Recently I installed the major browsers (ie, chrome, firefox, maxathon, and opera) so I could compare them. This is what I found: Ie: ie gets a ton of hate but it really isn't as terrible as people think it is. The main reason I can't stand it though is the horrendous load times when viewing a site with big ads such a the minecraft forums. Other than that, and the absence of add ons, I would consider it to be alright from me everyday usage test. Chrome: Chrome is amazing. The browser is full of extensions and themes. It also has one of the greatest uses for the metro mode in windows 8. With that said, I find that the initial load time is really, really bad. This is likely due to my computer, but it was enough to make me want a new browser. Opera: Opera browser was the one I used the longest. It was fast and had everything I needed. Sadly, it struggles when it came to keeping me logged into EMC. Maxathon browser: couldn't get it to work without crashing. Firefox: Firefox is the one I am using, and will likely continue using for a while. It is fast and looks good. There are extensions and I can't find any complaints. Over all, I have no reason not to like it. Note: There was only one browser I wouldn't recommend (maxathon) and the rest were very close. They all were fast most of the time and each one did what I wanted. The browser wars aren't as distant as they used to be. Most of them seemed to work really well. Standings: 1. Firefox 2. Opera 3. Chrome 4. Ie 5. maxathon How I determined this: I simply used them for a while and checked how they were in day to day uses. I didn't use any benchmarks. This is entirely based on average usage. I may update this list as time goes on. Want me to try something else? Post it and I will try it.
IE: has security holes from 6 months ago no patched yet, Microsoft even released a statement telling people to change to another browser in the mean time IE: is a great vanilla browser Chrome: its great in html5 performance but it is just a data farm designed to harvest an profile every bit of data sent & received. Great choice over IE. Chrome still has a major security issue where the speech recognition system is allowing a potential attacker to do speech to text and listen to everything, it has been reported many times yet still not fixed. on the whole its still a good browser. they just released a x64 beta of chrome. Opera: the new opera is running the backbone of Google chrome the chromium engine is opera is just a re brand of chrome with some extra stuff. pre this event opera was a great browser. Firefox: in past firefox was considered slower then chrome but last year and still firefox took the top stop as the overall fastest browser, there redesign chocice however are not the best. has addons for everything and everyone. lighter on system resources over chrome. Other: a few browsers not mentioned are the popular 3d party builds like cyberfox x64bit browser (very good) palemoon browser these are made from the same code as firefox worth a look if you like more personalization and better performance. Overall: everyone has there personal preference and what browser they chose is up to them they all have pros and cons
Can you try out Safari? I know it can be fairly buggy on windows but it works well on Mac. I've tried chrome and it was nice, but it can be fairly buggy on Mac
I use Chrome because of the ability to block ads easily, but I really like safari. The problem is with it is that it is only truly great on mac, and buggy on windows (what mba2012 said)
From what I have seen of safari in the few minutes of testing, it is an ok browser. It actually feels slower than the others mostly because it hangs wherever you were for a second. I don't have any apple devises and am testing it on windows so that could be part of the problem. The 64 bit canary build is terrible. I know it isn't the final version, but I couldn't stand using it. The webpages will stop responding if I move away from them and new tabs take years to load.
I've always been a full-on Firefox fan, but right now I'm using Chrome just because that's what was on my computer. I downloaded Firefox, but I guess I need a break from its awesomeness. Never tried Opera, and I have a strong dislike for IE, because with browsers, slow and steady does NOT win my vote. I have nothing against Safari, though.
firefox's ad blocker is actually much more powerful than Chromes. Chrome is unable to block ads at the effecient level firefox can because chromes extensions do not have as much power as firefox. It's really hard to explain in non technical terms, but just trust me that the method AdBlock on FF does, is far superior and uses less resources/makes pages faster than AdBlock on Chrome does.
I use Chrome, mainly for the google integration into it. Sure other browsers may work similar; but it fills my needs sufficiently.
Wow, that's so cool! Unfortunately I can't just have my computer stay on for years. I use Chrome, used IE before Chrome was a thing, but I didn't know there were updates for internet explorer. Obviously Chrome was way superior compared to Internet Explorer 6 so I switched. I did never use Mozilla Firefox myself, even though they are kind of the ones that invented the modern browser as it is today. (with tabs et cetera)
They both work in identical ways, I've looked fairly in-depth into the code and the blocking mechanism and in the case of Adblock plus they both use elemhide, if you could explain how this is different in FF than chrome I'd love to know, would really help me get a better understanding.
I've had cases where chrome would hide a flash ad but the ad was still technically running as it was done by hiding it. Where as FF AdBlock removes it from the dom before its even rendered/activated. Chromes extensions are essentially javascript files that are a little more relaxed on security permissions than a normal .js file, where as FF extensions get much lower level event binding to the dom processing and browser XUL elements.
