Internet Tools and applications that are becoming necessities

I was thinking for a long time of what title would be apt to describe my thoughts about a few internet tools & applications and I suddenly realized that some of them have already become a part of our life without our realization. We use them as if they always existed. One such tool is the browser. It is probably one of the most extensively used tool which connects us to the world via internet.

There are many browsers that are available for free download. Let us explore which browser is the best among the most popular ones used. Lets compare the traditional Internet Explorer(IE8), the open source Firefox and the easy to use Chrome.





Interface and Look:
Depending on the look and ease of operation, a browser can become very popular. Chrome provides the best look/interface among these browsers. I have seen a lot of my friends and observed that if you start using Chrome, you will not want to use another browser. Firefox also provides an impressive function based look/interface, but Chrome is the best.

Features and Characteristics:
All the popular browsers (IE included :)) provide many interesting features. But Firefox because of its extensions (add-ons) is the best in this category. Firefox being an open source software, it is tested and also strengthened by numerous programmers. Also, Firefox is extensively used for macs. Chrome is available for macs but I do not know how good it is. I expect some of my friends using macs to shed some light on this issue.

Speed:
Firefox and Chrome were significantly faster than old IE versions, but after the introduction of IE8, all of them have more or less the same speed. The initial start-up time for Firefox is a little high then the others, but it has the best navigation time. But yet, I think Chrome provides the best speed. (You may think I'm a Google fan, maybe, I don't know yet :) Read upcoming posts to decide...)

Security:
Firefox and Chrome both provide good security when compared to IE8. But it has to be remembered that Firefox being an open source software will have fixes to threats very quickly. Also, IE is the most attacked browser as hackers know that most users using IE have no anti-virus or protection on their computers. Firefox is probably the best in Security.

However, in summary, if I want to take advantage of the various extensions and features available, I would use Firefox. But if I want a browser which is easy and appealing to use, I would use Chrome. 

Recent developments: All browsers are jumping on to HTML5, an emerging set of web standards that could transform how the web works, and make internet pages more like desktop applications, in a few years.

Let us now look at some other applications which are slowly gaining popularity. In a few years, these would potentially become the most regularly used applications.

RSS Readers:

RSS reader or a feed reader collects web content from multiple sites we are interested in (like news, blogs, podcasts etc) and puts all that content in a single location for easy viewing.

 For example, say I like to read 4 different newspapers & check 4 different websites on a regular basis to be up-to-date with news. Instead of checking different websites and sometimes missing a few news articles that I'm interested in, I can simply use an RSS reader and subscribe to all these websites. Whenever a new article is posted, the RSS reader pulls the data from the respective sites and puts them in one location for my easy viewing. This way I would never again miss an article posted on my favorite websites.
Free RSS readers: Google reader, My Yahoo!
I started using the Google reader a few days ago and right now I'm enjoying its features. For example, I am following all the blogs of my classmates and a few news websites using my Google reader. Its so convenient to have all my classmates blogs in one place than me visiting different web pages.


Blogs:
Well, you are reading my blog, so I expect you to know all about blogs :)

But yet, I want to put in a few words about blogs. Blog or a weblog is a website where an individual or a group of individuals maintain regular entries of commentary, description of events, or actually anything they want to write about. It could be used a self marketing tool or just as a place from where you can connect to the world or a place where you maintain online diaries. Some sites, such as Twitter, allow bloggers to share thoughts and feelings instantaneously and are much faster than emailing. Blogs are also used for business purposes where a company uses them to enhance communication and culture within the company or for marketing, branding or public relations.
So start your blog before your name is already taken by someone else :)
Ex: Blogger, Wordpress etc.


Social Bookmarking:
Social bookmarking is an application by which we can store and manage our bookmarks online instead of storing them on our computers. We can store, organize, manage and also share them with other users.

One site, becoming popular for social bookmarking is delicious.
On delicious, we can also see popular bookmarks in different categories that were added by other users. We can manage our bookmarks by means of tagging them with relevant data instead of the traditional folders in our computers. We can give multiple tags to a bookmark and use them from any computer with internet.


These applications will soon become as popular as the social networking sites like Facebook and Orkut. So lets all keep up with technology and embrace the new tech world. Please add value to this blog with your comments.