Set your browser with these simple tools.
Set Browser.com
Everything you need to set your web browser
These days, web browsers are free applications that you can simply download, install and begin using. There are a wide variety of them, and each has its own pluses and minuses. To find out more about any particular browser, simply follow the link below to their download site where you can read more about each of them and should you decide that the browser is something that you might like to test, download it and begin using it.
The most popular browsers are listed at the top of the page, the less popular and specialty browsers are in the table at the bottom of the page.
Browser Downloads / Plugin (Add-on) Downloads
Where and how to download a new browser or useful plugins for your browser
There are a number of popular browsers available for free on the Internet. The two most popular are Internet Explorer and Firefox. Firefox has proven to be a bit more flexible with dozens of useful add-ons that you can download and install for free.
Other browsers, such as Amaya, allow you to edit webpages. So you can find a web design you like, edit it and make it your own... being careful, of course, not to violate copyrights.
Download Firefox (or upgrade your version)
Firefox is the award winning browser brought to you by the same folks who invented the modern web browser - Netscape.
Firefox is being designed to be faster with each successive release.
Not only that, but all web developers test their pages in Firefox as well as MSIE so that you can be sure that Firefox will properly display all pages.
Firefox has many great plugins (add-ons) that you can install in your browser with just a click.
Click on the Firefox logo above or this link to go to the official Firefox download site.
Download or upgrade MS Internet Explorer
As of this writing, Internet Explorer 8 has been released and it has a few neat features, one of which allows you to change your user agent to view older pages designed for IE6 or IE7.
You can still download Internet Explorer 7 although as of this writing, the download link on the official IE7 page now shows the image of IE8 - don't worry, it will download IE7 if you need it. These older browsers remain available mostly for web developers who need to test their web designs in a number of different browsers.
You can also download Internet Explorer 6, although it is not advised as this browser was quite 'buggy' and many pages have difficulty displaying properly with IE6. To this day, IE6 gives web developers heartburn.
Download the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer by clicking on the logo image above or by clicking here.
Download Google Chrome
The newest web browser on the block, Google Chrome offers:
Search from the address bar
Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.
Thumbnails of your top sites
Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.
Private browsing
Open an incognito window when you don't want to save your browsing history. This eliminates the problem of deleting your browsing history.
Download Google Chrome by clicking on the logo image above, or by clicking here.
Download Opera
Opera has many popular features including:
Feed Preview - preview feeds
O pera Link - synchronize data online
Quick Find - Opera remembers content of pages you visit
Opera Mail - Opera browser offers an e-mail client
New browser - the fastest browser in the world
Mouse Gestures - navigate the Web with your mouse.
Download Manager with BitTorrent - Download files quicker.
Block images, pop-ups, and plug-ins you don't want .
Fraud Protection - automatically detects and warns you about fraudulent Web sites.
To download Opera click on the logo icon above or click here.
Download Safari
Safari is not just for Macs, but it also works fine on PCs. Developed by Apple, this free browser claims to be the world's fastest browser.
Safari offers some 150 features on the official website, far too numerous to list here, so if you would like to find out more about what this browser can offer, just visit their 'features' page.
Click the logo image to the left, or this link to download Safari.
Download Amaya
Amaya is the W3C's open source web browser that can also be used to design and edit webpages. The W3C is the organization that establishes standards for the World Wide Web.
Amaya is a Web editor, i.e. a tool used to create and update documents directly on the Web. Browsing features are seamlessly integrated with the editing and remote access features in a uniform environment. This follows the original vision of the Web as a space for collaboration and not just a one-way publishing medium.
Amaya started as an HTML + CSS style sheet editor. Since that time it was extended to support XML and an increasing number of XML applications such as the XHTML family, MathML, and SVG. It allows all those vocabularies to be edited simultaneously in compound documents.
You can download Amaya by clicking on the Amaya logo above or this link.
Less Commonly Used and Specialty Browsers
Other browsers - it's not all just Firefox, IE, Chrome and Opera...
| Browser (Logo & Name) | Description | |
|---|---|---|
 |
Flock | Flock is the browser for social network junkies, integrating Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and YouTube. Flock is full of features that are useful for Social networking and people who are addicted to it. The User Interface is bulky, but it's not designed to be a high-speed web-browser, but rather a tool for social networking. |
 |
Songbird | Songbird is an open source music player often described as a cross between iTunes and Firefox Songbird is a media player and a browser. You can simply click on music links and they will play. If you want to store a song on Songbird, you just have to drag and drop. The people who built this are the same folks who gave us the Yahoo! Music Engine and Winamp. |
 |
Shiira | Shiira is a Mac only browser with a beautiful design and very cool User Interface. Made in Japan, Shiira offers:
The developers state that their goal is to replace Safari. The browser is cool if you are on a Mac and is worth a closer look. |
 |
Sunrise | Sunrise is a fast and compact browser with a very clean, simple User Interface that will delight no-frills minimalists. It has a compact and sparse toolbar and a very uncluttered UI - they even combined the stop and refresh buttons. It's differentiating features are color-coded visual bookmarks and quick page resizes (640/800/1024/FS). |
 |
Sea Monkey | SeaMonkey is a project is a to develop the SeaMonkey all-in-one internet application suite. Containing an Internet browser, email & newsgroup client, HTML editor, IRC chat and web development tools, SeaMonkey is designed to appeal to advanced users, web developers and corporate users. |
 |
Avant Browser | A freeware web browser from a Chinese programmer named Anderson Che, which links the Trident layout engine built into Windows with a more feature-rich interface than Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE). Internet Explorer version 6, 7 or 8 must be installed. Avant Browser is currently available in 41 languages. Over 25 million downloads! |
What are the latest browser market share statistics?
| 2009 | IE7 | IE6 | IE8 | Firefox | Chrome | Safari | Opera |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July | 15.9% | 14.4% | 9.1% | 47.9% | 6.5% | 3.3% | 2.1% |
| June | 18.7% | 14.9% | 7.1% | 47.3% | 6.0% | 3.1% | 2.1% |
| May | 21.3% | 14.5% | 5.2% | 47.7% | 5.5% | 3.0% | 2.2% |
| April | 23.2% | 15.4% | 3.5% | 47.1% | 4.9% | 3.0% | 2.2% |
| March | 24.9% | 17.0% | 1.4% | 46.5% | 4.2% | 3.1% | 2.3% |
| Feb. | 25.4% | 17.4% | 0.8% | 46.4% | 4.0% | 3.0% | 2.2% |
| Jan. | 25.7% | 18.5% | 0.6% | 45.5% | 3.9% | 3.0% | 2.3% |
Mosaic is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, Usenet, and Gopher. Its clean, easily understood user interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to making it the application that opened up the Web to the general public. Mosaic was also the first browser to display images inline with text instead of displaying images in a separate window. It was the direct predecessor to Netscape.
Top 5 Browser Rankings
Newswire
Source: Janco
Janco and the IT Productivity Center have released their Browser and Operating System Market Share
White Paper.
The major findings are: Microsoft's browser market share has continued to erode and has fallen to 58.50% versus 65.48% (loss of 6.96%) in August 2007 and 82.99% (loss of 24.49%) in August 2005; Firefox has maintained its number 2 browser position and now is used by almost 19% (18.94%) of all users; Google Desktop has over 4% (4.01%) of the market; Users continue to use Netscape even though AOL no longer supports it.
Janco's top five browser market share rankings:
1 - Microsoft's IE - 58.50%
2 - Firefox - 18.94%
3 - Netscape - 11.63%
4 - Google Desktop - 4.01%
5 - Mozilla - 3.05%
For more on Janco's browser market share data, go to Janco's web site.
What is Gecko?
Gecko powers Firefox and other browsers.
Gecko is a layout engine currently developed by Mozilla Corporation, known as the layout engine of the Firefox web browser, Mozilla Application Suite, Nvu, Mozilla Thunderbird and many more.
It is designed to support open Internet standards, and is used by applications such as Mozilla Firefox, Camino, Flock, SeaMonkey, K-Meleon, Netscape 9, Lunascape and Epiphany to display web pages and, in some cases, an application's user interface itself (by rendering XUL).
The most popular browser plugins
Below is a list of the most widely used web browser plug-ins. Click on the name of the plugin to visit the official site and/or download the plugin.
Beatnik
Beatnik delivers high-quality interactive sound from websites. It is provided by Headspace, Inc. and is available for Netscape Navigator and Communicator on both Macintosh PowerPC and Windows 95/NT. The Headspace website offers detailed information on Beatnik. The official Beatnik website also has links to many sites that use the technology where you can see and hear it in action.
QuickTime
QuickTime, by Apple, Inc., delivers high quality multimedia such as movies, audio, MIDI soundtracks, 3D animation, and virtual reality. It is available for the Macintosh and Windows 3.x/95/NT operating systems. QuickTime package has a plug-in and helper applications. The QuickTime Plug-in allows QuickTime and QuickTime VR content to be viewed directly within your browser. The MoviePlayer and PictureViewer, helper applications, allow all QuickTime multimedia to be played (file creation and editing can be completed with QuickTime Pro).
RealPlayer
RealPlayer was one of the first streaming-media players and is a live and on-demand RealAudio and RealVideo player which functions without download delays. It is provided by RealNetworks, Inc. and is available for Macintosh, Unix, and Windows 3.1/95/NT as both a plug-in and helper application. To test your RealPlayer plug-in, visit any of the sites listed in their showcase. The plug-in is compatible with many popular browsers. For a complete listing visit the RealPlayer system requirements page.
Shockwave / Flash
The Shockwave plug-in, provided by Macromedia, Inc., allows multimedia files created using Macromedia's Director, Authorware, and Flash to be viewed directly in your web browser. The plug-in is compatible with Netscape Navigator 2.0 or later and Internet Explorer 3.0 or later on Macintosh and Windows 3.1/95/NT platforms. Macromedia's site also provides detailed information about Shockwave, including a section called Shockzone where you can view Shockwave in action.
VivoActive Player
VivoActive Player delivers on-demand video and audio from any website offering VivoActive content. This product, provided by Vivo Software, Inc., is available for Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers on Power Macintosh and Windows 3.x/95/NT platforms. Learn more about the VivoActive Player and test its capabilities at the Vivo Software website.
Helper Applications
These are some of the most popular 'helper' type applications that are commonly added to browsers.
Adobe Acrobat Reader
Acrobat Reader allows you to access PDF files on the web. It is provided by Adobe Systems, Inc. and is available for Macintosh, Unix, and Windows 3.x/95/NT.
QuickTime
QuickTime, a product of Apple, Inc., is capable of delivering multimedia such as movies, audio, MIDI soundtracks, 3D animation, and virtual reality. It is available to Macintosh and Windows 3.x/95/NT. The QuickTime package contains a plug-in and helper applications. The QuickTime Plug-in allows QuickTime and QuickTime VR content to be viewed directly within a browser. The MoviePlayer and PictureViewer, helper applications, allow all QuickTime multimedia to be played (file creation and editing can be completed with QuickTime Pro).
RealPlayer
RealPlayer is a live and on-demand RealAudio and RealVideo player which functions without download delays. It is provided by RealNetworks, Inc. and is available for Macintosh, Unix, and Windows 3.1/95/NT as both a plug-in and helper application. To test your RealPlayer plug-in, visit any of the sites listed in their showcase. The plug-in is compatible with many popular browsers. For a complete listing visit the RealPlayer system requirements page.
