Firefox vs IE vs Opera VS Chrome

In there internet world today, there is quite a few choices in the realm of web browsers. The major players today in the Browser wars is Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, and Mozilla’s Firefox web browser. These two web browsers comprise of most of the market place, however, The Opera web browser and Google’s Chrome browser are steadily climbing up the charts in their own right.  The question is which one of these web browsers is the best, and why should you choose one over the other?

I will give a breif overview of each browser, and give the inherent advantages and disadvantages of each one to try and help you make an informed decision. I believe benchmarks and the other tests you see on the internet today to be largely irrelevant to the average user.  This is simply due to the fact that tests like JavaScript performance and the like are not that important. While it may be true that one web browser has a faster JavaScript engine then another, the speed differences just don’t justify a comparison in this article because the user will rarely notice in the real world of web browsing. The only tests that matter in my opinion is the Acid 2 and Acid 3 tests which show each browsers conformity to html/xhtml and css standards laid out by the world wide web consortium.

With that being said, lets take a look at the browsers and see what each one offers, and why it should be your web browser.

Internet Explorer – Internet Explorer is Microsoft’s flagship web browser, and it comes installed by default on almost every Windows computer shipped worldwide. Internet Explorer is currently in version 8 and is the default web browser that ships with Windows 7. It is also available for Windows XP and Windows Vista via Microsoft Update or the Microsoft Download center.

Internet Explorer 8 passes the Acid 2 test, and by default renders in what is called Standards Mode. It also offers a compatibility view button that allows you to use the old version of Internet Explorer’s rendering behavior (IE6/IE7 mode) to view web sites that don’t display correctly in IE8 standards mode. Microsoft also pushes out compatibility view updates for Internet Explorer 8 via the Microsoft Update service as optional updates. These lists put IE8 in compatibility view mode automatically for a list of urls reported to Microsoft that don’t display or work correctly with IE8′s default Standards mode rendering.  IE8 at the moment does not pass the Acid 3 test, however, passing the Acid 3 test was not the goal of the IE8 team. The Acid 2 test right now is a real world exmaple of the Standards that need to be supported today. I do look for Internet Explorer 9 to have full support for the Acid 3 test by the time it is released final whenever that is. Microsoft has confirmed they are working on Internet Explorer 9 in their blog. IE8 also added some updates to their JScript JavaScript Engine and other tweaks and enhancements for web technologies like AJAX improvements.

Internet Explorer 8 also introduced a new feature called Web Slices which allow users to subscribe to small portions of a web page, and be notified when that portion of the page updates. Web masters and developers have to code for Web Slices, but I can see them being a truly useful feature as the web goes on. In terms of web slices, I think Microsoft will have hit big on a truly revolutionary web trend. They also added Accelerators which allow you to perform many common tasks much easier.

In terms of security and stability, Starting with Internet Explorer 8 each IE tab operates as a separate process that is isolated from the other tabs. This way if one tab crashes, the whole browser does not crash with it. Microsoft also made it by default that IE8 opts into DEP (Data Execution Prevention) for the Browser process to take advantage of stack smashing capibilities in modern processors to prevent many exploits and buffer overflow attack vectors.

Microsoft also tightened up the security zones, and built upon ins Phishing filter technology in IE7 by replacing it with the Smart Screen Filter. The Smart Screen Filter not only checks for phishing web sites, but it also protects the user from sites pushing malware and from downloading known viruses by talking to Microsoft’s servers querying for threats known to Microsoft.

Internet Explorer Conclusions

IE8 is a very capable browser, and is well worth the upgrade from IE6 or IE7 because of its better support for modern standards, and its improved security protection measures, however it still has the disadvantage of supporting Active X technologies that have been a known attack vector for malware, and some of the settings need to be tweaked  to provide better security, however IE8 is a big improvement from is older versions that bear its name.

Mozilla Firefox – Mozilla Firefox is the Mozilla Foundations award winning open source web browser. It gets its heritage from the old Netscape Browsers, and they improved greatly on Netscape’s code when Netscape released the source code to the community. In fact, looking at Firefox today a person would never know it has its roots with Netscape. The Firefox Browser and all derivatives that use its code are based on the GPL open source public license. Anyone can use the Firefox source code.  This open source model is a very big advantage of Mozilla Firefox.

The Firefox Browser is currently at the 3.5.x version, however newer versions are now in testing and could be released anytime soon. Firefox passes the Acid 2 standards test, and scores 93 out of 100 points on the Acid 3 test…very impressive indeed. Firefox 3.5 added support for html 5 tags such as video and audio, and Firefox also supports the xhtml/xml mime type which means xhtml documents can be served as true xml instead of text. Internet Explorer 8 can’t handle the xhtml+xml mime type, but Firefox can so the browser is very forward looking.

By default, Mozilla Firefox is a very basic browser. It has a Google search box by default, and in terms of security it supports out of the box Google’s Safe Browsing service to protect users from Phishing sites, and from sites pushing viruses and malware. The 3.5.x series introduced a new speedier JavaScript engine to help it better cope with new web standards, and improved garbage collector to reduce memory usage. Overall by default Firefox is a very speedy lean browser. In terms of security, Firefox open source heritage means when vulnerabilities are discovered, they are patched very quickly. In fact most of the time they are patched faster then any other web browser out there.

Firefox real strength lies in the ability to extend the browser. Firefox supports what are called Extensions. Extensions can do anything from putting a weather widget in your browser task bar, to blocking all scripts on web sites. There are even extensions to check your mail, keep up with twitter, and various other add-ons. These extensions allow you to extend your browser anyway you see fit, and each Firefox user tailors their browser differently. This means you get a more personalized experience.  Firefox also supports a variety of themes as well which means you can make the browser look however you want it to look which drives home the point of customization.

Firefox Conclusion

Firefox is the web enthusiasts dream, and is the perfect browser for the advanced internet savy user. however, it is also the perfect browser for a new user because of its simplicity of design and well thought out user interface. It is very streamlined, easy to navigate and find things, and very secure. The sheer amount of add-ons and extensions make it a very powerful customizable browser. Also, add in the fact it usually supports bleeding edge web standards much faster then other browsers, and you can be assured you will always be on the cutting edge of new web technologies when using the firefox web browser.

Google Chrome – Google Chrome is a new comer on the block. Chrome is a web browser maintained by Google based on the open source Chromium web browser code. It uses the Web Kit rendering engine back-end which is also used by Apple Safari and other Web Browsers. However, Google Chrome’s version of Web Kit is optimized for using Google’s cloud applications such as Google docs.

Google boasts the fastest JavaScript rendering in most benchmarks with a JavaScript engine they designed, and Chrome also passes the Acid 2 test, and a good portion of the Acid 3 test with more support coming in future versions. In terms of security and stability, Google Chrome like IE8 runs each tab in a separate process space isolated from the others in case one crashes it won’t take down the whole browser.  Also, Chrome uses Google’s own safe browsing service to protect its users from phishing and malware sites.The default security settings in Chrome are pretty good, and overall the browser is pretty secure.

Google Chrome uses the same plug-ins as Mozilla Firefox, and it does not rely on Active X like Internet Explorer does. Its security settings and user interface is very simple to navigate around, however it does not provide the user a whole lot of options to change things. This can be bad and annoying for the advanced user, and possibly good for the casual user who just browses the web.

Google Chrome also has the Omnibar, what they call the address bar, that allows you to query Google’s Search engine by typing words into the bar. This can useful to help you find the information you are looking for very quickly.

Google Chrome Conclusion

Chrome is definitely a contender in the browser wars in the coming years. google designed this browser specifically for use with its web based applications such as Google docs and other service, and Google chrome is optimized for use with these services. The only real fault the web browser is it doesn’t have a very big base of extensions like Firefox does, and the amount of configuration options with it is very limited compared to other web browsers. however, Google Chrome is certainly a viable web browser and surely is justifiable to use as an everyday windows into the web.

Opera Web Browser – Opera is a web browser produced by Opera software which is based in Norway. It is not a very well known web browser compared to its rivals, however it is a very top notch browser in itself and has a few key innovative technologies inside of it. Opera uses its own proprietary web rendering engine, and it is not an open source web browser like Firefox or other browsers. However, that is by no means a knock on this truly powerful web browser.

Opera in many tests is the fastest browser in rendering many sites out there. It passes the Acid 2 test, and most of the Acid 3 test. Internal Builds of Opera have passed the Acid 3 test which I am sure will be included in future versions of the browser.

Opera has its Opera Turbo which significantly speeds up the rendering of web pages when using a dial-up connection or a slow wi-fi connection.  Opera like Firefox also supports customized skins to change the look of the browser.  The user interface is very well thought out, and it allows the user to change a vast amount of options to get the borwser to look and behave the way you would want it to. The opera Unite feature allows users to share files with their frieds without having to upload them to a web site.

Opera also has its Speed Dial technology which makes going back and forward literally instant which means you won’t have to wait for it to reload a page when you hit the back and forward buttons. Dragonfly allows web developers to debug JavaScript and CSS

In terms of security, Opera is pretty secure by default right out of the box. It employs phishing and malware protection with technology from Netcraft and Phishtank, and malware protection from TRUSTe. In some ways, this is probably the best online web protection, and identity protection service available in any web browser.  Opera doesn’t suffer from very many vulnerabilities, however when they arise they are patched very quickly.

Opera Conclusion

Overall Opera is a very good browser in its own right, and is every bit as good as Firefox, Internet Explorer or Google Chrome. In someways it is better then the other 3 with more features out of the box that Firefox may require an extension for, and the others may not support at all. The only downside to opera is not all web sites support it due to itnot being as well known as the others, however, it supports 9 out of 10 web sites out there.

So what is the verdict? which one is the best web browser?

The answer to that question depends on the user. There is no best web browser overall, there is only “what web browser is best for you”. Since every user uses the web and their web browser differently, one must try all of them and see which one they feel they like the best, and which one conforms to how they use their computer in their everyday lives.

The fact that we have so many borwsers to choose from means it will encourage competition, and this will make the web browser wars all the better as the end user will benefit with the new features and enhancements offered by each one.  The key to finding out which web browser is the best is to use each one and see which one you like the best. I personally use Firefox because it mods and fits with my computing habits, but I came to this conclusion after using them all for a period of time.

There is no best web browser, there is only the best web browser for YOU

Please comment away, i would love to hear what web browser you use, and why you chose that browser.

Take care folks, and happy web browsing