The battle for browser supremacy still rages on. Internet Explorer 9 has finally been released in it's final form. Google has just released Chrome 11 (beta), and Firefox has just released it's shiny new Firefox 4. They are battling for top honors. Who will win?
People use the web more than ever. We no longer just use the web to read static information, we use it to interact! The single most used piece of software on any computer is the browser by a hige margin. You use a browser every day! Better have a good one!
I was really disappointed in the first few versions of IE9. The beta versions and release candidates were very slow and buggy. That seems to have been resolved. It runs very fast now and compiles complex pages very quickly. So how does it stack up to my favorite browsers; Chrome and Firefox?
Some History
The very first web browser was the Netscape browser back in the early 1990s. That eventually evolved into the open source Mozilla browser known today as Firefox. It's a very mature, very compliant, very elegant browser. The most current version, Firefox 4 was released in March of 2011 and is an exceptional upgrade. It's faster, cleaner, uses up less space, and provides an infinite amount of upgrades and add-ons. Anything you can imagine.
At some point in the past (around 1995), Microsoft decided to jump into the browser market and included Internet Explorer in Windows. This gave Microsoft tremendous market share and it dominated and pushed Netscape to the side. But Internet Explorer was always behind the times and never complied with the rules of internet programming. It became a gimmicky browser that only novices would use because they didn't know any better and it was on their computer. But it did command considerable market share. But there was a better way and if you create it, they will come.
The Mozilla project evolved and create the Firefox browser in 2004. The idea was not to let Netscape efforts and programmers go to waste. They also wanted a standards compliant browser that was better than Explorer. The problem was that it was very ugly. Designers got cracking and made it look very visually pleasing. The newest version is very beautiful and still is fast, clean, and secure.
Chrome entered the marketplace in 2008 hoping to supplant Firefox and IE. The first few versions were utterly useless on anything but a basic computer. Anyone who had a 64 bit computer couldn't use Chrome or it ran very poorly. It was very experimental and buggy. It has grown a lot since then and now works very well on most computers. It does a lot of things for you that you were already planning to do and makes life easier.
Chrome and Firefox are "open source" and have a giant community of programmers and experts contributing to improving them. While IE is closed and only Microsoft gets to say what ends up in IE.
All of these browsers are very mature now and run well on almost any computer anywhere. Firefox and Chrome have Mac versions as well that sync with their PC counterparts (more on this later). We have recent releases of Chrome 11 (beta), Firefox 4, and Internet Explorer 9. I put all of them through the ringer to find out which one I will use most. My life depends on web browsing, and I bet yours does too! Why not find a browser that can handle anything and everything for you in a nice neat package.
Speed
They all load up and launch very quickly. That doesn't seem to be an issue. If I had to give an edge, it would be to Chrome by a small fraction. Rendering pages and running complex scripts. Both IE9 and Chrome 11 seem to do a great job without any issues. I didn't run any benchmarks, but both seem to do well. On benchmarks published online, it seems that all three browsers (Firefox 4, IE9, Chrome 11) all run within about 33 milliseconds of each other. IE9 finally caught up to the other two.
From a cold start (completely off to totally on), Chrome loads up the fastest still. But only by about 400-600 milliseconds. It's not noticeable unless you are obsessive. But that half a second can mean everything.
On rendering web graphics and java graphics, Chrome beats all browsers, except for tests designed especially for Internet Explorer. and even then, they were so close, that it'd have to be called a tie. Depending on which test you use, you will have mixed results. Whether you use Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 9, or Chrome 11, you should have amazing web graphics rendering and this should not be the only factor going into your decision. They all performed exceptionally well.
Page Real Estate
With all these smaller netbooks and pads, each pixel is precious. Previously, I thought that Chrome took up less pixels at the top. I was wrong. IE9 only uses up 54 pixels from the top of the screen, while Chrome and Firefox use 60 and 64 pixels, respectively. The edge goes to IE9 in this department. I was surprised, because it just looks so clunky. But all of them are very low and I can live with any of them. The eprevious versions of Explorer were awful! It seems like Firefox and Explorer learned a lot from the people at Chrome. Love the less invasive interfaces. I still remember some people with 4 different tool bars installed and not being able to see but a few lines of the actual web page.
If you really like Chrome's look and feel, you can install a Chrome skin on Firefox, then you get the best of all world's. The skinning and customization of Firefox is unbeatable.
Features
I love the built in spellcheck in Chrome and Firefox. IE9 doesn't have this. This is huge! Edge Chrome and Firefox. All other Microsoft products come with spellcheck, so why can't the browser? They are trying to make it smaller, I understand that. But come on! Edge goes to Chrome and Firefox. I know there are plugins that make IE9 have spellcheck, but that is an extra step. Just build it in.
The IE9 team took a lot of other features and ideas from Chrome and Firefox, and it seems like they did a good job of implementing them; tabbed browsing, privacy, less real estate and many other features. IE9 has finally caught up to other modern browsers.
Compliance
The whole point of IE9 was to try and make it much more standards comliant. In this regard, they have failed. IE9 is slightly more compliant, but still is way behind the other browsers.
IE9 is much more up to date with HTML5 and CSS3, but no where near where they should be. It's hard to belive that up until the release of IE9, Microsoft's browser was about 4-5 years behind on Web 2.0, HTML5, CSS3, and Java. That is pretty sad. While nearly all the other free browsers from very small startups were fully up to date (Opera, Firefox, Chrome, Safari) and many others. That is a huge negative mark on Microsoft. Internet Explorer at one point commanded nearly 85% of browser market share. That is not the case any more. They now control only 25% of the browser market. The top browser today is Firefox with 42% of market share, then Chrome and IE are tied for 25% each, with some smaller browsers bringing up the tail.
IE9 is still not fully HTML5 or CSS3 compliant, you'd think they'd finally get it right with this release. Unfortunately, they missed the boat once again. What does this mean to you? Websites won't look right and won;t do everything they are supposed to do. This is an epic failure. Why release a browser that is still a few years behind the others?
There are some older websites and older (poorly designed) web applications that still require Internet Explorer. So you have to use it. Chrome and Firefox just can't do what some of these websites require you to do. My hospitals web access has some features that only work with IE. It's bizarre, but it is what it is. The developers of these special web applications just designed these web apps about 4-5 years ago and made them very Internet Explorer 6 dependant. The problem isn't with the browsers, it's with the old web apps.
Despite all of that, if all else fails, use Firefox. Firefox renders even the most bizarre websites correctly nearly all the time.
Privacy
Almost all browser let you surf the net completely anonymously and without tracking cookies. You can initiate anonymous browsing in IE9 by starting the InPrivate browsing feature (or press ctrl+shift+p). This open up a new IE9 window that is "InPrivate". Chrome does something similar with the incognito feature (ctrl+shift+n). Firefox also has a private browsing that you can access through the menus. All of the browsers allow you to quickly switch to private through the keyboard shortcuts or through the menus. These private windows prevent you from storing cookies or a browser history. Smart idea!
Special Features
Chrome 11 has a feature that is fairly unique called Google Cloud Print, which allows you to print documents over the web to any computer that has Chrome installed and a Google account set up. That is pretty amazing! It also has Chrome Instant, which automatically starts loading the most-frequently opened pages while you are typing in their URLs. If I hit “F” in Chrome, Chrome autocompletes with FaceBook and begin loading that page before you press enter. While other browsers have autocomplete, they don’t start loading a web address until you’ve hit enter. IE9 has autocomplete turned off by default. If loading pages before you’re even done typing in their addresses seems a bit crazy to you, remember that Chrome Instant is disabled by default, but you can easily turn it on.
Internet Explorer 9 shares an impressive special feature with all Windows 7 programs that allows pinnable sites and Jump Lists, which incorporates nicely into the Windows 7 menu bar at the bottom of the screen (but it's more of a Windows 7 feature). If you like a site and you want to make it readily available, you can pin it to the Windows Taskbar or Start Menu, similar to how you can pin shortcuts to other programs. You can pin Chrome and Firefox too, and it essentially does the same thing. In Internet Explorer, when a pinned site is open, it can change the color of your back and forward buttons and place its logo to the left of the back button. More importantly, it can add custom items to the Jump List, which appears when you right click on its pinned icon. Groupon, for example, lists some of it's daily deals in its custom Jump List. It's not unique to IE9.
Firefox has a litany of add-ons and developer apps that you can install. No other browser has as many add-ons and features that can extend the browsing experience. Firefox is a clear winner in extendability and add-ons.
Security
Internet Explorer has always been the worst when it comes to security and still is. It's easy to hack Explorer. Firefox and Chrome are very difficult to hack and offer much better security.
Sync
Almost all modern browsers (except IE9) let you sync your browsing experience with a quick login. If I login to Firefox or Chrome from home or at work, all my favorites, browsing history, apps, themes, plugins, add-ons will all show up and work on the second computer. That is pretty awesome!
Firefox has the most impressive Sync feature. You tell it to sync and it goes through and saves everything. Your first sync will be slow, but future syncs will run smoother and better. Firefox lets you even sync open tabs. If you have 5 websites open in 5 tabs, when you sync, they will reopen on the second computer to the exact same position you were in. Chrome doesn't do that. That is awesome stuff!
Firefox even syncs your desktop browser to your mobile browser. If you have the Android version of Firefox, all your favorites, apps, passwords, browsing history, links, and tabs will transfer from one to the other. Now that is impressive!
If you had to leave work suddenly for whatever reason, you could pull up your firefox on your phone and resume working and doing whatever it was you were doing.
Microsoft IE9 doesn't have a sync feature at all.
Chrome also has a powerful sync feature. Google is releasing it's own brand of netbooks soon, which are essentially a tiny little operating system that supports the Chrome browser. They want you to be able to do anything and everything through their browser. Email, document editing, surfing the net, and nearly anything else you'd need a laptop for. Everything will be stored in the "cloud" and will be accessible from anywhere. As soon as I login to any Chrome browser, all of my stuff will become available. This is extremely innovative and taked cloud computing to the next level. This is awesome!
Chrome and Firefox have very powerful sync features that are very customizable and useful. They dominate this department.
Apps
Chrome allows you to install apps to your browser, but they are just quick links to websites (or web apps) really. What is this? Cruise over to the Chrome app store. You can see for yourself. There are all kinds apps that allow you to do various things. Games, Tweetdeck (twitter client), weather apps, news apps, as well as hundreds of other apps. It seems like Google is preparing to launch it's netbooks and everything will run through Google Chrome and apps on Google Chrome. Very innovative and forward thinking. If I travel to Ohio and login to my Google account from my sisters laptop, all my files, email, twitter feeds, websites, links, favorites, documents, files, music, and apps are available. Awesome!
Firefox lets you install real add-ons and apps to the actual browser, in addition to web apps. Firefox has been around longer and has far more apps and add-ons. Firefox's add-ons add more functionality to the actual browser, while Chromes are merely websites that would run with any browser. Firefox is great for developers, you can load any webpage, change the HTML code, and see how it will render. Firefox dominates the apps and add-ons department hands down. If yu want a more powerful browser with countless customizations and add-on features, Firefox is your browser.
Conclusions?
It doesn't matter what you use now if you are just browsing the net. They all work well. But avoid IE9 due to compliance and rendering issues.
If you want a blazingly fast browser, all three are extremely fast.
If you type a lot (like a blogger), the automated spellcheck in Chrome and Firefox makes a huge difference. Chrome has the ability to spellcheck inside of rich text editors (like tinymce, fkeditor, and others), whereas Firefox can't until you switch to a raw HTML editor.
If you plan on using your browser for everything, you will need either Chrome or Firefox. Synchronize all your files, documents, musci, links, favorites, games, websites, RSS feeds, news, and much more with Chrome and Firefox. IE9 doesn't do any of this.
Internet Explorer 9, once again trails the other browsers in compliance and standards. Websites will look differently and not work properly in IE9. That is sad. This was supposed to be "THE" release that would bring IE up to speed. Not so.
I personally will stick to Chrome and Firefox, despite Microsoft's improvements to IE9. I will only use IE for the one website I need it for.
If I really had to choose only one browser for all my needs, whether I am surfing the net for fun or developing web platforms and web applications, I would choose Chrome for now. I am simply more familiar with Chrome and like familiarity. However, I plan to slowly start transitioning to Firefox. The latest Firefox really makes the others obsolete and has an extremely clean and powerful interface. The ability to sync everyting and have it available anywhere is really intriguing.
The future of Chrome looks very bright and will be pretty awesome once all of their features are up to speed and working in a coordinated fashion with their netbooks and Google Chrome accounts. I love Google's innovative approach to Chrome and their forward thinking, while the people at Microsoft are playing catch up to technology that's already 4-5 years old.
If you want a very mature browser that has thousands of add-ons and endless custom options, Firefox is your dog. The added benefit of Firefox is that it is not owned by a parent company trying to make a ton of money off your browsing habits and history. Firefox is owned by the public sector and doesn't sell ads. Both Google and Microsoft do.
Chrome and Firefox are clearly the top browsers for now! The future is going to be pretty awesome as these two continue to compete and improve!
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