Linux is now very well served by browser apps.

Most users have been happily using Firefox version 3.x which came pre-installed with whichever Linux distro they happen to prefer. This is an extremely well written and capable browser, which has just been given a marvellous speed boost by the latest 3.5 release. Have a look here on my blog for a simple install guide with Linux.

There are however other good browsers now available for Linux, and these include Opera and Chromium. I know the later is still in development, but it is developing extremely quickly and should be out in a beta form shortly. Opera on the other hand , in it's 9.64 release is a very powerful, full featured browser, which can be used as a complete replacement for Firefox if you should like to, and the current stable release is significantly faster than Firefox 3.x, and on a par with Firefox 3.5 in real world usage.

I have also now downloaded and started to use Opera 10 beta, and this has also been given a face lift with more enhancements, like the ability to drag open all your tabs to get at the thumbnails of each page, it's really very useful.



The performance with this latest release appears on the surface to be slightly faster than Firefox 3.5, and not that far of Chromium on.

So the days of just taking the Browser you are given and having to be content are well and truly over, especially when you throw Konqueror and Epiphany into the mix. This is real and tangible evidence that the popularity of Linux on the desktop has never been stronger.

I would love to compare Safari and Internet Explorer on my Linux desktops, but unfortunately the companies behind these products are a little afraid of the competition so are sticking to their legacy systems for now.