5. Web Browsers
Most of the time, I use Lynx, as it's small and versatile. Very useful for writing web robot code in conjunction with Perl scripts.
5.1. Free Netscape - MOZILLA
It appears that it takes a fair bit of system resources to actually compile Mozilla; reports indicate that one needs 96MB of memory and about 300MB of free disk space to do so.
This is the official home of the "liberated" Netscape Navigator Sources
This is a version of Mozilla rewritten by TrollTech to use their Qt toolkit. Qt runs under X and "Win32."
Note that, for X, Mozilla will in future be using GTK+
Fortify for Netscape - Home Page
128 bit crypto software for various free OSes that plugs into Netscape Navigator/Communicator.
IBM Techexplorer Hypermedia Browser for Win32 and Linux/IA-32; views a large subset of TeX, LaTeX, AMS-LaTeX, MathML. Packaged as a plug-in for Netscape Navigator and Communicator. Note that it is quite proprietary...
Based on the Mozilla code base, and integrated with Gnome, this web browser omits the mail and news side of things, "just doing web."
Like Galeon, Skipstone is based on the Mozilla code base. Unlike Galeon, it only uses GTK , not Gnome, so it ought to be somewhat smaller.
Another Gnome -based browser, but which makes no use of Mozilla code.
XUL is an XML-based schema used to program applications atop Mozilla.
5.3. Lynx and SSL
SSL is the "Secure Sockets Layer" interface defined by Netscape Communications Corp. which provides a protocol individuals to communicate with web servers in a secure fashion (e.g. where transmissions are secure against unwanted readers reading sensitive information such as credit card numbers) over the not-very-secure Internet. (What happens once the folks at the other end have your credit card information is, of course, a separate security vulnerability.
Unfortunately, as the US government (in particular, their National Security Agency) considers encryption technology to be a dangerous form of "munitions," it is difficult for freely-available software to include encryption technology and not run afoul of US export legislation.
The SSL software is no exception. As a result, only people that are prepared to compile their own custom edition of Lynx are able to access SSL-secured web sites using Lynx. Fortunately, with the SSL patches that are accessible from FTP sites outside of the USA, that isn't very difficult...
5.4. Other Text-oriented Browsers and Web Robot tools
NetShell - Customized Handling of WEB Information A University of Arizona project for building "Web Robots"
5.5. Experimental Browsers
Much as in the realm of Word Processing, the Linux world has had development work taking place on a variety of fronts in the creation of "new and better" web browsers.
Unfortunately, the "big, powerful" web browser is of similar complexity to a "big, powerful" word processor. People want to integrate together a wide set of somewhat disparate functionality that makes it difficult to actually have a functioning browser.
Netscape Communicator is the "system to beat," and has an unfortunate degree of bloat, as it combines web browser, web page editor, news and mail readers, as well as various other functions.
The free availability of sources to Netscape Communicator has resulted in tremendously increased interest in "Mozilla," with the result that people have lost interest in development efforts on many of the following web browser projects:
This project seeks to construct a web browser out of a group of modules. Target language: C++ , makes extensive use of CORBA. The goals include:
Multiple "presentation servers" - hosting on X, SVGALIB, and perhaps even text mode.
Small memory footprint
Modularization means that it is easy to add additional functionality, and unneeded modules don't need to bloat the memory consumption (Netscape is the most notable example of such "bloat.")
It further means that Mnemonic will represent a set of tools that may be treated as an application framework and not "merely" a web browser.
Multiple platforms (Linux first)
Here is a Postmortem report describing some of the reasons why the project failed. They are not unlike the sorts of reasons why most word processor projects fail, and are a good cautionary note to any would-be creator of the "One True Web Browser."
W3 Consortium web client based on the Thot "structured document editor" that acts both as a browser and as an authoring tool. Supports HTML 3.2 and various draft standard stuff. This is, from the W3C perspective, the "replacement" for Arena.
dillo, a Web browser for Gtk+ (that used to be called Gzilla).
Konqueror is the successor of kfm, the file manager and web browser in KDE 1.x.
Closure Web Browser written using Allegro Common Lisp and X
MMM a web browser written using Objective CAML
A web browser based on Tk for Linux, with an embedded TCL interpreter, PostgreSQL client, SSL support
5.6. Other Browsers
A web browser implemented using Tcl and C, available under the Artistic license. Scriptable using Tcl, integrates with PostgreSQL, includes its own Macro processor.
Once Upon A Time, A User Agent...
W3C Note 06 February 2001 on a common set of problems with "web browsers."
Macromedia Flash Player 6 for Linux
A number of web sites are not viewable without Flash, which is rather irritating. They would typically be more usable without the requirement, but there you go. Fortunately, the Flash Player is available for Linux and many other fine operating systems, and works with fine web browsers such as Mozilla , Galeon , and such...