Following the release of new versions of both Internet Explorer and Firefox, the infamous 'browser wars' are flaring up again. Despite both Firefox 1.5 and the Beta of IE7 making significant strides, it would be be foolish to think this was a two-horse race. While gaining a good reputation with geeks and power users, Opera has long been a bit-part player among the big boys of the browser world. However, if this preview release is anything to go by, the Norwegian-built browser could finally be ready to punch with the heavyweights.

Opera has been pioneering new ways of browsing the web for some time. It has had tabbed browsing since the days before tabbed browsing was cool and developed the innovative 'mouse gestures' control system, where you navigate through the web just by holding the mouse button and flicking your wrist. The developers even dabbled with a multi-pane interface for viewing several pages within one interface.

The good news is that Opera has lost none of its appetite for innovation, and version 9 is packed with new goodies that will have the programmers at Mozilla and Microsoft choking on their doughnuts. For starters the app runs much quicker than the previous release, making it arguably the quickest browser around (except perhaps for Safari) at rendering pages. Incredibly, despite this boost in performance, the program appears to use less memory than version 8.5, making it far less draining on system resources than Firefox and IE.

In terms of features Opera is the gift that keeps on giving. New to the program comes OSX Tiger-style 'widgets', allowing you to check news, convert currency, view the weather and so on through a series of draggable pop-ups which anchor themselves in front of the browser. Although there aren’t many widgets to choose from at present, this is sure to change once the tech-minded Opera fans start developing more.

Another great addition to Opera 9 is BitTorrent support, allowing you to download torrents directly within the browser – a feature that amazingly no one had thought of before. This system works very smoothly, which makes us wonder why RSS feed reading support in Opera is still so poor.

Among the other new treats within the program is a nifty new search feature which lets you add any search engine to the search bar in the main toolbar. This means you can instantly access searches within your favorite online destinations (Softonic, for instance).

Tabbed browsing remains, although some users may be annoyed to discover that Opera has added close tab buttons to the tabs themselves rather than as a separate button. Having said this, the new web page preview thumbnails that appear when you rollover a tab are a real masterstroke. Mouse gestures are still there too, along with the addition of Total Recall-style voice commands – another example of how cutting-edge this browser is.

Opera's developers have been keen to ramp up security features too, and although they aren't highly original, the new content blocking and pop-up blocking functions serve their purpose effectively. What's more, it's refreshing to see a browser that embraces the latest web standards so freely, with the latest release boasting support for CSS 2.1 and CSS 3 tags.

The browser is remarkably stable and is far better behaved than Internet Explorer 7. Combined with its speed, innovative features and standards support, Opera is undoubtedly web software's best-kept secret, and the final release may prove to be even better than Firefox. Don't say anything though, or everyone will want it.

Download Opera 9.60 in Softonic

For a while now, computer users have been waking up to the real threats that exist while browsing the web. Every day, more turn their back on the established vulnerabilities of Internet Explorer and opt for the hottest open source project on the net, Mozilla’s Firefox. But there are plenty of alternatives that offer great features, and one of those is Avant Browser.

Based on Internet Explorer, Avant will import all your favorites automatically and also keep your settings intact. As such it makes a good alternative to the popular Firefox browser, which shuns all things IE, and may seem slightly too foreign from the conventions that many users have built up while using Microsoft’s browser. Although Avant Browser is based on the Internet Explorer engine, it doesn’t fall victim to the same security vulnerabilities (although no-one is claiming that it’s invulnerable), and while it’s at it, adds some great tools designed to enhance your browsing experience.

The Flash blocker is an effective way to keep memory usage of the browser to a minimum or to simply cut out those over-elaborate ads that invade and take over many web sites. To appeal to a wider audience, there are quick links that let you quickly translate pages to a wide selection of languages, or you can customize the look of the browser using the many skins that are included by default. Of course, no modern browser could claim to be complete without tabbed browsing and Avant really delivers the goods with a system that allows you to even reload tabs after you’ve closed them.

In fact, this browser has some of the best extras that we’ve seen to date, in particular the system whereby tabs can be resized like normal program windows letting you display multiple site windows side-by-side, within one browser window. There‘s also a useful toolbar item that displays tags describing the page that you’re on. Click on a tag and you open a list of site that result from a search using that tag or keyword; brilliant! And the piece de résistance is an automatic session saver that lets you open up all the sites you were browsing when you last closed the program.

Avant Browser is relatively unknown as a mainstream browser and as such is not restricted from experimenting and taking the best ideas from the big hitters, as well as adding its own nuggets to the mix. What you get is a very impressive selection of tools in a browser that will even run your Microsoft update without objections. Definitely worth consideration if you are thinking of changing browser.

Download Avant Browser 11.7.15 in Softonic

Tor is one of the most widely used anonymous surfing proxy servers used on the web and as the name suggests, OperaTor is designed for the specific needs of the Opera browser.

OperaTor is a portable software bundle which allows you to browse the web anonymously and actually combines Opera, Tor and Polipo. The developers assure that no privacy data is stored on the computer that you plug your OperaTor pendrive into. You'll experience no difference in browsing other than every HTTP request will be conducted from an anonymous IP - great if you want to hide surfing habits or prevent yourself being tracked.

The application is pretty much a plug-and-play design although note that the only protocols which OperaTor anonymizes are HTTP and HTTPS. This means that it's wise to turn off other Opera features such as Java, JavaScript and other integrated elements. In addition, some sites simply won't accept anonymous surfing via Tor. This is obviously a real pain if you want a to visit a Java enabled website and something that should definitely be fixed in future releases.

If you use Opera regularly but want to ensure your privacy then OperaTor is a quick, easy and portable solution.

Download OperaTor 3.2 in Softonic

When Google suddenly entered the battle of the browsers with Chrome, many users expressed their concern about security and privacy issues. If you're among them, you'll be happy to learn about the launch of Iron.

Iron is a modified version of Chrome's source code that removes all the components in the original browser that collect usage data. This means that Iron blocks the unique user ID, doesn't send user-specific data to Google, disables the report-on-crash feature and doesn't connect to Google to check for updates.

Personally I don't see that much danger in leaving those features enabled, but I can understand there are people who might be worried about their privacy when surfing the web. As for the rest, Iron remains pretty much a Chrome clone, with the same clean interface, the Omnibar, the thumbnails homepage and even the Incognito function. In fact, the only problem you may find with Iron is language: the program runs in English, but the developer's website, installation and documentation are all in German.

If you don't agree with Chrome's privacy policy, get Iron: a web browser with Chrome's look and feel but without all the data-collecting elements.

Download SRWare Iron 0.2.152.0 in Softonic

Mozilla Firefox is a fast, full-featured web browser that's easy to use. It has lots of great features including popup-blocking, tabbed-browsing, integrated search, improved privacy features, automatic updating and more. Plus, thanks to the PortableApps.com launcher bundled in Mozilla Firefox - Portable Edition, it leaves no personal information behind on the machine you run it on, so you can take your favorite browser along with all your favorite bookmarks and extensions with you wherever you go.

Intelligent Start

Firefox Portable now uses an intelligent start system that keeps track of where you're running it from. That way, if you run it a second time from the same location or move to another PC that happens to give you the same drive letter, it won't have to do as much to start Firefox up.

Alternate INI Locations Dropped

To improve startup time, the alternate directory layouts for the FirefoxPortable.ini file have been dropped. It will need to be placed next to FirefoxPortable.exe. If you use an INI, you'll also need to update it with the new INI options.

Most Alternate Directory Layouts Dropped

To simplify the launcher, all alternate directory layouts have been dropped except placing the launcher one directory above the FirefoxPortable directory.

Improved Unicode Support

Firefox Portable has improved support for unicode, so you can drop a file with non-ASCII characters right on FirefoxPortable.exe and open it up.

Improved Live CD Support For Windows 95/98/Me

Live mode has been improved for better compatibility with most Windows 95, 98 and Me systems.

Download Firefox Portable 3.0.3 in Softonic

Firefox, the world’s most significant web browser has finally unveiled its new version, and with it a slew of improvements. If you’re not already using it to browse this page, then read on to learn all about its new features before getting a hold of it.

Firefox 3 has undergone a significant makeover, with sleeker icons and a cleaner look. The ‘Go back one page’ button is bigger and elements in the location bar, like titles and URLs, are more easily recognizable. I was also impressed that it finally passes the Acid2 Test, so Firefox can be guaranteed to render any web page out there.

Mozilla have worked on improving the bookmarking system in Firefox. To add a new bookmark all you need to do is star a site from the address bar. Firefox also lets you search bookmarks and history straight from the bar itself. Places, the system for handling your bookmarks and history, now shows all sorts of information like recently starred pages, most used tags or most visited pages. I’m not sure everybody will make use of all that info, but it’s still nice to find it there.

The download manager in Firefox 3 is improved and not only will it remember your downloads even after quitting the browser, it will also allow you to pause/start/stop downloads at any time. Similarly, Firefox will automatically look for updates to your add-ons and features a built-in search box to browse the Mozilla add-ons site for new extensions. However you’ll find most add-ons still don’t support the latest version of Firefox.

In terms of performance you’ll find that Firefox loads pages much faster and seems to handle memory usage much better than before. This is a big improvement considering that that was the main concern in previous versions.

Security has also been improved in Firefox, with one-click site info and malware protection. You can also set specific permissions (like text size, image blocking or cookies) for each website you visit. You’ll find Firefox 3 also interacts with Windows CardSpace and OpenID, two services which unify your identity online, whilst securing it.

Firefox version 3 really feels like a big step up. It includes lots of improvements, notably in the design and in improving the whole user experience, with a better download manager and improved bookmarking system. I’m not sure everybody will use Places or tags that much, but they’re a welcome addition. True to its roots, Firefox has also bettered its security features. But for me the real highlight of this new release has to be the performance enhancements. We’ll have to see as soon as add-ons are supported, but this new version should fare much better than previous ones. If you’re a Firefox user, make sure you update now.

Download Firefox 3.0.3 in Softonic

Since Firefox exploded onto the web-browsing scene in 2004, it has been downloaded an incredible 200 million times according to its developers, Mozilla. Since then, apart from some minor changes, visual teaks and security fixes, there haven’t been any radical changes – that is until now. Firefox 2.0 is finally here and brings fans a whole host of integrated functions that were previously either unavailable or needed plug-ins.

Note that many of the existing themes and extensions will not work with this beta release although you can try forcing them with the “Nightly” extension – at your own risk of course.

Amongst the security highlights of 2.0 are anti-phishing support which helps the browser discriminate between genuine websites and those intended to store and retrieve your personal information. Other goodies include enhanced tabbed browsing (each with their own close option finally), the ability to un-close tabs, search plug-in/add-on manager, and much, much more. One of the most useful features we found was a predictive search function within the Google toolbar that would suggest potential phrases and popular search terms as you typed. The automatic session retrieval option (previously available with the Tab Mix Plus plugin) is also a tonic when your system crashes or you’ve got too many tabs open and Firefox cripples under the strain.

The extension incompatibility issue is the main drawback although this will change as developers update their plugins over the coming weeks and months. The legendary memory leak also still doesn’t seem to have been fixed as Firefox continues to guzzle processing power. This resulted in frequent crashes, keyboard head-banging and violent swearing.

Whilst the recently released Internet Explorer 7 is only just introducing tabbed browsing, Firefox 2.0 is already taking internet surfing to a new level. Although many of the new features are available with plug-ins anyway, this is still a rip-roaring browser and consolidates Firefox’s position as the best browser on the market by miles.

Download Firefox 2.0.0.17 in Softonic

After having successfully launched their own webmail service, RSS reader, online suite and many other apps, having a Google web browser was only a question of time.

Google Chrome has joined the so called web browser battle with a neatly designed web browser which, in spite of being still at a development stage, already shows a lot of potential.

The first thing that caught my attention when launching Google Chrome for the first time was its minimalist design. Besides a couple of bars and a couple of buttons, there's nothing else on the interface to steal screen space from the websites you visit – not even a status bar, as it automatically shows and hides whenever it's necessary.

Another feature I loved is the fact that Google Chrome uses the same keyboard shortcuts and mousewheel combinations as Firefox. With a zero learning curve, you immediately feel at your element and there's no need to start testing new shortcuts or reading the documentation. Other similarities to Firefox in Google Chrome include a complete download manager (which reminded me a lot of the Download Statusbar extension) and a handy password manager.

If you don't want Google Chrome to track down your browsing movements, try the incognito window. This special window won't save anything about your session (no browsing history, no cookies, etc.), so no breadcrumbs will be left after you close it.

But if there's a feature that makes Google Chrome really stand out, that's having separate processes for each one of the tabs you open. That means that you can check the amount of system resources used up by each tab, and close any of them in case of trouble without having to shut down the whole browser.

That said, I don't think Google Chrome is perfect yet. Like I said before, it's still in development so there's still plenty of room for it to grow and improve. I must say I had some stability issues when trying to install the Flash plug-in, and that I was totally unable to make the Java Virtual Machine work – which eventually prevented me from using certain web services. Despite these flaws, I really liked Google Chrome and I think it may become a serious option when choosing your web browser. Only time will tell.

Google Chrome, Google's web browser, mixes a clean, minimalist interface with a variety of powerful tools that can easily turn it into a great web browser.

Download Google Chrome 0.2.149.30 in Softonic

Flock is a browser for blogging and social network addicts. Based on the Mozilla infrastructure, it offers many features found in Firefox like tabbed browsing, quick RSS feed aggregation and customizable toolbars. Thanks to the web clipboard, you can copy any image or text you find on the net. Favorite links can be saved with tags and you can customize your own world, where you showcase your favorite sites, feeds and media. This brings us to one of the main features of Flock, the media bar, placed at the top of the browser. This tool lets you search and view any sort of media from sites like YouTube, Facebook or Flickr.

However the real strength of Flock comes in its social networking integration. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Xanga, Magnolia and more can be opened up from the "accounts and services" sidebar. Thanks to the people sidebar, you'll be able to quickly see all your friends from your different networks. Flock also offers up a blog editor, from which you can write up all your posts. News junkies will also like the RSS reader, also accessible from the sidebar.

While we were impressed with all the major improvements found in this new release of Flock, we felt that the sidebar was probably a bit overused. RSS feeds, social networks, favorites, and the web clipboard all open up in the sidebar, meaning you can't have them on all at once. The blog editor is a nice touch, but it's a shame that it doesn't allow you to upload images to your blog.

If your high on social networks, Flock is definitely the browser for you.

Download Flock 1.2.5 in Softonic

It hasn't taken long for Google Chrome to be converted into a portable app so now you can execute it straight from a USB stick or portable drive with Google Chrome Portable (AKA Chromium).

Google Chrome Portable is still in beta version so bear in mind that you may experience some glitches and bugs although it seems pretty stable. Google Chrome Portable fits easily on a USB stick so you can take it anywhere. It features all the benefits of the main browser such one box for everything, thumbnails of your top sites and shortcuts for your apps.

When you type in the address bar you get suggestions for web pages and you can access your favorite pages very quickly from any tab via the top thumbnails feature. And like the main version, if one tab crashes, the browser still keeps going because each one works independently - a great little feature that's typically Google and should be taken up by all browsers as standard. In addition, Google Chrome Portable gives you plenty of options for shortcuts to your favorite web apps such as Google Reader to speed up your surfing.

If you've been blown away by Google Chrome and don't want to leave home without it, put Google Chrome Portable on your memory stick now.

Download Google Chrome Portable 0.2.151.0 Beta in Softonic

Acoo Browser is a powerful multi-tabbed Internet browser based on the Internet Explorer engine (IE 5 or greater required). Acoo Browser provides a user-friendly GUI interface, including tabbed document windows, dockable panel groups and customizable toolbars.

Acoo Browser allows user to surf multiple Web sites within one browser window. It also includes many advanced features such as Mouse Gestures, built-in syntax highlighted HTML source viewer, powerful built-in Web page analyzer, recoverable Popup Blocker, Ads Filter, script error suppression, Cleaner, external tools, web page zooming, URL Alias, Integrated search engine support, and much more...

Acoo Browser can block annoying pop-ups, banner Ads, flash Ads and other Internet Ad annoyances automatically without interfering your surfing. There is also detailed logging record in Acoo Browser, and you may know the Ads sites killed by Acoo Browser so as to improve your setting. Acoo Browser makes your surfing experience easier, quicker and more comfortable.

Download Acoo Browser 1.89.690 in Softonic

Maxthon Internet Browser software is a powerful tabbed browser with a highly customizable interface. It is based on the Internet Explorer browser engine which means that what works in the IE browser will work the same in Maxthon tabbed browser but with many additional efficient features like such as Tabbed Browsing Interface, Mouse Gestures, Super Drag&Drop, Privacy Protection, AD Hunter, RSS Reader, IE Extensions Support, External Utility Bar, Skinning and much more.

Download Maxthon 2.1.4.443 in Softonic

K-Meleon is an extremely fast, customizable, lightweight web browser for the win32 (Windows) platform based on the Gecko layout engine (the rendering engine of Mozilla). K-Meleon is free, open source software released under the GNU General Public License.

Features:

• Choose your desired bookmarking system
• "Tabbed" browsing
• Mouse gestures
• Complete toolbar, menu, context menu, & keyboard shortcut customization
• Block popup windows
• Fast load time
• Easy web searching
• Themes & skins
• Macros

Download K-Meleon 1.5.0 in Softonic

Microsoft has made the first public beta of Internet Explorer 8 available for download. While generally keeping the same design as IE 7, this new version features some new functionality and is also fully standard-compliant.

First of all bear in mind that this beta of Internet Explorer 8 is intended solely for web developers and designers, not for the average user. This beta is still under heavy development and may not work properly with certain web pages. True, you've got a button to "emulate" IE7 while running IE8 but that's not the point. So if you're not a programmer or do not like strong emotions you'd better stay away from this one.

Internet Explorer 8 includes a couple of exciting new features: Activities and Weclips. The first ones are a collection of customizable add-ons that let you access online services from the browser's context menu. As for webclips, they work like RSS feeds, but focusing only on certain areas of a given webpage that are being constantly updated. Besides these two elements, Internet Explorer also features some other goodies like integration with Facebook and Live Maps and a crash recovery system.

This first public beta of Internet Explorer 8 lets you take a sneak peek at the future next version of Microsoft's web browser and start playing with its new feature. For a more extended review, check out our blog OnSoftware.

Download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 in Softonic

If you're tired of your old web browser, try using alternatives which, despite not being very well-known, they work perfectly well. One of them is Sleipnir.

Sleipnir is a complete web browser that can fully replace Internet Explorer or Firefox. In fact, it uses the Internet Explorer core engine but you can replace it by the Mozilla Gecko engine if you want. Sleipnir also comes bundled with Roboform, a handy password and web form manager.

When running Sleipnir for the first time, you can import data from quite a varied amount of browsers. I must say however that my first impression of Sleipnir wasn't very good: the interface is simply bloated with buttons and toolbars, too many for someone like me who loves minimalist design.

That said, Sleipnir does have many positive sides to it. You can browse the web comfortably (thanks to its powerful tab management system) and safely (with a wide array of security tools). Sleipnir also features a complete built-in search tool, an RSS manager similar to Firefox Live Bookmarks, support for proxy servers and many other interesting tools.

Sleipnir is a powerful alternative web browser that's definitely worth a try, even if you're happy with your current browser.

Download Sleipnir 2.8 in Softonic

Just like Firefox introduced its latest version about a month ago, Flock now presents Flock 2, the newest version of the social browser.

Flock 2 is based on the new Firefox 3, which means it takes advantage of all the new features included in it: improved security features, an enhanced overall performance and more reliable managing tools for both downloads and bookmarks.

While making use of all these new and improved features, Flock 2 still keeps its social side to its highest. The browser includes special tools to keep track of your friends from different social networking sites, write directly on your blog, upload images to your photo sharing site, read your favorite feeds and access your favorite social sites (Digg, Twitter, YouTube, etc.) straight away. The main drawback to this social side though is that it all opens on sidebars, which means you can't have all of them active at the same time.

Flock 2 claims it's still at a beta stage but it worked perfectly fine during our tests, so if you want to have a sneak peek at the next Flock, go ahead and download your beta copy now.

Flock 2 is the next step for the Web's social browser, taking the best from the new features in Firefox 3 and mixing them up with the ultimate social networking tools.

Download Flock 2.0 Beta 2 in Softonic

TheWorld Browser is a tiny, fast, safe, powerful, multi-tabbed with multi-threaded frame browser, it is a freeware with no function limited.

TheWorld Browser is compatible with microsoft internet exploer, it can run in microsoft windows serious system, such as windows98/me/2000/xp/vista.

TheWorld Browser has a new, powerful multi-threaded window frame, which can avoid web page being out of response. TheWorld Browser is optimized to avoid any case of out of response. In any test case, if a web page's browser window is out of response, the other windows will not be infected. With experience of TheWorld Browser 1.0 serious, all code rewritten, all module rebuild, the new frame can take more effective experience.

Download TheWorld Browser 2.2.0.0 in Softonic

Opera USB is the portable version of the third most popular browser and excellent Internet Explorer alternative, Opera. The idea is quite simple with the browser having been stripped down so as to fit on your USB key and used on whatever computer you happen to be working on.

It supports all the functions that you are used to in the full version so you won't miss the email client, IRC, the download manager, and of course your favorites.

Opera USB doesn't install any extra components on the PC you use, and doesn't alter other browsers in any way.

Download Opera USB 9.50 in Softonic

If you are looking for a different way to surf the web and you have a brand new computer, you can try SpaceTime. This web browser doesn’t need to be installed; as soon as you lunch the .EXE file, a 3D browser appears where you can visit web pages and experience a ‘Vista’ style to see frames and navigate through them.

Having multiple windows with a 3D effect can be useful if, for example, you have to make a presentation and you need to compare things at a given moment. When you want to open a page in full screen, just double click on it or you may as well use the carousel function which appears at the bottom of the page when you hover the mouse there.

Zooming in and out is also very nicely implemented and very useful especially if you have to focus on something during your presentation or your work. As you can imagine, SpaceTime requires lots of system resources and for this reason, I don’t see it as an alternative to your standard web browser. To open a new web page, simple type a new URL in the address field, without having to press CTRL-T or CTRL-N. Actually, with the latter key combination, you open a navigator tool, useful to browse through the pages.

Navigate the World Wide Web in a 3D style, like the way you manage windows in Windows Vista. It’s really catchy and entertaining and it’s perfect for presentations, although it wouldn’t be a suitable replacement for your usual browser because of its slowness and system requirements.

Download SpaceTime 3D 1.0 in Softonic

GreenBrowser is a useful browser based on Internet Explorer but that offers alot of extra options. Thanks to tabs, you'll be able to open numerous websites in one browser page. You can create groups of pages to pen at the same, block pop ups and jot down anything you think of in a semi-transparent notebook.

Download GreenBrowser 4.5.0423 in Softonic