My blog for my weekly blog entries, and also anything else that may come up.
Browser Wars...
Posted 3rd November 2009 at 06:25 AM by nickyivyca
Internet Explorer vs. Firefox 3.5 vs. Safari 4 vs. Chrome 3 vs. Opera 10.
^That didn't fit in the title, so I had to put it here...
But anyways, I figured that I'll list the pros and cons of each browser, but not rate each (I'm not very good at doing that).
Microsoft Internet Explorer (Reviewing: Version 8, Screenshot)
Overview: The most popular browser. It was one of the first.
Pros: It's widely used. Usually when something is widely used, it is good. This browser is decent, supporting tabs.
Cons: However, it is slow, and the preset smooth scrolling doesn't feel natural to me, and also, it jarringly brings the bar back to its original position if you drag your mouse past the top too far.. You also can't save your previous tabs that you had open, something that Firefox, Chrome, and Opera can do. No addons, either. It's also not very secure, though it does often some options for safety.
Mozilla Firefox (Reviewing: Version 3.5, Screenshot)
Overview: Many have downloaded it, but it is still no the most popular browser, that title going to Internet Explorer. It was the first pioneer in the tab thing. Most knowing in the tech field use it.
Pros: It supports many addons that have many features, including script and ad blocking (though blocking scripts can block most ads), viewing and live editing code for pages, and playing and controlling media from your browser. You can customize your buttons on the top and change many settings with it, as well as adding skins, which I have not tried yet. Another thing is that, this is very small, but still quite useful, is that when grabbing the scroll bar, in most browsers, after going past a certain point the scroll bar will jarringly return back to its position it was before you grabbed it. Firefox doesn't do this, you can move your cursor up as far as you want and the bar won't return.
Cons: A feature included with 3.5 is quite annoying. While clicking on a tab to select it, if you move your cursor down, it will "detach" the tab and bring it to another window, which can be destructive in a game if you've paused it to check your email or something and when you come back, it has to reload the tab (which I think it does). You can disable this with an addon, and it will be removed in the next version, Mozilla says. Also, with disabling popups, if they come. It'll often say "Firefox has blocked a popup" but the window will be there.
Apple Safari (Reviewing: Version 4, Screenshot)
Overview: It is Apple's default browser and comes with all Macs. However, you can download a Windows version, which is what I did.
Pros: It's simple and has only two menus, which still offer the same amount of features, mainly. You can still make the
classic amount of menus show up by pressing alt. It also surrounds each text field you have currently selected and are typing in, a feature I find useful.
Cons: Addons are not easily available (you have to hack it), such as themes and other addons like what Firefox supports. Scrolling is done without automatic "smooth scrolling," but the bar still returns to the original position when moved too high.
Google Chrome (Reviewing: Version 3, Screenshot)
Overview: Google released it a while ago with generally good reviews. It was said to stress the page and be simple, and not have too many things to change.
Pros: It is fast, and doesn't take up lots of room with a lot of buttons. It even replaces the top bar normally standardly found on windows and puts the tabs in line with the minimize, size, and close buttons (Vista style) It also surrounds text fields with a bar of color, this time it's an orange and thinner than Safari's.
Cons: The interface looks EXTREMELY familiar. Look at Safari, then Chrome...The two menus on the right. The tabs do appear on the bottom of all that and Safari's reload and stop buttons are in the address bar, and Chrome doesn't have a Google search bar (ironically) but still, I think something's up with that.
Opera (Reviewed: Version 10, Screenshot)
Overview: Lots of technical features, and a modified version of it is used on Nintendo's consoles that support.
Pros: Really fast when I first started using it (As in, loading pages). The CSS sheet editor should be useful, and the layout doesn't seem familiar to any browser, so that's not a problem here.
Cons: The skins built for it don't have any interesting options, such as holidays and things like that. Scrolling also jumps back, but at a higher point than any of the other browsers that jump back when scrolling.
That's it, I guess.
^That didn't fit in the title, so I had to put it here...
But anyways, I figured that I'll list the pros and cons of each browser, but not rate each (I'm not very good at doing that).
Microsoft Internet Explorer (Reviewing: Version 8, Screenshot)
Overview: The most popular browser. It was one of the first.
Pros: It's widely used. Usually when something is widely used, it is good. This browser is decent, supporting tabs.
Cons: However, it is slow, and the preset smooth scrolling doesn't feel natural to me, and also, it jarringly brings the bar back to its original position if you drag your mouse past the top too far.. You also can't save your previous tabs that you had open, something that Firefox, Chrome, and Opera can do. No addons, either. It's also not very secure, though it does often some options for safety.
Mozilla Firefox (Reviewing: Version 3.5, Screenshot)
Overview: Many have downloaded it, but it is still no the most popular browser, that title going to Internet Explorer. It was the first pioneer in the tab thing. Most knowing in the tech field use it.
Pros: It supports many addons that have many features, including script and ad blocking (though blocking scripts can block most ads), viewing and live editing code for pages, and playing and controlling media from your browser. You can customize your buttons on the top and change many settings with it, as well as adding skins, which I have not tried yet. Another thing is that, this is very small, but still quite useful, is that when grabbing the scroll bar, in most browsers, after going past a certain point the scroll bar will jarringly return back to its position it was before you grabbed it. Firefox doesn't do this, you can move your cursor up as far as you want and the bar won't return.
Cons: A feature included with 3.5 is quite annoying. While clicking on a tab to select it, if you move your cursor down, it will "detach" the tab and bring it to another window, which can be destructive in a game if you've paused it to check your email or something and when you come back, it has to reload the tab (which I think it does). You can disable this with an addon, and it will be removed in the next version, Mozilla says. Also, with disabling popups, if they come. It'll often say "Firefox has blocked a popup" but the window will be there.
Apple Safari (Reviewing: Version 4, Screenshot)
Overview: It is Apple's default browser and comes with all Macs. However, you can download a Windows version, which is what I did.
Pros: It's simple and has only two menus, which still offer the same amount of features, mainly. You can still make the
classic amount of menus show up by pressing alt. It also surrounds each text field you have currently selected and are typing in, a feature I find useful.
Cons: Addons are not easily available (you have to hack it), such as themes and other addons like what Firefox supports. Scrolling is done without automatic "smooth scrolling," but the bar still returns to the original position when moved too high.
Google Chrome (Reviewing: Version 3, Screenshot)
Overview: Google released it a while ago with generally good reviews. It was said to stress the page and be simple, and not have too many things to change.
Pros: It is fast, and doesn't take up lots of room with a lot of buttons. It even replaces the top bar normally standardly found on windows and puts the tabs in line with the minimize, size, and close buttons (Vista style) It also surrounds text fields with a bar of color, this time it's an orange and thinner than Safari's.
Cons: The interface looks EXTREMELY familiar. Look at Safari, then Chrome...The two menus on the right. The tabs do appear on the bottom of all that and Safari's reload and stop buttons are in the address bar, and Chrome doesn't have a Google search bar (ironically) but still, I think something's up with that.
Opera (Reviewed: Version 10, Screenshot)
Overview: Lots of technical features, and a modified version of it is used on Nintendo's consoles that support.
Pros: Really fast when I first started using it (As in, loading pages). The CSS sheet editor should be useful, and the layout doesn't seem familiar to any browser, so that's not a problem here.
Cons: The skins built for it don't have any interesting options, such as holidays and things like that. Scrolling also jumps back, but at a higher point than any of the other browsers that jump back when scrolling.
That's it, I guess.
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