	1998	2.9.8	Free (preview), $30 (pro)	Proprietary	iCab
Internet Explorer	Microsoft, Spyglass	August, 1995	6.0 SP2 ¹ (Win) 5.2.3 (Mac)	Part of Windows ¹ Free (Mac)	Proprietary	Trident (Win), Tasman (Mac)
K-Meleon	Doozan, Erikson, Vallet, et al.	November 26, 2000	0.9	Free	GPL	Gecko
Konqueror	KDE	October, 2000	3.4	Free	GPL	KHTML
Links	Patocka, et al.	November 24, 1999	0.99	Free	GPL	?
Lynx	Montulli, Grobe, Rezac, et al.	July, 1993	2.8.5	Free	GPL	?
Mosaic	Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina , NCSA	April 22, 1993	2.6	Free (non-commercial)	Proprietary	?
Mozilla	Mozilla Foundation	December 7, 1998	1.7.7	Free	MPL, MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license	Gecko
Mozilla Firefox	Mozilla Foundation	September 23, 2002	1.0.3	Free	MPL, MPL/GPL/LGPL tri-license	Gecko
Netscape	Netscape Communications, Mozilla Foundation (since 2000), Mercurial Communications (since 2004)	October 13, 1994	7.2	Free	NPL	Gecko
OmniWeb	Omni Group	March 17, 1995	5.1	$30	Proprietary, LGPL	WebCore (Modified KHTML)
Opera	Opera Software	September, 1996	8.0	Free (ads), $20–39 (ad-free)	Proprietary	Presto
Safari	Apple Computer	June 23, 2003	1.3	Part of Mac OS X ¹	Proprietary, LGPL	WebCore (Modified KHTML)
WorldWideWeb	Tim Berners-Lee	August, 1991	0.17	Free	Public domain	NeXTSTEP built-in
	Creator	First public release date	Latest stable version	Cost (USD)	Software license	Current layout engine

Note (1): Windows XP is required to install the latest version of Internet Explorer for Windows, and Mac OS X v10.3 is required to install the latest version of Safari. The last stand-alone version of Internet Explorer is 6.0 SP1, which can be installed on Windows 98 and later.

Operating system support

The operating systems the browsers can run on without emulation.

	Windows	Mac OS X	Mac OS 9	Linux	BSD	Unix
Amaya	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Camino	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Dillo	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
ELinks	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Epiphany	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Galeon	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
iCab	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Internet Explorer	Yes	Dropped	Dropped	No	No	Dropped
Links	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Lynx	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
K-Meleon	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
Konqueror	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mosaic	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mozilla	Yes	Yes	Dropped	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mozilla Firefox	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Netscape	Yes	Yes	Dropped	Yes	Yes	Yes
OmniWeb	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Opera	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Safari	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
WorldWideWeb (NeXTSTEP only)	No	No	No	No	No	No
	Windows	Mac OS X	Mac OS 9	Linux	BSD	Unix

Browser features

Information about what common browser features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons).

	Bookmark managing	Download managing	Password managing	Form managing	Spell checking	Search engine toolbar
Amaya	?	?	?	?	Yes	?
Camino	Yes	Yes	?	?	No	Yes
Dillo	?	No	?	?	No	Partial
ELinks	?	Yes	?	?	No	No
Epiphany	?	Yes	?	?	No	Yes
Galeon 1.2 ²	?	?	?	?	No	Yes
iCab	?	Yes	?	?	No	Yes
Internet Explorer ³	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No ⁴	No ⁵
K-Meleon	Yes	No	?	?	No	Yes
Konqueror	Yes	No	?	?	Yes	Yes
Links	?	?	?	?	?	?
Lynx	?	No	?	?	No	No
Mosaic	?	?	?	?	?	No
Mozilla	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Mozilla Firefox	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No ⁶	Yes
Netscape	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
OmniWeb	?	Yes	?	?	Yes	Yes
Opera	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Safari	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
WorldWideWeb	?	No	?	?	Yes	No
	Bookmark managing	Download managing	Password managing	Form managing	Search engine toolbar	Spell checking

Note (2): Galeon 1.3 is a complete re-write, and does not yet support all the features of Galeon 1.2.

Note (3): Internet Explorer is the only browser to support the Component Object Model (known also as ActiveX) natively. The embedding of ActiveX into Internet Explorer can add functionality to the browser, however this can also lead to infection with computer viruses, trojans and spyware infections.

Note (4): Spell checking can be added by installing ieSpell add-on [1].

Note (5): Internet Explorer does not come with any search engine toolbar, but a variety of official and third-party toolbar add-ons are available.

Note (6): Spell checking can be added by installing spellbound extension [2].

Accessibility features

Information about what common accessibility features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons).

	Tabbed browsing	Pop-up blocking	Incremental finding	Ad filtering	Page zooming ⁷
Amaya	Yes	N/A	?	?	Yes
Camino	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Dillo	No	No	?	No	No
ELinks	Yes	No	Yes	N/A	N/A
Epiphany	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Galeon 1.2 ²	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	Yes
iCab	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Internet Explorer	No	Yes	No	No	No
K-Meleon	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	Partial
Konqueror	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No
Links	No	No	?	N/A	N/A
Lynx	No	N/A	?	N/A	N/A
Mosaic	No	N/A	?	No	?
Mozilla	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial ⁸	No
Mozilla Firefox	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial ⁸	No
Netscape	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial ⁸	No
OmniWeb	Yes	Yes	?	Yes	No
Opera	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Safari	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
WorldWideWeb	No	No	No	No	No
	Tabbed browsing	Pop-up blocking	Incremental finding	Ad filtering	Page zooming

Note (7): Page zooming is different from text resizing, as it resizes not only characters, but also multimedia objects and viewport.

Note (8): Mozilla, Mozilla Firefox, and Netscape support simple domain name-based image blocking. More advanced regular expression-based Ad filtering for Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox can be added with the AdBlock extension.

Accessibility features (cont.)

Information about what common accessibility features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons).

	HTML accesskey support	Tab navigation	Spatial navigation	Mouse gesture	Text-to-speech	Voice control
Amaya	?	?	?	?	No	No
Camino	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
Dillo	?	?	?	?	No	No
ELinks	?	?	?	?	No	No
Epiphany	?	?	?	?	No	No
Galeon 1.2 ²	?	?	?	?	No	No
iCab	?	?	?	?	No	No
Internet Explorer	Yes	Yes	No	No ⁹	No	No
K-Meleon	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
Konqueror	?	?	?	?	No	No
Links	?	?	?	?	No	No
Lynx	?	?	?	?	No	No
Mosaic	?	?	?	?	No	No
Mozilla	Yes	Yes	No	No ¹¹	No	No
Mozilla Firefox	Yes	Yes	No ¹⁰	No ¹¹	No ¹²	No
Netscape	Yes	Yes	No	No ¹¹	No	No
OmniWeb	?	?	?	?	No	No
Opera	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Safari	?	?	?	?	No	No
WorldWideWeb	?	?	?	?	No	No
	HTML accesskey support	Tab navigation	Spatial navigation	Mouse gesture	Text-to-speech	Voice control

Note (9): Mouse gesture support can be added by installing Easy Go Back add-on [3].

Note (10): Doug Turner , the Minimo lead developer, has introduced spatial navigation to some special Firefox builds [4]. It may build as a default part of Firefox [5].

Note (11): Mouse gesture support can be added by installing extensions like All-in-One Gestures (Firefox-only) [6] and Mouse Gestures [7].

Note (12): Firefox works with a number of screen readers such as JAWS [8] and Microsoft SAPI 5 TTS [9] through extensions.

Web technology support

Information about what web standards, and technologies the browsers support. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the browsers or extensions that provide such functionality.

	CSS2 ¹³	Frames	Java	JavaScript	XSLT	XHTML ¹⁴	MathML	XForms	RSS	Atom
Amaya	Yes	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Camino	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	?	?
Dillo	No	Partial	No	No	?	?	No	No	No	No
ELinks	Partial	Yes	No	Partial	?	No	No	No	No	No
Epiphany	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Galeon	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	?	?
iCab	Partial	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No	No
Internet Explorer	Partial ¹⁵	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
K-Meleon	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	?
Konqueror	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	?	Yes	No	No	?	?
Links	No	Yes	No	Partial	?	No	No	No	No	No
Lynx	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Mosaic	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
Mozilla	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No ¹⁶	No	No
Mozilla Firefox	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No ¹⁶	Yes	Yes
Netscape	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	?	?
OmniWeb	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Opera	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
Safari	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No ¹⁷	No ¹⁷
WorldWideWeb	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No	No
	CSS2	Frames	Java	JavaScript	XSLT	XHTML	MathML	XForms	RSS	Atom

Note (13): CSS2 Revision 1, a W3C candidate recommendation, is the current version of CSS. CSS2 aural media is almost universally unsupported and as such is not considered here. CSS3 is only in draft status at present. For more detailed information please see comparison of layout engines (CSS).

Note (14): XHTML is based on HTML but is an application of XML, which means that XHTML must be stricter than equivalent HTML code. XHTML is meant to be read by an XML parser but for backward compatibility reasons can also be parsed as HTML; this table only notes the browsers that are able to parse XHTML as XML. For more detailed information please see comparison of layout engines (XHTML) .

Note (15): Internet Explorer 6 supports most static properties of CSS2 but is known to have a significantly higher number of bugs than other browsers. The most notable of these is the box model bug, which affects all versions of Internet Explorer for Windows prior to IE6 and remains the default box model in IE6. Internet Explorer 6 lacks support for dynamic content, attribute selectors, or hover, technologies supported by all other CSS 2 browsers.

Note (16): XForms is supported experimentally in nightly builds dated after January 28 2005 [10]. Requires installation of an extension.

Note (17): To be implemented in Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger [11].

Protocol support

Information about what internet protocols the browsers support. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the browsers or extensions that provide such functionality.

	Email ¹⁸	FTP	NNTP (Usenet) ¹⁸	SSL	IRC	Gopher	IDN	data: URL
Amaya	No	No	No	No	No	?	?	?
Camino	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Dillo	No	?	No	Partial	No	No	?	?
ELinks	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Epiphany	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Galeon	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
iCab	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	?	?	?
Internet Explorer	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Disabled	No ²¹	No
K-Meleon	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Konqueror	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	?	Yes	No
Links	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	?	?	?
Lynx	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	?	?	?
Mosaic	No	?	No	?	No	Yes	No	No
Mozilla	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes ²²	Yes
Mozilla Firefox	No	Yes	No	Yes	No ¹⁹	Yes	Yes ²²	Yes
Netscape	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No ¹⁹	Yes	Yes	Yes
OmniWeb	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	?	Yes	?
Opera	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Partial ²⁰	Yes	Yes
Safari	No	Partial	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes
WorldWideWeb	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
	Email	FTP	NNTP (Usenet)	SSL	IRC	Gopher	IDN	data: URL

Note (18): Many browsers have purposely avoided support for email and newsgroups, as these are reserved for their mail-client counterparts. For a comparison of such counterparts see comparison of email clients.

Note (19): IRC support can added by installing ChatZilla.

Note (20): Gopher is supported through proxy servers.

Note (21): IDN support can be added by installing VeriSign i-Nav Plug-In.

Note (22): IDN domains are displayed as punycode by default for security reasons

Image format support

Information about what image formats the browsers support. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the browsers or extensions that provide such functionality.

	JPEG	GIF	PNG	MNG	SVG ²⁶	PDF ²⁹
Amaya	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Partial	No
Camino	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Dillo	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	?
ELinks	No	No	No	No	No	No
Epiphany	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	?
Galeon	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	?
iCab	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
Internet Explorer	Yes ²³	Yes	Partial ²⁴	No	No	No
K-Meleon	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Konqueror	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	?
Links	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Lynx	No	No	No	No	No	No
Mosaic	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
Mozilla	Yes	Yes	Yes	Dropped ²⁵	No ²⁷	No
Mozilla Firefox	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No ²⁷	No
Netscape	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
OmniWeb	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No
Opera	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Partial ²⁸	No
Safari	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes
WorldWideWeb	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
	JPEG	GIF	PNG	MNG	SVG	PDF

Note (23): Internet Explorer does not support progressive display of progressive JPEG.

Note (24): Internet Explorer for Windows supports PNG images but is unable to correctly display images with alpha transparency; partially transparent pixels will be displayed as fully opaque. Internet Explorer for Macintosh supports PNGs with alpha transparency.

Note (25): Support of MNG/JNG was dropped since June 6 2003 [12] [13].

Note (26): SVG here refers to SVG 1.1 "Full". These are two simpified profiles known as SVG 1.1 Tiny and SVG 1.1 Basic, which are intended for user agents with limited capabilities.

Note (27): SVG is currently supported experimentally in SVG-enabled Mozilla/Firefox builds (not enabled in official builds) [14]. There were signs showing that SVG support may be included in Firefox 1.1 [15], but no official announcement was made yet. Modules that are supported, in progress, or not supported [16].

Note (28): Opera supports SVG 1.1 Tiny only.

Note (29): Most browsers support PDF by installing an Adobe plugin which takes over the browser window. Listed here are browsers which also support inline PDFs within other hypertext documents (such as within HTML's <img/> tag). Note that PDF (in strictly speaking) is not an image format, but a scriptable rich text document format that can contain different types of multimedia content, including vector and bitmap graphics, audio, video, forms, intra- and inter-document hypertext links and a hierarchical contents listing. The format is also the native display format under Mac OS X.

All Science Fair Projects