5. Safari

Originally bundled with Mac operating systems, this web browser was only in use by a small percentage of the computing world. As Mac has grown in popularity over the past few years, so has their web browser, Safari. A unique and fun name accompanied this quick browser yet for most of its life it has been available for only Mac operating systems. The release of Safari for Windows operating systems was long awaited and anticipated. Wrapped in a silver skin, this program offered a fresh look to traditional Windows programs, yet this was overshadowed by the tremendous lack of speed Safari offered. This dramatically affected the release of Safari for Windows, yet the traditional product has been working great with its home base Mac operating systems. Safari offered a nice feature of automatically resizing windows with ease when the user wanted a differently sized window. The zooming and resizing features in Safari were one of the first and have been enjoyed by its users. Development has continued on the Windows version of this product yet this is not their primary market. Conquering the Mac market was a breeze, as it was the default choice for all Mac computers in the world. Overall this product is gaining popularity and is nice enough to offer development for both Mac and Windows. Old-wizard.com enjoys sharing, so we are in agreement that this is one of the better web browsers, finding itself at five.

4. Internet Explorer

Ah yes, another fine product from the monopoly loving company Microsoft. This web browser is often ranked as the most popular web browser on the planet, yet this is largely to do with the fact that most people just settle for what is standard. This web browser is actually built into the operating system known as Windows XP, and is the standard bundled “option” found with all Microsoft operating systems. Until recently Internet Explorer has had huge security flaws, and lacked any sort of imaginative design. The newest product, still in beta testing, is Internet Explorer 7. The streamlined features with this new version made many people feel lost within a product that they use on a daily basis. The menus disappeared and were replaced with icons, and when you click on the icons they just bring up a menu where everything is hidden. This could be considered as an advancement, yet we consider it as just a cover-up and attempt to mock Firefox. Internet Explorer maybe preinstalled into most computers on the planet, yet the lack of cross platform usage makes them rank only fourth on our list. The backing and development of Microsoft Corporation makes this product stable and secure, but in no means number one.

3. Flock

What the Flock? Many may find themselves asking this question, as this word is popping up more and more in daily conversation, and on several websites, invading your computer. Flock is an up and coming web browser that is strongly based upon the feeling of community. A sleek looking product that resembles Firefox with more shapely outlines and curves. It is almost as if they tried to take the best features of Firefox and Internet Explorer, and meld myspace, facebook and youtube into the same window. Flock can pull statuses from your favorite social websites, such as updates from your friends status window in Facebook. It streamlines this data, from multiple sources, and puts it within your web browser for easy access. This is like using an upgraded version of Firefox, yet it lacks in some of its base features such as favorites organization and sharing. We can defiantly see this product getting more attention in a very short amount of time as the social network sites such as Facebook and Myspace are launching into super popular web applications. Flock also caters to the blogger community, offering the same sort of streamlined updates as for the other sites. Due to its young age, this browser does not have the popularity or user base of other browsers, but it is definitely something to keep an eye out for. Go ahead, install it and check it out, perhaps it will replace your copy of Internet Explorer.

2. Opera

Opera finds itself second in this list of competitors because of the massive amount of platforms, or operating systems, that it supports. In its dossier you can find versions supporting Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, BSD and several versions for cell phones and PDA based platforms. Sharing is caring, and Opera has shown us all how to do so. Another great advantage of this browser is that it is self sufficient for its security features, not dependent on the built in security measures of the platform it is being run on. Usability for this browser is very easy for users to get a hang of, and it actually displays pages with fewer errors than Internet Explorer. Opera also finds itself supporting widgets, which are small web applications, with ease. Users can customize their widgets to feed them different streaming information straight to their desktop. Although it is not as popular as the plugins for Firefox, these widgets go along with the same thought process and are enjoyed by many people every day. A clean looking and functional web browser finds itself in the shadows of Firefox and internet explorer, yet actually offer the user a much more engaging web experience than Internet Explorer. Keep up the good development Opera, as we enjoy how you share your fresh application with almost every possible computer platform on planet Earth.”

1. Firefox

The web browser that finds itself at the number one poll position of our list is Firefox. Taking the internet by storm as of late, many users have enjoyed this product because it was a fresh and interesting alternative to the boring and forced upon Internet Explorer. One of the main factors for this product’s popularity was its pure speed at which it could load pages. Zipping through different websites is of course most dependent on the speed of your connection, yet browsing with this superior browser can increase even the tiny sliver percentage of users still using dial up internet. Of course Firefox is secure, if not even more secure than its competitors and is offered for several operating systems. Tabbed browsing was one of the most amazing features introduced by Firefox; allowing users to have multiple web pages open within a single Firefox screen. Increasing productivity and allowing users to have several pages at their fingertips is another huge advantage to this product. Continuing with the list of great features included in Firefox is all of the optional plug-ins that it offers. StumbleUpon, one of the most popular plugins, allows users to select what topics they are interested it and “stumble” through pages that coincide with their likes. If the user enjoys the page, they give it a thumbs up, the program learns and shows more pages like that. If you give it a thumbs down, the opposite happens, and the viewer sees fewer pages with the same content. A community has been created with StumbleUpon users, where links can be shared and sent directly to other users instantly. The popularity of the plugins offered through Firefox, the speed and security of this product, and the cross platform support makes this our favorite web browser on the market. Old-Wizard.com fully supports the use of Firefox, and recommends it for viewing of our content. Enjoy the fox!

Let’s just take a step back, even before the installation attempt. As with previous versions of Microsoft Windows, there are different levels of the operating systems, offering a multitude of options to accommodate your need for the computer. Whether you are the modest home user just browsing the interweb and sending emails, or a powerful business user pushing your computer to its number crunching edge, Windows has been able to accommodate you. Here before you lies the list of Microsoft Windows Vista options, in order from least feature filled, to most: Windows Vista Home Basic, Windows Vista Home Premium, Windows Vista Business, Windows Vista Enterprise, Windows Vista Ultimate. These were developed with different users in mind and as you go higher up the Vista chain, you get more and more features. It’s a sneaky way for Microsoft to create price tiers, without actually saying it.

Picking out a version shouldn’t be too hard but it does get quite confusing with the plethora of options available between all of the different versions. More bells and whistles obviously means more money spent. Once one purchases their copy of Windows Vista, they then are faced with the daunting task of installing it. This is by no mean a walk in the park. During my trial test of installing Vista on my computer, it took me countless hours spread across a two week time span, crawling through all corners of the internet just to find a piece of software to make Vista see my hard drive. I couldn’t even get past the second step without running into a problem. This was frustration at the “ultimate” level, I somewhat wished my frustration could have been downgraded to business, but Microsoft is not fond of downgrades, only upgrades. Finally, like a diamond in the rough, a suitable driver was found from 1997. For some reason this software worked even though the newer, “Vista Certified” drivers didn’t.. On to the install!

With Vista finally able to find my hard drive, I was then actually allowed to install Windows Vista Business onto the computer. From then on, only mediocre pain ensued. I got blasted into a dark desktop screen, with sleek looking black menus, taskbar and flashy bubbly looking menus. I soon found out that barely half of my computer’s hardware was actually functioning. No sound. No printer. No external hard drives were working. It is as if I bought a brand new car, but could only find one gallon of gas to drive it with. Troubleshooting this issue, I found out that my current and trusty anti-virus software didn’t work with Vista. I was then on the hunt for a version that would work, because as with any brand new version of an OS it is susceptible to viruses instantly.

After several hours of searching, I was able to find a suitable anti-virus program that worked. I also tried to install other programs that I use on a daily basis, but only one of them was Vista compatible. The others didn’t even have a release version of the software that would work with Vista. During all of this, Vista kept bothering me, in the form of tossing a transparent black screen up prompting me with annoying questions, as if I was venturing to places in the computer I shouldn’t have been. Are you sure you want to do that? Is this what you meant to do? Do you know that this could cause an error? Don’t you know that this will make the system unsecure? The questions would not stop. Like an annoyingly indecisive friend. Over and over I was slowed down by Vista making sure all my moves were made apparent to me. This was quite aggravating. Dealing with a half working computer, and screens popping up warning me of what I already knew I was doing, I got fed up. I left the project for the night, not touching it again till the next day. I continued to use Windows Vista for a couple of days, and found it to be more of a hassle than an advantage. Sure, it looked fancy and did nice Mac like visual styles, but overall it was the most painful OS install and usage of my life. I would rather go back to Windows Millennium, and we all know how horrible of an OS that was. I won’t even go there.

As with all Windows products, they regularly release updates that get applied to the software that fixes problems, adds features, and makes it more secure. With Windows XP, about one year after its launch, Microsoft released “Service Pack 1”. It was a collection of all the updates, and then some, that Microsoft released over the year. This was a massive update, and enhanced Windows XP greatly. In the case of Windows Vista, Microsoft has already released information that it will be releasing “Service Pack 1” shortly. There are versions of this service pack floating around the internet, and it should be released to the public soon. Quite sad when the latest OS needs a service pack so shortly after it’s fumbled and rush release to the public. Nonetheless, a few days after I installed Windows Vista, I wiped it clean, and installed a fresh copy of Windows XP Professional in under 45 minutes. Quite superior, for an aging Microsoft product reaching the end of its life cycle.

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