Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox and Chrome – 4 browsers…each with different strengths and weaknesses
Chrome is my current browser of choice, but I have IE and Firefox installed on my personal and work machines as well.
Internet Explorer is still the de facto standard. Most websites will open and render OK with IE.
Firefox has lots of cool extensions (tools) that make some tasks easier – like debugging a webpage. It is a pretty good alternative to IE.
Safari is a browser that was developed for Apple that is available for Windows machines – but why?
Chrome is the latest browser offering, released in 2008 by Google. It’s fast, secure, simple and stable. It’s appearance is very minimalistic – and that’s a good thing. This browser also checks against phishing and malware blacklists as a security measure. And it’s FAST – check out the October 2010 benchmarks!!!
A few reasons I use Chrome as my main browser:
- It’s FAST!
- Tabs – Did you know that if you right-click on any tab you can pin it to the left of your tabs bar and it stays open??? Kewl!
- Address/Search bar – no need to separate address and search bars now! And you can put in simple calculations too. Try it! Put in 1492+345*3 and you’ll see a row drop down beneath the bar with the answer “=2527”. No need to keep that shortcut to the calculator as an icon on your desktop.
- Application Shortcuts – create standalone apps from webpages for sites that you use frequently. Go to Tools –> Create application shortcuts, choose one or more – Desktop, Start Menu, Taskbar.
- The bookmarks sync feature backs up your browser bookmarks to your Google account and syncs when you are on Chrome on a different computer. Your favorites are saved with your Google settings and not just on your machine.
If you haven’t given Chrome a try, what are you waiting for? Installing a new browser is not hard – and the benefits you’ll see may be worth a change on your desktop. 🙂