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Battle of the browser betas

Robert Vamosi
Senior editor

(April 28, 2006)

Not since the early days of the Netscape vs. Microsoft Internet Explorer browser wars has the development behind Internet browsers been so energized, with developers rushing out new features every few weeks. Forget what's available today, let's look ahead and see what the next versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera have in store. One caveat: since all these browsers are still in beta, not all Web sites may display properly, not all ad-ons or extensions may work within the new builds, and the apps themselves may unexpectedly crash or freeze.

	IE 7 beta 2	Firefox 2 alpha 1	Opera beta 1
Built-in tabs	Yes	Yes	Yes
Saved tabs	Yes	No	Yes
Tab mini preview	No	No	Yes
Side panel	Yes	Yes	Yes
Search history	Yes	Yes	Yes
Integrated RSS	Yes	Yes	Yes
Widgets	No	No	Yes
BitTorrent	No	No	Yes
Antiphishing	Yes	No	No
Page zoom	Yes	No	Yes

Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera should all have their final releases in the latter half of 2006.

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Product name	Firefox 2 Alpha 1	Firefox 2 Alpha 1

Review date	March 21, 2006	March 21, 2006

Editors' rating (Editors' rating explained)	CNET editor's take	CNET editor's take

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Basic Specs

Product name	Firefox 2 Alpha 1	Firefox 2 Alpha 1

Full specifications	Full specifications	Full specifications

Price range	Download for free from CNET Download.com.	Download for free from CNET Download.com.

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Battle of the browser betas

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