Two new browsers to make you swifter on the Web Most of us spend a substantial amount of time on our computers peering into a browser. With the increase in internet access,it has become the most used software on the PC. Yet we seldom give it a second thought. In fact,many of us dont even know of options other than Internet Explorer to open a website. For the informed lot,however,the Internet Explorer at least the earlier version is like fighting with a pocket knife when you have a Walther PPK pistol. Firefox 4 Mozilla Firefox has always been the weapon of choice for people who like to maximise their productivity and creativity,while browsing. Many people will not touch any other browser unless really pushed into a corner. They are addicts of the hundreds of apps that Mozilla offers. Their address bar is a clutter of tabs and app buttons,ready to serve them at a click. Or,so it used to be,till we got the Firefox 4 in March. Firefox 4 is without doubt Mozillas minimalist best and is obviously inspired by Googles Chrome browser. The new Firefox has no dropdowns on top. Instead a glowing orange button on the left corner allows access to all the tasks and menus you need. This frees the rest of the real estate for browsing pleasure. Tabs appear above the address bar and your favourite bookmarks are listed as buttons below. But the real breakthrough here is Panorama a square button at the end of the tab panel that lets you organise tabs like never before. If you have over a dozen tabs open,the Panorama negates the need to scroll left and right to navigate through them. Click on the Panorama and all your tabs open up as thumbnails in a new window. Sync,a new feature,allows you to have the same browser experience wherever you use it be it on your office PC or an Android phone. Just create an account in the sync app and log in to access your customisations. The new Firefox is also much faster than previous versions and is equipped for HTML 5 and CS3. Rockmelt If some of us spend most of our computer time browsing,others spend most of their time on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Rockmelt is the ideal destination for their ilk. The browser is so connected to social networking that,initially,invites for downloading it were passed on only though Facebook. Rockmelt is also based on Googles Chromium and,despite all the paraphernalia,it is really fast. Once installed,it asks you right away for your Facebook login. Your Facebook contacts appear on the left bar and you can click on the faces to see their pages. All your Facebook feeds,meanwhile,end up on the Facebook button on the right bar. Click on it and the side bar opens with all the updates,making it much easier to navigate than the actual Facebook page. Alerts appear on another bar with your profile picture on it,along with regular pop-up balloons on the screen. Rockmelt allows you to use Twitter easily as well. Updates for both can also be made directly through the sidebars. Similar feed buttons can be set up for any website through RSS. New posts will be listed on a button to alert you and you can just click on it to open a sidebar with the feeds. Click on the headline if you need to read the entire post. The sidebar even allows you to play videos. You can also post the new feeds to your Facebook and Twitter accounts directly from the sidebar. Then you can share any page on the browser using the share button alongside the address bar. This functionality makes Rockmelt the ideal browser for consuming and sharing.
