A quick look at Web Browsers

WEB BROWSERS - A Quick Overview of The Most Common Web Browsers.

Your browser makes a difference! Ever since the first popular graphical web browser became available (Netscape 1.0, 1994), web browsers have been the vehicle that brought the advanced abilities of the World Wide Web to every computer’s screen.  Now there are many different browsers to choose from.

Here is an overview of the most common browsers:

Internet Explorer (all version 6, 7, 8 )

Internet Explorer is currently the most used web browser. It has a huge base of users since it comes pre-installed on most computers that use the Windows Operating System. Unfortunately, IE6 & 7 are a bit lacking in terms of compatiblity with state of the art web site development tools. Hence the released of IE8 in Mid-March of ‘09.  According to one source, 50 and 60 percent of web user are currently using IE browsers which is a significant decrease from the 90 percent of users previously reported.   So while it is still the most widely used browser, it appears to be losing ground to other browsers.

Go here to learn more about IE: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/default.aspx

Firefox

Here is what the firefox.com site says about Firefox: “The Web is all about innovation and Firefox 3 sets the pace with dozens of new features including the smart location bar, one-click bookmarking and blindingly fast performance.”

This browser is an open source browser which means that this is available to the public without a license and has a very large (and growing) community of developers that support its growth.  By some measurements, Firefox has almost 48% of the browser market share. Firefox is by far the choice of web developers world wide. Many of the concepts that other browsers are using now were actually introduced by Firefox years ago.

Give this one a try folks! (http://www.firefox.com)

Safari

This browser is the favorite of most Mac users. Safaris is considered a very good browser and comes pre-installed on Apple computers. Safari has 3.3% of the browser market and as more people switch to Mac (often times after they have acquired an iphone) the use of this browser will be on the rise. Safari runs on both Mac and PC computers.

http://www.apple.com/safari/

Chrome

Chrome is Google’s new open source browser.  Here is what Google says about it:

“Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.”

Although this is a new product from Google it already has over 6.5% of the browser market. It is very fast and easy to use. This browser represents a departure from previous browsers and has become the default browser for many of the  staff at CYber SYtes.

As you see there are many choices when it comes to Web Browsers. There are so many that there is no way to list them all. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers to see what we mean!

The browsers listed above are all free. Spend a few minutes downloading and using them. You may just find one that fits your needs and style better than what you are using now. And remember, whatever browser you use, be sure to upgrade to the most current version of your browser.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 17th, 2009 at 5:35 pm and is filed under Articles (Everyday Stuff), Website Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.