In Part I of this series, I gave an overview of the must-have features for the web browser of my dreams. In Part II, I broke down the importance of rearranging tabs and having a small visual footprint. In this installment, I will be discussing the benefits of having a customizable search bar and adhering to the latest web standards in web browsers.
Customizable Search Bar
At first, you might think “Why would I need a search engine other than Google in my toolbar?” Mostly, I agree with you. I am fine with only having Google for 90% of my searching needs. However, I need to search specific websites a couple of times a week. Having the ability to add Wikipedia or Flickr search to my search bar would be a big help. For now, I use a bit of a work around with Safari Stand, but this is clearly something that would make my life considerably simpler if it was included with Safari. Do you hear me, Apple? Anyone? No?
Adheres to the Latest Web Standards
This is extremely important to me, but it doesn’t necessarily have any practical or noticeable impact on the end user. Even if your rendering engine doesn’t pass the latest acid test, it probably displays almost everything correctly on the web (Thanks to the hard work of web developers). That said, if every browser was standards compliant, we could be browsing much cooler websites. The developers could be spending their time innovating instead of tweaking. Also, there is something to be said for supporting the best of the best. If a browser is consistently pushing the envelope in implementing standards, that is something I want to get behind. In some ways, it is more of a cosmic reasoning than a practical reasoning.
In Part IV of this series, I’ll discuss the benefits of having basic add-on capability and bookmark/history/cookie syncing.
Photo Credit: doug88888
