Web browser showdown: Which Windows app is really the best?
But which one is the best? We put the three major Windows browsers—Google Chrome 21, Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, and Mozilla Firefox 15—through their paces and crowned an overall winner.
Browser performance
When we looked at the browser contenders previously, we concluded that all the major browsers loaded webpages at similar speeds.
But many new Web apps and services rely heavily on HTML5 and JavaScript, so the browser makers have been spending a lot of development time making sure that their programs render such apps and services quickly and efficiently.
To gauge how well browsers handle HTML5 and JavaScript code, we subjected Chrome, IE, and Firefox to the Sunspider JavaScript benchmark and to the WebVizBench benchmark for HTML5. In addition, we tested on a PC with switchable Nvidia graphics hardware to see how each browser exploited the extra processing horsepower in the graphics card.
Our test PC was an Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M5 laptop with a 1.7GHz Intel Core i5 processor and 6GB of memory. The switchable graphics system consisted of an integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 chipset and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 640M graphics card with 1GB of video memory.
In our WebVizBench HTML5 benchmark test, Chrome and IE 9 saw large increases in performance when we switched to the dedicated graphics card instead of the integrated graphics chip.
Chrome achieved an average score of 5502 when we used the integrated graphics system, and hit an average of 5825 when we used the Nvidia graphics card. IE 9 came in second with average scores of 4797 and 5642, respectively; Firefox finished third after posting average scores of 4492 and 5600. Notably, Chrome did almost as well on this test using the integrated graphics hardware as the other browsers did using the more powerful Nvidia graphics card. So if your PC has a weak graphics card, you'll probably get better performance from Chrome than from Firefox or IE.
Our tests for JavaScript performance were less conclusive, with all three browsers rendering the benchmark’s JavaScript code within 15 milliseconds of one another. Internet Explorer 9 eked out a narrow victory, completing the Sunspider benchmark in 200 milliseconds. Chrome 21 finished in second place at 206 milliseconds, and Firefox 15 rounded out the three at 214 milliseconds.
Ease of use
Current browsers continue the less-is-more trend that began with Google Chrome's introduction in 2008, sporting thin toolbars and minimalist designs so that the page content takes center stage.
One nicety in IE 9 is its unobtrusive method of providing notifications: Instead of popping up an alert box that interrupts your browsing, it displays the message in a bar at the bottom of the browser window, where you can address it when you're good and ready. In addition, IE 9 shows you a download's progress via its taskbar icon, which fills in with green as you download a file.
Chrome 21: Google has stuck with the same basic look and feel for Chrome since releasing it in 2008. It has no title bar, and by default it shows only the back, forward, and reload buttons, as well as the combined search/address bar and a button on the far right that opens a tools menu. The start screen helps you reach your most visited sites, as well as any Web apps you've added via the Chrome Web Store. When you download a file, it appears in a gray bar that lives at the bottom of the window.
One convenient feature of Firefox allows you to switch between search engines readily: If you want to use Bing instead of Google, for instance, you can do that with two clicks. Chrome permits you to switch between search providers, too, but requires a quick tweak in the Settings screen. With IE you need to install an add-on for each search provider (other than Bing) you want to add.
Like other current Windows browsers, Firefox doesn't show a menu bar by default; the various menu options live in a single menu that pops up when you click the orange 'Firefox' button in the upper-left corner of the window.
Security and privacy features
To say that security and privacy concerns are a big deal for browser makers would be a gross understatement. All of the major browsers have some baseline security and privacy features, such as pop-up blockers, protection against phishing attacks, and some sort of cookie blocking and filtering.
IE 9 also includes a reputation-based download checker: If you download a questionable or previously unknown file, the browser will warn you about it. If the file is safe, it'll download the file, no questions asked. That last bit is useful because it reduces "warning fatigue"—you'll get a warning only when necessary.
In addition, IE 9 will let you see a privacy summary of the site you've just visited to learn whether it tried to use cookies to track you, among other things. IE 9 also features Tracking Protection, which allows you to set the browser to automatically block participating websites from setting a third-party cookie to track your movements online.
Firefox 9: Firefox's privacy and security settings cover all of the basics. It can block phishing sites and other malicious sites, and it permits you to turn on Do Not Track to block third-party cookies. Beyond that, Firefox 9 will clearly show you whether a shopping or banking site is safe, questionable, or unsafe via a badge in the address bar. And it includes a link to a Firefox-specific plug-in checker site so you can see if any of your plug-ins are in need of updating.
Chrome 21: Chrome's claim to security fame is the sandboxing feature, which quarantines each webpage you open so that it can't interfere with other pages you already have open, or with anything else on your PC. For example, if a page you visit tries to download a piece of malware to your PC without your knowledge, the sandboxing feature should prevent that site from carrying out its evil deeds.
Chrome does tie into a number of Google services, though; for instance, it uses Google services to autocomplete your search queries, predict which site you meant to visit if you mistype the address, and so on. If you don't trust Google, you'll want to look through Chrome's privacy settings carefully.
