What I am looking for is a browser that combines the functionality of the standard Windows Explorer with some more advanced functions, such as allowing to edit the REFERER tags, allowing manual insertion of http code, keeping a log of http transactions, popup blocking and things like that. While there is software that does this or that, it would be very nice if all those features were embedded into one Internet browser.
Does such a browser exist?
You might want to try looking into Mozilla or Opera. I’m not very familiar with them, but many dopers prefer them over IE, so if you research them a bit you have a good chance of finding some of the things you want (i know they have popup blockers, for instance)
Firefox (the browser i use) has many plugins, they most likely include the functions you wish. It is available free from www.mozilla.org
I have been using Opera for some time and really like it a lot. I can’t imagine life without tabbed browsing. It still has a few kinks (esp. in cookie control).
I tried Mozilla Firefox recently and it just wasn’t up to snuff compared to Opera.
Mozilla and Opera are much more advanced than Internet Explorer. Heck, even Netscape 7.1 is much more advanced than IE. But I don’t think they are going to do everything you mentioned.
You can turn off the referrer header so it is not sent, but I don’t think you can, on the fly, insert a different value. Beyond history/cookies/etc…, I don’t think you will get http session logs, either. I’m assuming you mean you want a log of http calls.
If by referer you mean the browser identification (mozilla 1.X, Opera 7, IE 6, whatever) then Mozilla, Netscape and Opera all allow you to change this. Commonly used by Opera browsers to lie to www.msnbc.com.
For insertion of html, Mozilla, Netscape and Opera will allow you to save the page, edit the page and submit the page. Since it can be done manually, I firmly believe it can be automated but I don’t know how.
I don’t think the browser you are looking for exists, but a combination of Mozilla, Netscape or Opera and a proxy server should do the trick.
Logging HTTP transactions is a task best suited for a firewall. You should have a firewall anyway, and I don’t know of any combo web browser/firewalls.
I don’t know what you mean by manual insertion of http code. You can write an http file with notepad and open it in any browser.
Everything else (referrer, popup blocking, and much more) is in Mozilla Firefox. I use and recommend it. If you wait until next week, you can get your hands on the brand-spankin’-new 0.9 version of Firefox here: www.mozilla.org
Two Firefox extensions that may be of interest to you:
Still no session logging, though. But if you write an extension to do it, Firefox with extensions may do everything on your list.
Why not just use a proxy like Proxomitron? Then you can use any browser you want.