Browser Wars - Which browser should I be using
By: Webguys
Posted: March 12, 2010
There has been a lot of confusion around browsers and which one is better. Most people don’t fully understand what a web browser is and what function it ultimately serves. A web browser is (technically) a program on your computer that translates HTML mumbo jumbo into a format people can read. Web pages are written in multiple coding languages (PHP, Ajax, XML, XHTML, HTML, etc…) and need to be translated before they can be useful to anyone. Browsers are often mistaken for web pages and it is surprising how many people think their browser is “Google’s search engine”. A web browser is simply the medium in which you experience the extensive content on the internet.
Now that we understand what a browsers function is, we have to choose which browser is best. The current competitive browsers are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera. Safari and Opera are both formidable browsers, but only have 5% of the market share and are not major contenders right now.
Internet Explorer is a staple on most windows machines and this is problematic because there are three main releases, IE6, IE7, and IE8. Each version has its own missteps and for the most part IE6 is as bad as a browser can get. In the web design world it has always been a struggle for web designers to make a website work on IE6. Luckily this browser is almost obsolete. If you are still using IE6, do the world a favor and upgrade to a different browser.
Though IE7 was a huge step for Microsoft it is still pretty underwhelming in the world of browsers, and IE8 is still not a big enough contender to recognize or discuss. It is really unfortunate that Internet Explorer is a staple web browser as none of the releases are great. Luckily for web designers and viewers alike Mozilla developed a major contender, Firefox. Unlike Internet Explorer most of the releases of Firefox were extremely stable, fast, feature-rich, and reliable. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you have an older version of Firefox as any version is better that IE6 or IE7. Depending on your web browsing needs Firefox has a vast array of add-ons to improve your functionality or simply improve your viewing experience. Most importantly Firefox is built in an open source fashion, basically instead of a bunch of tight-ass business guys making all of the improvement decisions it is upgraded and managed by thousands of programmers worldwide. This means faster updates, better add-ons, and better improvements all around. Here at Gizmo Productions we are huge fans of Mozilla Firefox and suggest it to our clients. In order to use our Content Management System you must use Firefox.
The final browser that is worth noting is Google’s new(ish) and very popular release, Chrome. It is fast, slick, easy to use, and made by one of the most notable internet power companies and has a great potential. Google pretty much took the necessary features of other browsers and stripped them down into one sleek HTML translating machine. It is the fastes browser I have ever used, and most people don’t need extra bells and whistles to browse the internet. If you don’t rely on Firefox’s abundant add-ons you should be using Chrome.
Simply put there is no browser war, just a competitive market place that will help improve the major contenders through competition. The strongest browsers right now are Firefox and Chrome. If you need an extensive collection of add-ons, use Firefox. If you are happy just browsing the web, do it faster with Chrome. If you want to piss off a web designer and inevitably you, use Internet Explorer.
Thanks to College humor for the sweet graphics.