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Microsoft’s venerable web browser, Internet Explorer, has been derided in the web universe for so long that it makes sense for the competition to have snuck in and stolen away some of the software kingpin’s marketshare.

While Microsoft’s IE web browser still has the largest marketshare of any web browser in the world, it has lost quite a few points in recent years to Mozilla’s Firefox web browser, which many believe has much better security features, as well as an entire universe of developers that make “extensions” to the actual browser—letting the customer customize their web experience as only they can.

And how about Opera, the stalwart Finnish company that many think is the best web browser on the planet? Opera used to charge for its web browser but then joined the competition (IE and Firefox) in giving it away for free.

Would Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) have been better served by acquiring Opera a few years ago? By doing so, it would have effectively taken a competitor out of the market, and also offered its millions of Windows users a much better web experience than what they already endure using IE. Sure, anti-competitive folks might have had a problem with Microsoft buying a web browser maker with a tiny marketshare percentage, but if serving customers the best possible product was the goal, perhaps Microsoft should have bought Opera.

Google, the search company that Microsoft counts as its biggest rival, has created a customized version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 browser.

Dubbing the edition that’s “Optimized for Google,” the Mountain View, Calif., search giant has added its own toolbar to IE 7, and set the home page and default search to google.com. The custom IE 7 can be downloaded from here.

“Like Yahoo, USAToday.com, and others, [Google] used the Internet Explorer Administration Kit to create [this] version,” said Tony Chor, an IE group program manager, in an entry on the team’s blog. The kit is primarily aimed at corporate developers who want to tweak IE, and then simplify company-wide configuration and deployment.

Google also has posted a beta of version 3.0 of its toolbar for the open-source Firefox browser. The preview adds several new features, including integration with Google Docs & Spreadsheets, the search company’s online word processor and spreadsheet. When the option is enabled, users can open a Docs or Spreadsheet file by dragging it onto Firefox, by clicking on a file link in a Web page, or by double-clicking a file icon on the desktop. Other additions to the toolbar range from a “Send To” feature to go-everywhere bookmarks; most are already available in the Internet Explorer version of the Google Toolbar.

Google Toolbar 3.0 Beta for Firefox can be downloaded from the Google site.

After seeing its user base eroding to rivals like Firefox and Opera, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser might be poised for a rebound, thanks to the new features in its recently released seventh version.Online reviewers have started to release their impressions of the new browser update, with generally positive comments about the changes.

Notable tweaks include a redesign that swaps menus for task-oriented buttons, a built-in search field, and tabbed browsing. The features are in line with options already available in competing browsers, such as Firefox, reviewers have noted.

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The newly released Mozilla Firefox 2.0 and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 Web browsers both include new technology to help flag and block phishing sites—those authentic-looking Web sites set up by scammers to trick users into entering personal financial information.

So how do the browsers stack up against one another in a no-holds-barred, anti-phishing slugfest? One third-party test that pitted the browsers against two week’s worth of phishing sites concluded that Firefox’s phish net may have fewer holes than IE’s.

The evidence comes in a report released today by software testing firm SmartWare. The company tested each browser against the same phishing sites flagged by contributors to Phishtank, an anti-phishing network run by OpenDNS.

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The web browser is a cornerstone of the modern desktop or laptop. It provides a point-and-click interface to the internet. However, Microsoft is no longer the only serious player in this market.

Web monitoring specialist NetApplications.com says the software colossus commands more than 80 per cent of the browser market with Internet Explorer, which has been baked into every version of Windows for the past decade. A mere two years ago, that figure was a seemingly unassailable 92 per cent.

However, a sleek browser named Firefox has been eroding Microsoft’s market share since its impressive debut in November 2004 and it now counts 12.5 per cent of web users as its devotees.

So it’s no surprise that Microsoft last month unleashed IE7, a fresh version of its venerable web browser, which largely echoes Firefox’s roll call of features to make web surfing faster, easier and safer. That same week Firefox shot back its own salvo with the release of the long-awaited Firefox 2.

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