Topic:  Identify Different Browsers

Instructions: you are to experiment with alternative web browsers and compare their utility and features. As you undoubtedly know, a web browser is simply a piece of software that requests and then decodes and displays the files that make up Internet pages. Certainly Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox are by far the most commonly used browsers, but there are probably at least 50 to 70 others that are available for public use, and virtually all of them have their staunch fans and supporters. Two other major players in the game are Google’s entry Chrome and Opera, which has been through many versions ans is very popopular particularly in Europe. Different browsers appear to have different degrees of utility depending on the materials to be accessed and the used to be made of the material by the recipient. So for this exercise, you are to compare the performance of your most commonly used browser, whatever it might be, to at least two others that you can either download or access directly online, in terms of the way they perform on several basic kinds of Internet tasks. A fairly complete list of possible browser candidates can be found in Wikipedia’s list of web browsers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers). There are also numerous browser comparison sites that you may choose to examine and use as a basis for your choice of tools. If you mainly use one of the Big Three, it would be most beneficial for you probably to try one of the other majors and one of the lesser known ones. For each browser, try to use it to at least access, if not actively work with, each of the following type of common web sites: €¢ A news site (newspaper, cable news outlet, etc.) €¢ A sports site €¢ A large retail operation (Amazon.com or BestBuy.com might be good examples) €¢ A travel site €¢ TUIU’s CourseNet site €¢ If possible, a private site used in your workplace (obviously, nothing too confidential!) €¢ A social networking site (Facebook, Twitter, etc,) €¢ Something else that you use frequently, if possible When you have had a chance to conduct your comparative evaluations and make notes (it may be helpful to take screenshots if possible €” the key combination ALT-PRNTSCRN will copy the active window into your computer’s clipboard, and you can then use PASTE to insert the resulting picture into your Word document), please prepare a brief summary of your experiences with the different browsers, identifying: €¢ any differences you detect, €¢ your overall assessments of their respective utilities, and for what, €¢ what you may have learned from the exercise about yourself, and €¢ how you may be able to apply this learning to your own future understanding. AS AN ALTERNATIVE, PLEASE NOTE: If for various reasons you do not have the flexibility on your computer system to actually try out alternative browsers, you can still do the assignment by doing some online research about alternative browsers and reporting the results of your inquiries. It’s not going to be quite as fun as hands-on experimentation or quite as revealing, but you can still show that you understand the issues and demonstrate your ability to learn lessons for yourself from such research. After all, as we noted above, that’s what these exercises are mostly about anyway. You will never be penalized because your computer system won’t allow you to do something. Try to have some fun with this! SLP Assignment Expectations LENGTH: 2-3 pages typed and double-spaced The following items will be assessed in particular: €¢ The degree to which you have carried out the assignment completely, or clarified why you could not and investigated alternatives €¢ Your ability to describe your experiences clearly and draw conclusions from them, not just narrate events €¢ Your ability to focus on the overall purposes of the assignment, not just its specific steps €¢ Your use of some in-text references to what you have read, where appropriate; please cite all sources properly