WHAT IS THE BEST BROWSER

WHAT IS THE BEST BROWSER.

Millions of people surf the net daily, using desktop computers, network servers, mobile phones, iPads, proxy servers, tablets, atom PCs and notebooks. Each enjoying a different level of user experience even though these devices are all different in functionality, speed, network connection and operating system.  But surprisingly, all of them have one piece of software in common - which is called a browser.  There are numerous browsers out there, probably a lot more than most people even realize. However, the reality is that not all these browsers are created equal. Some, like the older versions of Internet explorer do not support the latest HTML standards, some have slow Javascript engines which can be remedied with a  plugin, - Google Chrome Frame for example. Chrome Frames enables JavaScript applications to run fairly fast in the Chrome V8 engine even if the application is installed from an older version of Internet Explorer. Unfortunately Google retired Chrome Frame in June 2013. 

Be that as it may, right now we are only interested in the best browser and will their look at the  "big three" for both desktops computers and mobile devices.

1) Gecko: used by the Mozilla Foundation for Firefox,
2) WebKit: used by Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome
3) Trident: used by Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

What makes these 3 better than the other browser generally is their rendering speed, their developer support, their HTML5 features and how well they support it. When I design websites, I religiously check their appearance in Safari, Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer and Opera, but not necessarily in that order.  If the web visuals are the same in all four of them, then  I am confidently assured that my code is doing exactly what it should and  functionality and appearance across a large contingent of browsers will be more than acceptable by most.

So the tossup is between these three -Gecko, Webkit and Trident. Apple Mac and iPad users generally prefer Safari natively installed with their OS and Google chrome is in essence safari with a different dress of clothing. This is easily verifiable. Just look at the Google Chrome crash icon when Chrome crashes, its a genuine sad mac face.

The sad mac face seems to have influences both Mozilla firefox and Google chrome.

Internet Explorer seems to have compatibility issues. IE6 works perfectly well on Windows XP which cannot be upgraded to IE7 nor IE8 because they are made for vista and windows 7 & 8 thus incompatible with XP. Firefox is a favourite among the open source crowd and a fantastic browser in general with good security features and accepts a generous amount of plugins. Based on this Firefox is the outright winner since it can replace IE whereas Google chrome depends on IE on install. Firefox's newest release is called Firefox "Lorentz," (Firefox 3.6.3) designed to minimized crashes. Firefox, was always thought to be the leader in browser innovations, but now also seems to be following Google's sad mac face convention and IE explorers crash apology, that offers you the option  to submit a crash report.

Even though, my browser of choice is Google Chrome but my personal favourite is Opera. It is so versatile that it runs on almost anything that's web savvy. I've installed Opera mini on a "not so smart-phone" to remotely view CCTV footage, and it works beautifully. I even have a portable Opera version on my flashdrive for mobile surfing. I'm not paranoid but I am careful about where I leave my browsing history so whenever I  use a computer at an Internet cafe or just someone else's computer, I launch Opera from my flash drive because Opera is fast and furious and won't leave my history behind for others to view.

SOME BROWSER YOU MAY WANT TO TRY

ZenMate
Maxthon
K-Meleon 
Konqueror
SeaMonkey
PowerBrowser
Camino
Flock
iCab
Galeon 
Avant
Shiira 
Netscape Navigator
NetSurf
Conkeror
SlipKnot
Arena
Cyberdog