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 Life as a modern web developer would not be bearable without a decent debugger tool such as Firebug for Firefox. It allows you to debug your JavaScript, inspect XMLHttpRequests, the DOM, CSS, and edit them.

While I love Firefox and Firebug, there are other browsers out there that I also have to develop for, the dearth of decent debugging tools these has often left me grumbling and lamenting.

But on one of those procrasting whims, I started googling. And much to my suprise I discovered that the latest version of Opera, 9.5, comes with a built in debugger called Dragonfly.

Dragonfly is only in beta, but what it offers so far is very promising indeed. It may not have all of the features that Firebug currently has, but it is certainly a very useful tool as it is. With the addition of this feature to Opera, the browser is now a serious contender as a developer tool. One thing that was a little annoying, was that Opera's Dragonfly web page doesn't clearly state that, you only need to be using the latest browser, and can activate it under the menu option Tools / Advanced / Developer tools.

My curiosity then led me on to look at Safari next. And yes, there appears to be a similar tool also, but after server attempts at following the instructions from multiple websites I can't activate it. The steps one has to go through to enable it are counter intuitive. With both Firefox and Dragonfly, they are easily accessible via a menu of icon. So I've given up on Safari's development tool until they make it easier to access.

Now there is one browser yet to mention, and I hear the collective groan, Internet Explorer. Once the darling, it is now the millstone around the necks of developers across the world. For years they have had a developer tool in beta, that just has never progressed anywhere. It doesn't even offer an integrated JavaScript debugger.

The future of browsers is becoming very competitive again, with those clearly moving in the right direction, the others that need to pick up their game or be left out of it.

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Opera has released the next major update of their browser- 9.5.

While I don't use opera as my primary browser, I have kept a copy for web development purposes. What has always pleased me about this browser is that it is proof a commercial company can abide by the W3C standards, unlike Microsoft and their Internet Explorer.

If there was no Firefox I would be using Opera as my browser of preferred choice.

It is claimed by the company that its new browser is more than twice as fast as version 9.2 when rendering
JavaScript and HTML.

Although it accounts for a miniscule share of the desktop browser
market, Opera is the leading browser on mobile phones, including
handsets such as HTC's Touch Diamond and most of Nokia's line.

Opera's share remains small, but has grown
by approximately 43% in the last 12 months, according to Net
Applications' numbers.

Opera 9.5, available in 30 different languages, can be downloaded free of charge from the company's site for Windows 95 or later, Mac OS 10.3 or later, or Linux.

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Microsoft says that Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) now has three rendering modes, “one that reflects Microsoft’s implementation of current Web standards, a second reflecting Microsoft’s implementation of Web standards at the time of the release of IE7 in 2006, and a third based on rendering methods dating back to the early Web”.

Ray Ozzie, Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect, (a post previously held by Bill Gates himself) said that: “Our initial plan had been to use IE7-compatible behaviour as the default setting for IE8, to minimize potential impact on the world’s existing Web sites. We have now decided to make our most current standards-based mode the default in IE8”.

Could the following comments of Brad Smith, Microsoft’s Senior Vice President and General Counsel, be an indication that Microsoft is taking notice of the US and European regulatory authorities?

“While we do not believe there are currently any legal requirements that would dictate which rendering mode must be chosen as the default for a given browser, this step clearly removes this question as a potential legal and regulatory issue”.

Weight is lent to this notion when you consider that last week, European regulators fined Microsoft 1.4 billion euro for not adhering to their 2004 ruling that Microsoft was in breach of their competitive regulations and the actions Microsoft promised they would undertake to resolve the issue.

Opera recently filed an antitrust complaint to the European Commission over Microsoft's dominance. In addition to requesting that Microsoft be forced to unbundle its browser from Windows, Opera also asked that the company be forced into "fundamental and open" standards. If IE came close to rendering things the same way as Opera, Firefox, and Safari (none of which are perfect, of course), then web developers of the world wouldn't have such a headache on their hands when creating new sites.

The one shortcoming with Opera's antitrust complaint is that Firefox has made significant headway against Microsoft. Firefox has managed a huge surge in popularity where Opera has failed over the last 10 years, demonstrating that it is possible to make inroads against IE's dominant position.

Time will tell if Microsoft live up to their talk with IE8, and whether we developers will have an easier time with developing websites compatible with multiple browsers. 

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Harry McCracken writing for PC World plays it safe with his summation of Microsoft's latest action in his article "Internet Explorer 7's Slow Start".

A more cynical view would be that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is loosing large amounts of market share to their most serious rival Firefox. By allowing anybody to download and run Internet Explorer 7, including those with non-validated versions of Windows (pirates) the hope is that they'll pick up some traction. 

Looking at the satistics of a number of sites I host, which are quite varied in their audiences, I would conclude that IE7 doesn't have a chance. Firefox usage steadily continues to grow. All of these sites are now reporting 30% or more Firefox usage.

Times are changing, including the browsers. 

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Firefox 3 is in its final stages of Alpha development with a host of new features and improvements.

Mozilla has unveiled for the first time several security features it's talked up for months. Among the security provisions are built-in anti-malware warnings and protection against rogue extension updates. 

Debuting is Places, the name given to the new unified history and bookmark manager. Unlike current browser bookmark tools, Places will use a database — the SQLite database engine powers it — so users can search for saved pages. Places will also support the use of tags, or user-defined labels that are applied to categorize bookmarks and make them easier to retrieve via searches.

On offer is also a new download manager that will integrate with third-party virus scanners and malware protection.

The graphical rendering of Firefox also gets an update with the Cairo rendering engine and animated PNG image files. The versatile Cairo graphics library is a vector-based drawing API that supports a wide variety of backends. Cairo can take advantage of hardware acceleration where available and simplifies cross-platform graphics application development by providing an internally consistent and cohesive framework that emphasizes platform-independence.

Thanks to this new graphics infrastructure, boxes with corners rounded by the pre-CSS 3 property border-radius are rendered with beautiful anti-aliasing (currently accessible as the non-standard -moz-border-radius and soon -webkit-border-radius). Cairo also provides smooth scaling of images. Up until now scaled images looked jagged.

The new improvements in Firefox 3 will finally enable it to pass the Acid 2 test, a CSS test case developed by the Web Standards Project to illuminate flaws in HTML/CSS rendering engines. To pass the Acid 2 test, browsers must comply with W3C standards and provide support for a wide variety of features that are considered relevant by web designers. The Acid 2 test has been passed by several other browsers, including Safari, Konqueror, and Opera, but not Internet Explorer. Passing Acid 2 is considered to be a significant milestone in Firefox development.

Firefox 3 has particular implications for the development of the Mac version of Firefox, as it provides support for the use of Cocoa Widgets.

One downside of Firefox 3 is that several older operating system versions are no longer supported: Windows 95, 98 and ME and OS X 10.2 Jaguar. 

Mozilla has not officially committed to a release date for the final version of Firefox 3.0. 

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A friend of mine, Julian Guppy, recently found himself deep in the bowls of Microsoft's London office to discuss a project. We had joked that he should wear his Linux penguin hat and his Firefox T-shirt. The T-shirt he did wear, but Julian's surprise was not at any reaction to his apparel, but to discover that even Microsoft employees use FireFox and it's host of web developer tools to debug websites.

It's a sad indictment of Internet Explorer and it's development tools, but a resounding endorsement for Firefox.

Here's my favourite list of FireFox plugins that make it the most indispensable web development tool I use:

• Firebug
• Web Developer's Toolbar
• ColorZilla
• Copy Plain Text
• IE Tab
• ShowIP

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Opera have released a beta of their next browser update, Opera 9.5. It boasts some new features and improvements:

• Full search history - search over the content of all the pages you've recently visited
• Restore closed windows
• Faster Opera mail with IMAP support
• Rendering engine improvements, including CSS3 support
• Support of document.getElementById()
• New JS engine ECMAScript 4

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Apple have made a big fanfare this week over the release of their Safari 3 public beta, which is also available for PC. Many commentators have offered their opinions as to why Apple have provided a PC version. The general consensus being that the same browser will be available on the iPhone, so thereby having a PC base they will encourage more development for their up and coming iPhone product. Most of the iPhone applications will be browser based.

Public reaction to the beta has been unimpressed, with many vocal people decrying a number of bugs and security issues. Apple were quick to tend to these. 

I tend to think that the uptake of Safari for PC will be mostly limited to iPhone and web developers. I fall into the second group, being only interested in have a copy to test my website for Mac users. Otherwise I have no need or desire to struggle with a new browser that lacks the development community support that FireFox has. The range of plugins available to FireFox extend its features way beyond what Safari can currently offer.

As for Apple's claim that is the fastest browser on earth, my testing of it so far shows this to be only a marketing sham. Their browser speed comparison graph on the Safari download page is a farce, as they don't offer any information on what tests they made to arrive at such claims.

Safari for me will end up like Opera on my computer, only ever used for testing. I will still recommend to Mac users that they should use FireFox or Camino.

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