Which Browser Should I use?
Most people know nowadays that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is a poor choice for a web browser due to its inherent lack of security, instability, and the fact that it is very proprietary in a number of ways (which lead to websites not looking the same through it as they do through other web browsers), so what other options are available? There are several: Opera, Google Chrome, Netscape, Firefox, Apple Safari, and many others that are less commonly used. So, if there are so many, which one is most recommended? That depends on who you ask. In this article, I will discuss each of them and make my recommendations for the way that you might want to use it.
Mozilla Firefox
First, let's talk about Firefox. Firefox was to be an alternative based on open-source technology and was started by some of the people at Netscape. Thus, they took the program code of Netscape and redesigned it into a new product that would allow for there to be the security of closed-source for Netscape and still have the same functionality and capability to use just about all the extensions available to Netscape without having to reinvent the wheel. This open-source option is one of the reasons that I do not recommend it, which I will explain in the next paragraph.
Firefox is the browser that a large number of computer magazines, amateur technical support websites, radio talk show hosts (such as Kim Komando), and "neighborhood hackers" recommend. As a professional, I tend not to recommend it for many reasons. First, it is nearly as insecure as Internet Explorer especially because of the fact that it is developed as an open-source project. Open Source means that anyone who wishes to contribute to the development of Firefox can do so and it also means that one can get the actual programming code used to create and compile the executable file that is on your machine. Now, why might this be a problem? Because a nefarious type could easily insert a procedure into the internal structure of the program to make your browser go out to download various infections to your machine, log what you type when asked for passwords, etc. and no antivirus program would be able to detect it since it is part of the program itself rather than a separate program that "attaches" itself to the browser or operating system. While it has not been discussed openly in the media, this has happened in the past with other open-source programs and could easily happen again with Firefox.
Second, Firefox is known to have memory management issues. A particular weblog I monitor actually has over 500 comments about that issue and the fact that it has been getting worse since Firefox first came on the scene in 2003. For those who have plenty of RAM, that may not seem like much of an issue. (For example, on my primary administrative machine, I have 3GB of RAM while running Windows XP.) However, for those who have Dell or Gateway/eMachines computers, they typically have anywhere from 128MB to 512MB of RAM if sold with XP and anywhere from 1GB to 6GB if sold with Windows Vista/7. Thus, memory becomes quite a valuable commodity in such computers. Considering that Windows XP demands over 400MB of RAM on a 512MB-equipped machine, that means there remains only about 100MB of RAM to run programs. Most users want to be able to run multiple programs at the same time, such as antivirus (which runs in the background), MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, iTunes, or other such utilities. Those all need RAM but when one tries to use Firefox to load a single webpage, it utilizes as much as 80MB just to load a simple page such as the one you are reading now. Opening more tabs means that Firefox uses even more RAM. A wonderful example is when I have used it in the past, I had six tabs open in Firefox and after only three hours, it was using 300MB of RAM. Completely out of line and excessive! Running my most commonly used browser, Netscape 9, I frequently have as many as two dozen tabs open for several days at a time and the amount of RAM used is about 100MB. In other words, four times the tabs, many times more hours, and one-third the memory.
Third, Mozilla Corp. refuses to do anything about the memory management (also called memory leak) issue despite being informed about it repeatedly over the past several years. They refuse to acknowledge that there is any problem whatsoever. Instead, they blame the users for the problems, saying that the issue has to do with the add-ons that are used with Firefox, failure of the user to understand how to install Firefox correctly, and other such excuses. If the complaints were coming from people who were stereotypical end-users, that would be one thing but these complaints come from people of all backgrounds, including those who are much more heavily into the programming aspect of the IT world than I am. Thus, ignoring the commentary is not good for Mozilla and is the biggest red flag that is risen against them in my book. So, I must say that I vote a thumbs down in regard to Firefox.
Google Chrome
Next up for evaluation is Google Chrome. We all know that Google has taken over the world in regard to web search engines. Before Google came around, there were Dogpile, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves (now just called Ask), Yahoo, MSN Search (now called Bing), and countless others. However, when Google came along, they did things efficiently and accurately, so they earned themselves a big name while making all the others go running for cover while their worlds crashed down around them.
Since that time, Google has branched out in a number of directions, such as free online applications that have much the same functionality as the expensive Microsoft Office and an online email website (GMail) that puts others (such as Yahoo Mail and Hotmail) to shame and so, of course, they had to throw their hat into the ring for web browsers. Their answer is Chrome. It is supposedly small and fast. However, what is not often told is that it does not have all the functionality that the other browsers tend to have. For example, Chrome does not handle Javascript or embedded multimedia very well. What sites might use these types of features? Online banking, news websites, YouTube, and even this site. (Some pages here have a limited amount of Javascript.) What's more, in my experience, I have found it to be less intuitive than other browsers and quite unstable. One way that one could look at it is that it is more secure than Internet Explorer or Firefox because if something is not just right in the way that the webpage is written, Chrome will crash, thus disallowing any chance of infection. However, that is not the best way to make a name for one's company. Thus, I must say that, while I like Google and the fact that they are giving Microsoft a black eye in a multitude of ways, they should go back to the drawing board in regard to Chrome.
Apple Safari
So, now that we have covered the undesirable browsers, let's look at the better options available, the first of which is Apple Safari. Originally, Mac users had a version of Internet Explorer that they could use as well as Netscape but when AOL decided to kill Netscape (which we will discuss later), people started flocking over to Internet Explorer. After a little while, Microsoft decided to leave the Mac world high and dry, so Apple came up with Safari. Since then, Apple has designed Safari to work not only in the Mac world but also in the PC world and has done a fairly decent job of it. My only complaint is that it seems a bit slower than most other web browsers when building the webpage. However, that is a small price to pay for something that will actually work. I have not seen any issues with using online banking, multimedia-intensive, or other commonly used types of websites, so Safari gets a positive nod from me.
Netscape
The next browser to consider is Netscape. Originally, Netscape was an independent company based in California but was eventually bought out by America Online (commonly known as AOL). Netscape was the biggest competition for Internet Explorer and actually was the most widely used browser back in the beginning days of the Internet as we came to know it in the 1990s. However, as time went on and Microsoft decided to tie Internet Explorer into the operating system, the use of Netscape's browser dwindled. When the Department of Justice case was decided against Microsoft, Netscape won a judgement from Microsoft in the amount of $750 million. However, that was not enough to keep the browser alive. The greatest casualty of the browser wars had finally taken its fall. Development in what I feel is the best browser ever to have been created ceased in March 2008.
Now, after this brief history lesson, you might wonder why I still recommend it. Good question! It's because, despite being out of development since 2008, it still has all the functionality and capabilities that one needs to see nearly 100 percent of the Internet without any of the vulnerabilities that plague the more modern and most frequently used browsers. There are only a very small number of websites that flake out on Netscape, one of which being the AT&T U-Verse account management website. (For that very small minority, I use Opera, which we will discuss in a moment.) Netscape, as I mentioned above in the Firefox discussion, is much more memory efficient while also being faster, smaller, and just as feature-rich. Then again, one could come to expect that since Netscape was the model on which Firefox was based. Thus, if you want a very good, reliable, and user-friendly web browser, I strongly recommend Netscape.
Opera
Finally, we get to the last browser for this discussion: Opera. Opera started years ago as a research project for a Norwegian telecommunications company but then was spun off into its own company a couple of years later. The first several versions of the software were "try before you buy." In other words, you got to use it for 30 days and then the software would no longer function until you paid for the license and input the code to unlock the software (which was a common scheme back in those days and still is in use today with a number of products). The company moved away from that licensing model in 2000, moving instead to advertisement-based support. Thankfully, as banner ads and such are so annoying as we all know, they discontinued that in 2005 and, instead, have obtained most of their funding through an agreement with search engine giant Google. Though they are still independent, they cooperate with Google and, as such, use Google as their default search engine.
I will admit that for the longest time, I resisted using it because I tried it a few years ago and found it to be unfriendly (most notably because of the advertisements), unable to view anything I wanted to see, and just flat-out undesirable. So, I let my previous experience get in the way. What finally convinced me to give it a try once again was the fact that I was seeing a fair number of users coming to my website using Opera. (When one runs a website, one gets to see generic user statistics, such as the number of visitors who use one type of browser or another. Don't worry: no website administrator gets to see who exactly is visiting or anything specific about a certain visitor. All he gets to see is a raw set of statistics, such as 1002 users browsed the site using Internet Explorer and 379 used Firefox.) As I found that the number of Opera users was increasing, I figured that I better get familiar with it so that I could help anyone who had problems related to that browser. So, I downloaded a copy and read various online reviews about it. Generally, I give online reviews little regard (unless they are written by me, of course) but in this case, I found them to be very much on the money: Opera is a great browser in that it is nearly as compatible to everything as Netscape (in fact, one might say that it is even slightly more compatible since it is able to make some websites work with which Netscape has problems), it is very fast at building websites, and is very memory efficient. Also, another plus is that, just like Netscape, it is immune to the vast number of infections that exist for both Internet Explorer and Firefox. While I personally use it as a secondary browser to Netscape, I can easily and happily recommend it as being the primary browser for those who wish to have as little software on their computers as possible.
Conclusion
So, there you have it: a long-winded review of the most commonly used browsers and the recommendations from Best Deal Computers as to what will make your browsing enjoyable, easy, and safe. If you have any questions or would like to schedule an appointment to have us help you migrate from one browser to another (a process that typically takes only a few minutes), please give us a call at (785) 727-1355 or drop an email to us at jbevan@bdcusa.com. We look forward to giving you the Best Deal on your computer support.