With Firefox 8’s early arrival, and new major updates to three of the other major Web browsers, Chrome 15; Opera 11.5, and Safari 5.1.1 it’s high time to take another look at our current generation of Internet Web browsers and see what’s what. Only Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) 9 hasn’t seen a significant improvement in the last few months.
Why did I choose these browsers? The answer is simple. These are the most popular Web browsers out there. While Internet Explorer has dropped below 50% of the total Web browser market, it’s still the most popular Web browser. In most of the world, IE is followed by Mozilla Firefox, although in some places, such as much of Latin America, number three, Google’s Chrome, has already moved up to second place. After that Apple’s Safari, which owns the mobile Web browser market, comes in number four, and Opera hangs out to the fifth spot.
As time has gone on, Web browsers have been improving. For example, it wasn’t that long ago that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was a major security problem in and of itself. True, the pre-historic IE 6 is still an infamous security hole, but only a fool would run it. Today, IE 9 is probably as secure as Google Chrome and they don’t come any safer. But, in all honesty, all the 2011 Web browsers are far more secure than their predecessors.
Instead, what I look for in a Web browser today is JavaScript speed. But even here it should be kept in mind that all of the current generation of Web browsers are far faster than they were just in March 2011. The one exception to this is the 64-bit version of IE 9. 64-bit IE 9 is, in a word, “dreadful“.
That said, JavaScript speed is important. Web 2.0 sites, which include most of today’s popular sites, rely on JavaScript to render their increasingly complex pages. If you’re running multiple tabs at once, you’ll appreciate every bit of speed a browser’s JavaScript rendering engine can give you.
You need mote than just speed though. You also need to look at what features come with a browser and what additional features its software developers can bring to it. Chrome and Firefox, for example, have large independent software vendor (ISV) ecosystems, while Opera includes more features in its basic browser than do the others.
So, which really is the best? Well, let’s start with performance and then look at each browser in turn.
Page 2: [Twice around the track, Web browser performance.] »
