Some wars seem to go on for so long that they just become part of life as we know it. The browser war is no exception. The only real difference is that nowadays instead of the Netscape and Internet Explorer factions and supporters, it’s Mozilla and Internet Explorer.

Those of us who are old enough to remember (but young enough to accurately remember) the Great Netscape War will recall that Netscape put up one hell of a fight, but ultimately didn’t have the resources to take on the mighty IE.

Netscape was well and truly defeated, and the result was an astonishing level of complacency on behalf of IE. Think about it – when did Microsoft last release a significant new version?

Then came the Second Great Browser War, this time with Mozilla taking on the mighty IE. And you know what? It’s actually giving Microsoft a run for its money. And as a result, a new version of IE is in the works. Who would have guessed it?

Having choices is all very good and well, but the problem is that I pretty much guarantee that your Web site will look quite different in the two browsers. So whether you’re selling, writing, complaining, or just indulging in a little creativity, you want to be sure that the majority of people who come to your Web site can view it.

In the past, I used to have a copy of IE, Netscape 4, Opera, and an old Netscape 3 Gold for testing. Today, however, the vast majority of your visitors are going to be using either IE or Mozilla.

Paessler Site Inspector is a particularly useful tool for Web designers and developers. One of the most useful features allows you to switch between the two browser engines with a single click of the mouse. So no messing around with multiple memory munching windows.

It also gives you a head-spinning arsenal of tools, allowing you to view any URL’s images, forms, frames, metatags, or the scripts of a Web page as well as the HTML source and HTTP headers.

If that’s not enough, the highlight function allows you to mark any HTML tag with a coloured border within the rendered page. For example, showing the setup of tables in those “how on Earth do they do that” sites.

You can copy the page URL, page title, page source, list of URLs, and even the page itself as a bitmap to the clipboard. And resizing the browser window to different screen sizes is a one-click task too.

Paessler Site Inspector 4 runs on Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP and 2003. Further information and a free 30-day trial version are available from the Paessler Web site.