Internet Browsers

When it comes to internet browsers, there's no shortage: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and Safari to name a few of the popular ones.  Their job is all the same - to let you view the web and all of its content.  However, some do it better than others.  I'll talk a little about the three that I have used most here: Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Chrome.

Internet Explorer

This is the most popular browser, if only because it's the one that comes installed on every Windows computer.  It is also by FAR the slowest of all browsers.  IE 8 closed the gap, but it's still far off from all other browsers in browsing speed.  If you compare speed tests of IE 8 vs. IE 7, the results are astoundingly bad for IE 7.  If anyone reading this is still using IE 6, you really, really, really need to upgrade.  Web developers are all but dropping support for it, so it's time to upgrade. Best of all, it's free (so are all these other browsers for that matter).  The good thing about IE is that it's compatible with about everything on the web.

Firefox

This is the browser that I used for quite some time until Chrome came out.  It's a little slower on initial startup than IE, but works a lot faster than IE once it's open.  Firefox does have (or at least did) some memory leak issues, so it will use a little more (ok, sometimes a lot more) memory than other browsers though.  Compatibility is generally pretty good, but you will find some pages that Firefox just doesn't agree with.

Chrome

This is and has been my browser of choice since it came out.  I remember being shocked at how fast it opened the first time I ran it.  It didn't fail to surprise even more when I continued to browse.  Chrome is compatible with most web sites, but just like anything other than IE, you'll find some stuff that it just won't do.  I much prefer to use Chrome whenever possible, but I do go back to Firefox or occasionally IE if some site doesn't work the way it's supposed to.  The biggest issue I've had with any browser other than IE is Adobe Reader, but that pile of junk doesn't want to work with anything most of the time.  Little tip - get the Chrome extension that appends a little URL in front of any PDF link to read any linked PDF in Google Docs viewer, and your PDF woes with Adobe Reader will be a thing of the past.  One of my favorite things about Chrome is the ability to type a few keywords in the address bar, hit enter, and see results of a Google search.  All in all, Chrome has my vote of best browser.

Here are some benchmarks from ZDNet.  They show Safari ahead of Chrome, but I remember seeing some more recent benchmarks (linked ones are pretty old) showing Chrome pulling ahead.  That may have changed again since I last saw, though.  If you're feeling adventurous, try out some of these or other browsers and comment about your thoughts!