Web Browsers Compared

Microsoft has released IE 8, Google’s Chrome has reached version 1, Mozilla has just released the third beta for Firefox 3.1, and Apple shows its presence with the eye catching Safari, too. Accordingly, there is a lot of competition we will find here.

A final verdict in favor of one is impossible, because they all have their good and bad points. If Safari has a better interface; Firefox provides enhanced add on. Therefore, best way to evaluate them is comparing their level of functionality under various divisions.

Interface:

Microsoft owns the worst looking web browser, in fact. There seems no quality designing in IE 8’s interface. All the tabs, favorites and dropdowns are placed on a single bar.

Firefox has given a bit better show than IE when it comes to looks. Users can change the themes according to their own choice.

Actual rivals in interface competition are Safari and Chrome. Apple has introduced an i-Tune-like-view of history, favorites and bookmarks. It, definitely, is a fine vista for eyes. Safari’s “text smoothing” is somewhat annoying, though.

Chrome, on the other hand, has nearly as appealing interface as Safari, with nice layout for tabs and no text smoothing, indeed.

Thus Chrome wins this round.

Features:

In features, neither Safari nor Chrome is a practical competitor of IE and Firefox. Both the former browsers lack extensions. RSS feed is still unknown to Chrome; also it has a bad zooming feature, which is effective only for text and not for pictures etc.

IE possesses better features than Safari and Chrome, with a few extensions, but the real conqueror is Firefox. It is certainly more extensible than any of its rivals. Its ecosystem of add-ons is the reason of being given priority over every other browser.

Evil-killing:

All web browsers offer anti phishing, pop up blocking, private browsing mode etc, thus there isn’t any competition here.

The most annoying hitch is “crashing”, when the whole window goes down with a single problem creating tab. Chrome gives a tab manager with which every tab can be handled separately. IE 8 has taken Chrome’s track, and provides separate treatment of every opened tab through Task Manager. Neither Safari nor Firefox provide this feature, though it is of vital importance. Crashing of the whole window because of a single tab is aggravating enough for a busy user.

Once more, Chrome takes the lead.

Performance:

All browsers were tested on a single computer; 2.66GHz Core 2 Duo running Vista Ultimate with 2GB of RAM, on a single page. Regarding memory requirements, IE 8 was the greediest with 86 MB, followed by Safari 4 beta with 44 MB, Firefox 3.1 beta 3 with 39 MB and Chrome with 36 MB. Chrome was the finest performer, evidently.

When Java script performance was tested; Safari won with 985.6ms / 1,079.6ms and IE lost badly with 5,804.2ms / 5,834.6ms.

Final Words:

Safari; the fastest performer, Chrome; the finest evil-fighter, Firefox; most expandable with top-notch add-ons, and IE; the existent! Though Chrome took the lead visibly, its plainness and ignorance to RSS pulled it back; Firefox wins the game.

Written by “Seemab”

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Tags: Apple, beta 3, fireFox 3.1, google’s chrome, microsoft, mozilla, techradar, web browsers