Yes

Feature supported

No

Feature not supported

?

The reviewer was unsure of whether this feature was supported or not

Note:

Help in replacing  question marks with a Yes or No or any other feedback will be appreciated! Email the author, Jayesh Sheth.

Mozilla 1.0 Release Candidate 3

Netscape 7.0 PR1

Netscape 6.2.3

Netscape 4.x

Opera 6+

Internet Explorer 5.5

Under the hood

Rendering Engine

Gecko / NGLayout

More Information

Gecko / NGLayout
(My guess: based on Mozilla 1.0 RC 2. Joonas Marttila mentions that it might be based on Mozilla 0.9.9, with special Netscape patches.)
More Information

Gecko / NGLayout

(Based on Mozilla 0.9.4)

Netscape Classic, based on NCSA Mosaic

Opera Cross-Platform Kernel

More Information

Internet Explorer, based on NCSA Mosaic

Embeddable into other products (software and hardware)

Yes
(Examples: Galeon, Komodo, Beonex, Netscape)

Yes

Yes

No

Yes (Examples: Sharp Zaurus PDA, Nokia Phone)

Yes

Cross Platform

Yes:

 Windows:
95, 98, NT, 2000 and XP

Macintosh:
Macintosh Classic, Mac OS X,

Unix:
Linux
Unix (Solaris, FreeBSD)

Other:
BeOS, OS/2

Yes

Windows:
95, 98, NT, 2000 and XP

Macintosh:
Macintosh Classic, Mac OS X,

Linux

Yes:

 Windows:
95, 98, NT, 2000 and XP

Macintosh:
Macintosh Classic, Mac OS X,


Unix:
Linux
Unix (Solaris)

Somewhat.

Windows:
  95, 98, NT, 2000

Macintosh: Macintosh Classic

Unix, Linux (29 different Linux and Unix versions)
More Information

Yes:

Windows

Mac Classic,
Mac OS X

Linux

QNX
EPOC
BeOS and others.

Relatively similar (yet not exactly the same) feature set across platforms.

Sort of.

Works on Windows; there are  also versions for Macintosh Classic and Mac OS X and for Solaris and HP Unix .

Uniform feature set across all platforms (all version updated regularly)?

Yes (Yes)

Cross-platform rendering engine (backend), cross-platform user interface (frontend)

Yes (Yes)

Cross-platform rendering engine (backend), cross-platform user interface (frontend)

Yes (Yes)

Cross-platform rendering engine (backend), cross-platform user interface (frontend)

Somewhat: (*)

Partially cross-platform rendering engine (backend), customized user interface (frontend).

* Active development on Netscape 4.x stopped in 1998. Periodically, bug fixes are released for the 4.x series.

Somewhat:

 Cross-platform rendering engine (backend), customized user interface (frontend).

Opera's "kernel" was rewritten in 1998 to be cross-platform, as part of "Project Magic" which aimed to bring Opera to many new operating systems and devices.

While Opera's rendering component seems to offer the same features across different platforms, its user interface seems to have been "ported" to different platforms.

More Information.

Somewhat : differing
rendering engines (backend) and customized user interface (frontend).

There are very different feature sets for different platforms. Additionally, Windows specific technologies, such as ActiveX, are only partially supported on  non-Windows platforms.

More Information.

Unified codebase

Yes

Yes

Yes

Partially cross-platform codebase, with considerable amounts of Windows-specific code

Opera "kernel" is cross-platform, front-end is customized

More Information

 No. Different code for different versions (Windows / Mac / Unix).

Cool Features

Tabbed Browsing

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Pop-up Blocking

Yes

No (But possible through a “hidden preference”

No

No

Yes

No

Save pages with images, stylesheets, and other objects

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

Print Preview

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Full Screen Mode

Yes

Yes

No

Available through a non-Netscape plugin

Yes: "Kiosk/Presentation mode" (no location bar or scroll bar in full screen mode)

More Information

Yes, partially implemented (no location bar in full screen mode)

Spell Checker

No, it is available through a separate spell checker project.

Yes

Yes

Yes

?

?

Integrated Instant Messaging

No
(Jabber instant messager can be added to Mozilla through Jabberzilla)

Yes:

AOL Instant Messenger and ICQ

Yes: AOL Instant Messenger

 ?

Currently Disabled
(Previous versions of Opera 6 included the Miranda ICQ client code, but the newest versions do not. )

No (MSN Messenger is a separate program from Internet Explorer)

Integrated IRC Chat

Yes: ChatZilla

More Information

No, but ChatZilla is installable through a separate XPI

No

No

No

No

Beauty: Skin Deep ? Skins, Themes, Polish, User Interface Flexibility

Support for Skins (Themes)

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

No support by Microsoft. Skins possible through Hotbar.

Sidebar (Customizable?)
[User customizable: user can make Sidebars .
Site Customizable:
A webmaster can make a Sidebar for his site.]

Yes (User Customizable, Site Customizable)

Yes (User Customizable, Site Customizable)

Yes (User Customizable, Site Customizable)

No

Yes: OperaPanel (User Customizable, Site Customizable)

Yes (Not  Customizable)

Advertisements within browser

No

No

No

No

Yes
(Advertisements removed on registration)

No

Accessibility and International Versions

Full Page Zoom

No

No

No

No

Yes

No

Text/Font Zoom

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes (part of full page zoom?)

Yes

International Versions

?

?

?

?

?

?

Search and Download Features

Download Manager

Yes

Yes

No

No

Yes

No (Download Manager is only available on IE for the Mac)

Search multiple search engines
from location bar

Yes, (manual change through preferences required)

Yes, (manual change through preferences required)

Yes, (manual change through preferences required)

No

Yes (from "search bar")

No

Search multiple search engines simulaneously
and present combined results in browser
( More Information )

Yes (Sidebar, Advanced Search)

Yes (Sidebar, Advanced Search)

Yes (Sidebar, Advanced Search)

No

No

No

Components: What's included in the package?

Integrated Email and Newsgroups Program

Yes : Mozilla Mail and Newsgroups
(It is possible to install Mozilla without Mail and Newsgroups)

Yes

Yes: Netscape Mail and Newsgroups
(It is possible to install Netscape without Mail and Newsgroups)

Yes

Yes

No
(Outlook Express is bundled with Internet Explorer, but is a separate program.)

Compose HTML  email (email with colors, images)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

 Outlook Express 5.5 supports HTML messages

Use more than one email account

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, if all accounts are IMAP email accounts. No, if you use POP3 email accounts.

Yes

 Yes

Integrated webpage editor

Yes: Mozilla Composer

Yes: Netscape Composer

Yes: Netscape Composer

Yes

No

No
(Frontpage Express is a separate program from Internet Explorer)

Web Developer Tools

Integrated JavaScript Console

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

Integrated JavaScript Debugger

Yes: Venkman

No (Venkman, Mozilla's JavaScript debugger,  is installable separately through an XPI file)

No (Venkman, Mozilla's JavaScript debugger,  is installable separately through an XPI file)

 No (Java based JavaScript debugger available separately)

No

No

Integrated HTML structure/ tag analyser

Yes: Document Inspector

No

No

No

No

No

Privacy and Security Features

Password Manager

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Yes, partially implemented (save passwords, cannot review  saved passwords)

Yes, partially implemented (save passwords, cannot review saved passwords)

Encrypt passwords stored by the password manager with master password

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Review list of passwords stored by password manager

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

No

No

Cookie Manager

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, partially implemented (can block cookies, cannot review  stored cookies)

Yes, partially implemented (can block cookies, cannot review  stored cookies)

Yes, partially implemented (can block cookies, cannot review  stored cookies)