Internet Tools

People surf the net every day, so it's important to use a decent browser. Internet Explorer has always been a dreadful piece of software, haunted by a myriad of security issues and lacking decent standards compliance since the dawn of time. Actually, almost any other browser should be preferred over IE. Am I being clear enough for you?

Excellent alternatives include Opera, Firefox, Chrome and Safari, all four of which are rock solid choices. Firefox 3.6+ provides a somewhat faster browsing experience than Opera 10+, but Opera loads about three times quicker and implements better security. Chrome takes the prize in tab loading speed - with Opera taking second place - but it uses ungodly amounts of RAM to achieve this speed, while Opera still keeps things in check. Out-of-the-box, Firefox has the lightest memory footprint, but its extensible architecture means any add-ons being installed will quickly eliminate this advantage. Again, Opera turns out to be the best choice in real-life circumstances and boasts the richest out-of-the-box feature set.

Javascript handling is becoming increasingly important in today's Web 2.0 environment. All that ajax functionality is actually being provided by javascript, you know. Safari and Chrome have traditionally taken the cake here, with Firefox 3.6+ showing vast improvements over its previous versions in the third spot - but still unable to play in the same league as the frontrunners. Opera was increasingly lagging behind in javascript performance and effectively lost my "preferred" label because of it. But only for a brief while. The folks at Opera seem to have gotten the message, since its latest beta is suddenly beating all competition by a landslide in javascript handling. Looking further into it, this doesn't seem to be a fluke, either. The Opera team is implementing a brand new javascript engine called Carakan. As it stands now, Opera 10.5+ is handling javascript four times quicker than Chrome - its closest competitor - and about eight times faster than Firefox 3.6.

Overall, Opera remains my browser of choice. It's the safest browser available and even though Firefox is slightly quicker at standard browsing (DOM/CSS), it takes second place behind Opera in almost every other department. Firefox is extensible through add-ons that can add endless functionality, but this is also its weakness. There are thousands of add-ons available, so it can be time-consuming to tweak your install to your liking.

An increasing number of people are sharing their files and downloading multimedia content through peer-to-peer networks. Ever since the Napster era, many new filesharing technologies have appeared. The focus soon shifted from centralized (Napster, eDonkey2000/Server) to decentralized networks (Kazaa, Gnutella, eDonkey2000/Overnet, Bittorrent), mainly due to legal and scalability issues. I think it's safe to say Bittorrent has won the match though, as illustrated by its userbase and proven scalability.

µTorrent is the clear winner in this category. It's a small application with a tiny memory footprint, but has all the options you should ever need and leads the pack when it comes to speed, too. It's the kind of tool that just breathes great coding. It's being actively developed by a throng of open source developers with a focus on innovation and efficiency. Their recent µTP improvements - the protocol implementation used by µTorrent - is a great example; It addresses the problem of network congestion by monitoring network latency and managing bandwidth speeds and distribution. It will satisfy ISP's who are currently throttling all bittorrent traffic, as well as increase user download speeds when latency is low.

µTorrent supports categories, quick resumes on interrupted transfers, global and per-torrent speed control, an RSS downloader and trackerless operation (DHT). I've used Azureus - now called Vuze - for a long time, but it became too bloated for my taste. There's no reason a P2P client should require that much RAM. On the up side, it's extensible - and some add-ons will add features µTorrent is lacking, though admittedly, these are rarely ever needed. Vuze has a built-in video player and is cross-platform, making it a runner-up if you're looking for that functionality.

A word of caution: Steer clear of torrent clients that violate the protocol's equity principles. Tools such as BitComet, BitTyrant and BitThief are frowned upon due to their "selfish" behaviour and have in fact been banned by many trackers and clients.

Anonymity might be desirable for a number of reasons, ranging from paranoia to corporate secrecy. It's often seen in a negative light since the general public is often unaware of a legitimate need to be anonymous. On the one hand, privacy implies anonymity. On the other hand, those seeking to hide from the government for the wrong reasons are handed a convenient way to do just that. File sharing is suffering from the very same criticism, come to think of it. I won't get into the morals of the story too much though. Let's focus on the technology.

Eligible browsers in this category should anonymize network traffic as well as eliminate potential traces on harddrives. Most browsers offer some kind of data scrubbing or other cache/cookie/history removals, but they don't anonymize your browsing experience. The most secure browsers are actually ports of existing browsers that were modified to work with various so-called anonymizing networks. Some of these bump traffic between multiple proxies in a peer-to-peer context (Tor), others use a cascade approach (JonDo). Both have their specific advantages, but Tor wins it overall due to scalability and proxy anonymity.

OperaTor is a project combining Opera, Tor and Polipo (an HTTP proxy) into one portable package. It will connect to The Onion Router (Tor) network and anonymize your browsing sessions without touching the harddrive. Provided you run it from some portable storage device with javascript and plugins disabled, that is. Remember to always check your anonymity by checking your IP online before and after you "go dark". WhatismyIP.com is a well known service for this purpose.

If you prefer Firefox, there's xB Browser, which does about the same thing as OperaTor. They offer a paid upgrade which involves some dedicated servers for a speedier transmission, but luckily Tor is there as well.

A download manager's main functionality is not just to manage and schedule your internet downloads, but to accelerate them as well. Free Download Manager allows you to choose between 3 different speed modes, using either maximum bandwidth to download files or do it in the background with minimal impact on your other network activities. Other features include automatic mirror lookup, movie preview and browser integration.

A decent FTP client should be able to transfer multiple files to/from multiple servers, simultaneously. It should also be stable, support firewalls, proxies and secure connections. Enter FileZilla - a fast open-source client, backed by a large development community. This one has all the features you'll ever need in an FTP client, including an easy site manager and drag'n'drop support.

For keeping track of your favorite sites, Website Monitors can be incredibly useful. They'll notify you of any changes or updates and in some cases even show you the update itself, as well. Unfortunately, there are only a couple of free Website Monitors out there, while the commercial ones are offering much more functionality.

Nonetheless, there's one decent option: WebMon. This tiny utility will periodically check for updates on an unlimited number of webpages and lets you specify what part of a page it should monitor. WebMon then allows you to perform an action when an update is detected, like running programs or commands. Also, there's proxy support and an option to import bookmarks from your browser.

If you're looking for a professional Website Monitoring tool, I can recommend Website Watcher. There's practically nothing this one can't handle, be it password-protected pages, javascripted sites or even feeds and newsgroups.