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Thinking Outside The (Windows) Box,
Part II: Free Web Browsers—Off By One
While many businesses depend on Microsoft and its various product suites, alternatives exist, some of which are not well known. Part two of this series examines free alternative web browsers.
VP Core Competence, Inc. [December 30, 2005] |
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Off By One is the antithesis of Netscape—a plain jane web browser, wrapped in a lightweight 1.2 MB file that can be run right from CD or installed on a Win32 PC. We tried Off By One version 3.5.a on Windows XP SP2 and found it easy to use for basic web tasks, but incompatible with many websites.
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Off By One
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Off By One's
simplicity is immediately apparent—the installer gives no options
and creates no desktop icon. Upon launching the browser, you'll find one
simple row of toolbar buttons. There's not even a location bar. Instead,
URLs are entered using a dialog window (see figure at right). Despite
this barebones approach, Off By One does support tabbed browsing, image
zoom, HTML 4.0 extensions (including frames), and SSL (using OpenSSL libraries).
In
some cases, Off By One offers a skinny alternative to features found in
other browsers. For example, instead of integrating search engines, Off
By One's search button just invokes an online Google form (see figure
at right). For those wishing to run without OpenSSL, Off By One offers
a "fake SSL" option that can trick some https:// sites into establishing
an unencrypted, unauthenticated session over port 443. (As this does not
result in a secure connection, it is definitely not a recommended practice.)
Off By One provides an unusual hot list that works a bit like favorites, saving shortcuts to a menu. However, the hot list does not actually replace a more traditional favorites list, which can be configured and saved separately through toolbar buttons.
When it comes to security, Off By One takes a two prong approach: invoke as little as possible, and leave nothing behind. For example, Off By One caches objects in memory only. Your web cache and session history are discarded every time the browser exits—every new session starts with a clean slate. Cookies can be saved across sessions, as dictated by configurable options. There's no pop up blocker because Off By One just doesn't display pop up windows, period. This browser also does not support Java, Javascript, ActiveX, Flash, or plug-ins of any kind. What you see is what you get.
Off
By One can be handy when you need a portable, self-contained lightweight
browser—for example, when you're trying to repair an Windows PC infested
with IE spyware. But we found this stripped-down browser to be too minimal
for most commercial websites (for just one example, see the screen
shot at right).
Bottom line: keep Off By One in your tool chest, but find another browser for everyday use.
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Free Windows Web Browsers: Off By One
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