Introduction
Screenshots
Mailing Lists and IRC
Alternative Browsers
Special Thanks
FAQ
Understanding Mnemonic
TODO list and ideas
Bug Reports
Download binaries
Platforms
Compiling Mnemonic
Other useful software
Core
Message modules
Library modules
Object modules
Coding Guidelines
Browse Source
Using CVS
Website questions to:
webmaster@mnemonic.org
Mnemonic questions to:
disc@mnemonic.org
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You might also be interested in another
list of alternative browsers.
Usable Webbrowers
Name |
Toolkit(s) |
Description |
Copyright |
lynx |
C curses |
Wide spread terminal(text)-mode browser.
Can navigate through frames and
client-side image-maps. Shows images externally (if possible).
Mouse events and colors are used, if the terminal supports them.
Biggest advantages: Speed: Startup and Navigation
Used by some professional surfers to get straight to the information. |
GPL |
mMosaic |
C lesstiff |
Improved XMosaic.
(Hint mMosaic*frameHack: True in .Xdefaults
makes it possible to browse through frames, like with the latest
XMosaic betas.) |
GPL |
Emacs/W3 |
Emacs-Lisp |
Runs in the famous editor. Uses other Emacs packages.
Full fledged. (untested by Ed.) |
GPL |
MMM |
Objective-CAML Tk |
Supports most of HTML 3.2 and has interesting possibilites for
moving code. This browser has the most modular concept focussing
on displaying HTML (and getting it via HTTP) relying other tasks
to other software (bookmarks, mail, news, printing, security of
applets(!)).
Too slow mainly because of the Tk toolkit and its interpreted language. |
(c) INRIA (~OpenSource) |
Grail |
Python Tk |
Slow because of the Tk toolkit and its interpreted language. |
(c) CNRI (~OpenSource) |
Plume |
Tcl Tk |
Formerly known as SurfIt. Can run save tcl/tk applets.
Small (about 350Kb tcl/tk script.) |
(c) ANU (free 4 non-commercial) |
Chimera |
C Athena |
Simple and lightweight browser. |
GPL/LGPL/ OpenSource |
Amaya |
C motif(?) |
Testbed of the W3C. |
(c) W3C (~OpenSource) |
Omniweb |
Objective-C OpenStep |
Webbrowser for NeXTStep and successors. There used to
be another browser called NetSurfer. |
Commercial |
Hotjava |
Java |
Sun`s attempt to participate in the browser war and show the
advantages of Java. Still supported, but not the wanted success.
(New versions untested by Ed.) |
(c) Sun
(free 4 non-commercial) |
Webbrowsers in Development (untested by Ed.)
Name |
Toolkit(s) |
Description |
Copyright |
JoZilla |
Java |
The Project's goal is to develop an independant,
open source code, 100% Pure Java Internet resource browser. |
Open Source |
Mnemonic-Browser |
C++ GTK+ |
Project to develop components to build a modular browser. |
GPL |
Express |
C GTK+ |
Part of the GNOME project. Uses the XmHTML widget. |
GPL |
kfm (KDE Filemanager) |
C++ Qt/KDE |
File manager with integrated web browser.
Part of the KDE Desktop. |
~GPL |
Introduction to Project Magic |
C(?) |
Port of the lightweight browser Opera to other OSs.
At least the linux port has slowed down due to problems. |
Commercial |
Mozilla |
C++ motif/ various toolkits |
Netscape has open up its own parts of the browser to develop sucessors
with help of the public. |
NPL (Open Source) |
Webbrowsers of historical interest
Name |
Toolkit(s) |
Description |
Copyright |
Mosaic |
C motif |
Precessor of Netscape. Still has some advantages when printing pages
over netscape (links as footnotes, page numbers.)
Main disadvantage: Shows information too late. |
(c) UI |
arena |
C |
Testbedbrowser of the W3org. Never stable enough for real use.
Yggdrasil took over development, but seems to have stopped it
in March 1998 when Mozilla went Open Source. |
W3C copyright
GPL |
Beside from
Netscape's and
Microsoft's browsers
there are lot more,
which are worth a look. The presented collection
is not meant to be comprehensive.
It focus mainly lays on alternative browsers which are especially interesting
because of features or being really usable on Unix-like free operating systems.
Another aspect is the maintainance status.
Other pages about web browsers:
Why is supporting alternative browsers so important?
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Widespread internet browsers today are Nescape's Communicator(NS) and
Microsoft's Internet Explorer(IE). Lynx is used by a small but
significant number of people because of its unique advantages as a
text mode browser. Machines considered an unusual platform or low end
are mostly forced to choose a different browser. You have to support
alternative browsers for the case that you need them, because they
might be your only choice then.
For the World Wide Web the dominance of IE and NS not only means
low market chances of competitiors selling browsers, but
has an impact on the way information is created and organised on
the Internet.
For a long time it was not an aim of these companies to
create a better web, but to gain a broader market share with their
browsers. Which means they want to "bind" customers.
And they tried to do that with new unique features.
(The famous "browser war" between NS and IE.)
This is how we got blinking text and frames instead of more
navigation support or better languages for mobile code (applets).
The current situation prevents everyone from introducing
better features and a cleaner design, because the pages are
already out there.
(If you want to build a new browser you have to display them all.)
So the usability of commonly used browsers could be better.
The following links provide some hints on what is wrong:
Speaking a common language which has elements to structure the
semantic contents of hypertext documents has many advantages.
Client programs can be written more easily.
This includes robots and spiders which help you to deal with the
contents of the pages. Browsers work with the contents like reading the
captions and headers to people which are visually disabled.
Take up the
Web oberability pledge and participate
in the campain to write pages for any browser.
See the
World Wide Web Consortium,
an international industry consortium for providing information,
reference implementations and promote standards for the WWW.
They come up with most of the sensible "standards" for the
WWW. NS and IE mostly do not comply.
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