Websites conform to web standards better than in the past so you no longer need to be locked in to any particular web browser for most purposes.
Use a recent version of the following web browsers for the best overall support of web standards and security. Try them out and use the one you like best. Update your browser periodically through either your computer's system update (Safari via Software Update on OS X and Internet Explorer via Windows Update), through automatic browser update (Firefox), or through downloading and installing a current version.
| Windows | Mac OS X | Linux | Solaris | FreeBSD | Devices (phones, PDA, set top box, etc) | |
| Firefox (open source, Mozilla engine) |
X (see also Flock,
SeaMonkey, K-Meleon) |
X (see also Flock, SeaMonkey, Camino) | X (see also Flock, SeaMonkey, Epiphany on GNOME) | X (unofficial; see also Epiphany on GNOME) | X (unofficial; uses Linux version; see also Epiphany on GNOME) | X (Minimo for Windows Mobile and Linux devices) |
| Opera | X | X | X | X | X | X (Opera Mobile 8+ full featured browser for Symbian
S60 and Windows Mobile;
Opera Mini for lower end phones that support Java mobile apps Opera also for Nintendo, set top boxes, airplanes, and other devices) |
| WebKit (Apple) or KHTML (KDE) web engine browsers. These are related and share much of the same code and functionality since WebKit was originally based on KHTML. Both web engines are open source. | Swift
(WebKit)
- early stages
and not ready for normal use, but will hopefully rapidly mature into a
solid browser that can be used to test for Safari compatibility without
a Mac
Konqueror (KHTML) by using KDE on Cygwin; not a native standalone web browser solution, but a viable alternative until Swift is a solid native Windows browser |
Safari (see also open-source Shiira based on WebKit) | Konqueror on KDE | Konqueror on KDE | Konqueror on KDE | X (Nokia phones using Symbian S60) |
Internet Explorer 7 - Requires Windows XP (with Windows Updates installed) or Windows Vista. This browser has much better support for web standards compared with previous versions of Internet Explorer, and improved security, though it is expected other web browsers like Firefox and Opera to remain ahead in these areas. IE 6 (introduced in 2001) is not recommended due to poor support of web standards and poor security, and even this program is now only being updated for Windows XP.
Text-only web browser
Lynx (open source) - Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and others; Text-only browser, which means it can't display graphics, so there are things it can't do or display; 2.8.3+ (2000) is currently adequate for most text-based browsing because it has HTML 4.01 and Unicode (UTF-8) support, though 2.8.6 (2005) also contains support for secure website encryption (SSL), XHTML/XML media type recognition, and other enhancements
Discontinued and Unsupported Software (not recommended)
Internet Explorer was discontinued on the Mac in 2003. Windows Me, 98, 98SE, and earlier are no longer supported by Microsoft. Mac OS 10.2, 10.1, 9, or earlier are no longer supported by Apple.
Updated 2006-08-13 (HTML 4.01 Strict)