Browser Archive

I swear I put all my browser archive links into one blog post before, but a search tonight proved me wrong. So here they are… These are the sites I’ve used for years to download old browsers:

FireFox (official)
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

Netscape (official)
http://http.netscape.com.edgesuite.net/pub/

Internet Explorer and MANY others (unofficial)
http://browsers.evolt.org/

Internet Explorer 8: A Step Closer to Standards

Last month the IE team mentioned that their latest Internet Explorer code (to be IE 8 sometime in the future) renders the “Acid2 Face” tests correctly. This is a large achievement for the team and developers around the world. Browser compatibility testing is going to get easier for us testers (once developers shake their old habits of coding workarounds for browser quirks)! Read the post here.

Netscape Navigator is dead

After a near 14 year life span competing with IE and other better browsers, AOL is throwing in the towel on Netscape Navigator. The war was long and drawn out but has finally come to an end for the poor browser.

Sweet! Take another browser off the browser compatibility testing list.

Read more here…

Want to download a few keepsakes or take a walk down memory lane? Check out Netscape’s Product Archive FTP.

Four links to User-Agent list and an update to the user-agent import

I found two more lists of user-agents for browsers, spiders, bots, RSS readers, devices, etc. If you’re looking to track down who/what a specific user-agent is or are looking to spoof a user-agent using the User Agent Switcher extension then these four lists should be helpful (newly discovered are on the top):

1. http://www.user-agents.org/index.shtml
   
2. http://www.botsvsbrowsers.com/
   
3. http://www.tnl.net/ua
   
4. http://www.pgts.com.au/pgtsj/pgtsj0212d.html

I’ve also updated my User-Agent list xml import file for User Agent Switcher to include a few WAP devices and toolbars.

*WAP*     
Nokia 6630
Nokia 6100
BlackBerry 8703 
*Toolbars*     
Google Toolbar 4.0
Hotbar 4.4.2   
AskBar 3.0      

Download it here: AgentStrings20070517.xml (18.07 KB)

Update to User Agent Import for User Agent Switcher

Update 05/17/2007: The list has been updated and can be found here.

Somebody asked for an update to my outdated XML import file for User Agent Switcher. Honoring that request, I have added the latest user agent strings for each browser. Updated or added strings are marked with green below. I also added a new section for RSS reader user agent strings. Download the User Agent List import file here: AgentStrings20070304.xml (16.51 KB).

Internet Explorer
MSIE 7 (Win Vista)
MSIE 7 (Win XP)
MSIE 7 (Win Storage Server)
MSIE 6 (Win XP)
MSIE 5.5 (Win 2000)
MSIE 5.5 (Win ME)
MSIE 5.0 (Win 95)
MSIE 4.01 (Win 95)
MSIE 4.0 (Win NT)

FireFox
FireFox 2.0 (Win XP)
FireFox 1.5.0.6 (Fedora Core 5/Linux)
FireFox 1.5.0.4 (Debian Linux)
FireFox 1.5.0.3 (Mac OSX)
FireFox 1.5.0.1 (Win Vista)
FireFox 1.5 (Win XP)
FireFox 1.4 (Win XP)
FireFox 1.0.7 (Win XP)
FireFox 1.0.6 (Win XP)
FireFox 1.0.5 (SlackWare/Linux)
FireFox 1.0.4 (FreeBSD)
FireFox 1.0 (Win XP)
FireFox 0.9.3 (Win XP)

Opera
Opera 9.1 (Win XP)
Opera 8.0 (Win 2000)
Opera 7.6 (Server 2003)
Opera 7.51 (Win XP)
Opera 7.5 (Win XP)
Opera 7.5 (Win ME)
Opera 4
Opera 3
Opera 2
Opera 1

Netscape
Netscape 8.1 (Win XP)
Netscape 8.0.1 (Win XP)
Netscape 7.2 (Win 2000)
Netscape 7.1 (Win 98)
Netscape 4.8 (Win XP)
Netscape 4.76 (Win 98)
Netscape 4.5 (Win 98)
Netscape 4.05 (Win 95)
Netscape 3.01 gold (Win 95)
Netscape 2.02 (Win 95)

Safari
Safari 3.0 (v521)
Safari 2.0 (v418.9.1)
Safari 2.0 (v412)
Safari 2.0 (v401)
Safari 1.3 (v162)
Safari 1.3 (v158)
Safari 1.3 (v146)
Safari 1.2 (v125.8; OSX 10.3.4)
Safari 1.1 (v100.1; OSX 10.3.2)
Safari 1.0 (v85)
Safari 1.0 (v74 beta 2)
Safari 1.0 (v73 beta 2)
Safari 1.0 (v64 beta)
Safari 1.0 (v51 update 1.0 beta)
Safari 1.0 (v48 public beta)

AOL
AOL 9.0/MSIE 6.0 (Win XP)
AOL 8.0/MSIE 6.0 (Win XP)
AOL 7.0/MSIE 5.5 (Win 98)
AOL 6.0/MSIE 5.5 (Win 98)
AOL 5.0/MSIE 5.0 (Win 98)
AOL 5.0 (OS X)
AOL 5.0 (Mac PPC)
AOL 4.0/MSIE 3.02 (Win 95)
AOL 4.0/MSIE 4.01 (Win 95)
AOL 4.0 (Mac PPC)
AOL 4.0 (Mac 68k)
AOL 4.0/MSIE 3.0 (Win 3.1)
AOL 3.0/MSIE 3.02 (Win 95)
AOL 3.0/MSIE 4.01 (Win 95)

Mozilla
Mozilla 1.7.8 (Linux)

Spiders/Bots
Googlebot 2.1 (New version)
Msnbot 1.0
Msnbot 1.0 Beta (v0.11)
Yahoo Slurp
Ask Jeeves/Teoma

RSS Readers
NewsGator 2.5 (Win XP)
Feed Demon 1.6 (Win XP)
Bloglines 2.1
SharpReader 0.9.6.0 (Win XP)

User Agent String Lists

User Agent Strings. Tons of ’em. Browser, bots, RSS readers. The list is ever growing and never ending. Did you know that “a new user agent string is born every 65 seconds“? *

Here are two extensive lists of user agent strings:

1. http://www.tnl.net/ua
   
2. http://www.pgts.com.au/pgtsj/pgtsj0212d.html

Very useful if you are spoofing user agents with a tool like the User Agent Switcher extension.

* 96.7% of Internet statistics are made up.

IE Developer Toolbar Beta 3 Available for Download

The IE team has released Beta 3 of the IE Developer toolbar. I played with it for a while and found that it’s getting better. In prior versions I (and others I talked to) couldn’t get the Outlining functionality to work. It appears to work now in Beta 3, but it’s still a bit buggy. On a page off of Google news the toolbar was incapable of outlining all the images on the page. On a positive note, the new feature “Select Element by Click” is pretty dang slick and I could see it being really helpful in developer troubleshooting or testing investigation. The feature allows you to click any element in the Web page and that element’s details and position in the DOM will be displayed in Developer Toolbar’s DOM explorer. From there you can also view the source for that element too (with colored syntax).

If you haven’t already, start warming up with the beta 3. Once complete, this tool will be a must have in your developer and testing tool toolbox.

Get update information and screenshots of changes at the IE Blog. Download IE Developer Toolbar Beta 3 here.