Two new web browsers in 2015 may signal a second War of the Browsers

It is 25 years since Microsoft launched a web browser — Internet Explorer — to take on what was then the only competition: NetScape Navigator. By giving it away for free — and bundling it with the operating system Windows — Microsoft launched the famous Browser War of the 1990s, and by 1995 had captured the hearts, minds and desktops of 95 per cent of all users. Its domination ended after Google launched Chrome in 2008 and overtook IE four years later.

PC — and increasingly mobile— users have had other options: Opera whose mini version has been quite popular with phone users who looked for a thin-and-lean browser; Firefox , a firm favourite with Open Source premis, and Apple's own Safari.

Chrome's domination of nearly half the market obscures a truth: Millions of users have chosen to go with minority browsers that offered them a USP of some kind. UC Browser has its biggest base of users in India and China — two regions where mobile users are challenged by slow connection speeds and appreciate a browser that helps overcome such hitches.

A Bangalore-based team at Hidden Reflex, can take credit for launching Epic, the world's first browser that addresses one of the biggest concern of Internet users today: privacy. Commercially driven 'eyes' are watching your every keystroke. I was upset to be targeted by ads for old peoples' homes just because I had discussed my mother's failing health in an email with my family.

Epic calls itself, the Privacy Browser and ensures that people can't track and 'pursue' you on the Net with unsolicited ads and other nuisance. A single click lets you hide your URL and browse through a proxy. Granted, Chrome too, has a feature called Incognito; but it doesn't go as far as it should, because— let's face it — Google has a vested interest in pushing ads to your page.

Now it seems we are going to face a problem of plenty — browser-wise— and a second War of the Browsers. Last week saw two new browsers announced:

Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder and former CEO of Opera Software, leads a new outfit, and has launched Vivaldi. I am trying out the browser that is now available in a technical preview version. It has an Opera-like feature called Speed Dial and a useful note-taking feature. It takes me back to the old days control+key commands, in the way it helps keep track of multiple tabs and pages Well placed buttons and side bars make it easy to access contacts, downloads and other things that in other browsers are buried deep. Vivaldi is currently a desktop-only browser.

 Microsoft is working to launch a new browser to complement or replace IE — it's not very clear. But Spartan will work across the entire Windows 10 device family: from keyboard and mouse on the desktop, to tablet, phone, touch, gestures, voice, controllers and sensors. In that sense it is a very modern browser scaling up and down to the user's screen size.

Spartan should be preloaded on Windows 10 PCs, tablets and phones bought in the second half of 2015 — and who knows, like the ancient warrior race whose name it bears, Microsoft's new browser may launch a new era of swift and frugal browsing, letting us leap from one screen-maidan to another, in our quest for Net nirvana!