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Browser Face-Off

Internet Explorer finally receives an overhaul that helps it match its rivals' features--but Firefox and Opera aren't standing still.

Erik Larkin

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Opera Surges

The most significant change for Opera happened in September, when the company eliminated ads in the interface of its free browser. More than 3 million new users downloaded the browser in the three weeks following, according to the company, quadruple the usual rate. But Opera still has just a fraction of the user base Firefox has.

Click here for full-size image.The upcoming version 9 does serve up a few tasty tidbits for the Opera aficionado, however. Although we were unable to test these features, the company says the final version will include support for widgets, small external programs that use Opera's engine and can run on the desktop. Existing widgets for other programs can display the weather, show Webcams, and much more. Users will also be able to choose which Web sites can run JavaScript or display images. And the impressive built-in RSS feed handler, which we tried in the beta, now supports Atom 1.0 (a newer protocol similar to RSS).

Most remaining changes involve page display and layout. That may be because Opera, a suite with an integrated e-mail client, already has many of the goodies being added to IE and Firefox. But because many Web pages are exclusively tested with--or written for--Internet Explorer, which tends to disregard Web consortium guidelines, the standards-loving Opera programmers have to work hard to ensure pages display properly in their browser. The company will continue the practice of "site patching," in which it automatically distributes custom JavaScript to its browsers to fix layouts for sites that it knows display improperly.

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