I realize that’s a loaded question. Perhaps the question should be, “What is your favorite Internet browser?” And the logical follow up: “Why?”
These questions never really registered on my radar until recently. Then I encountered Google Chrome and became addicted to its speed. To compound this dilemma, I followed up on a tip from Harold Jarche that pointed me to Stuart Henshall’s blog about Flock, the social web browser.
I’ve tried a number of browsers over the years, but I always came back to “old reliable” Internet Explorer. My primary reason for sticking with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer all these years was simply that I could depend on it to render web pages correctly. Each time I flirted with alternatives, I’d run home to IE as soon as I noticed missing objects and mangled layouts.
So why did I go looking for alternatives in the first place? Because IE is maddeningly slow. (That’s a commentary on the “microwave” society in which we live, but that’s a topic for another time…)
Opera, Safari, FireFox, Google Chrome, and Flock are all much faster than Internet Explorer, but they render pages less reliably. (Safari is especially bad at rendering, in my experience.)
It seems these comparisons boil down to speed, rendering, and features…
CyberNet News posted research earlier this year on browser speed comparisons of IE, FireFox, Opera, and Safari. Their tests seem to indicate that Safari and Opera were the fastest browsers, followed by FireFox and IE (which was significantly slower than the others). (Google Chrome was not included in these tests, and I’d be interested to see how it compares.)
According to Market Share, 72.22% of all Internet browser usage for the third quarter of 2008 belonged to Internet Explorer. FireFox was a very distant second with 19.48%. Safari was third with 6.39%. The rest were negligible. With IE holding the lion’s share of usage, it is understandable that web development is weighted in its favor. This doesn’t give me hope that page renderings will improve in the near future for non-IE browsers.
As far as features are concerned, it is well-known that FireFox offers lots of add-ons, and Opera uses widgets. One of the new kids on the block, Flock, appears to be uniquely geared toward a segment of the population. It presents a new way of browsing. In fact, this blog post was generated using Flock’s social networking tools.
For learning professionals who spend a significant amount of time online, something as fundamental as a web browser can take on immense importance. I like Google Chrome and Flock, but only time will tell if I stray far from Internet Explorer.
What are your thoughts?
I stray to Firefox the way you stray back to Internet Explorer.
I know I was thrilled when Chrome was released as was my boss. The only issue I have is that it chokes when I attempt to access pdf files linked from websites. Hopefully this has been fixed, I haven’t used Chrome much more as I went directly back to Firefox.
Your post introduced me to even more browers! I will be looking at flock just to see what its like as soon as I’m done here. I know I am attracted to Firefox because it has so many nice add-ins and such and because when I’m working in Blackboard Vista 8.0.2 which is our current CMS at my institution, I find it works better in Firefox, especially if instructors use a lot of Microsoft Office docs.
Anyways… I found your blog on the Work Literacy page and look forward to reading your future posts.
By: itkimba on October 17, 2008
at 10:01 am
Hi itkimba! I tested pdf links in Google Chrome after receiving your comment to see if it is still a problem. It didn’t choke, so that problem may have been fixed recently.
We are likely to see lots of updates and corrections to Google Chrome while it is still in its beta phase. Google has a news feed to announce release notes for each new update. Some updates are only issued to their Dev Channel subscribers, but others are issued to the public. Google Chrome updates itself when public updates are released. That might concern some people, but I rather like that feature.
By: learningjourneys on October 17, 2008
at 11:08 am
I was really impressed by the comic that accompanies Google Chromes release, however only used it for 15 minutes before going back to Firefox.
As a learning professional I find Firefox to be (by far) the best browser and have had on my ‘To Write’ list a reminder to blog on this very topic for a while. Thanks for the reminder
By: mfubib on October 21, 2008
at 6:10 am
[...] October 21, 2008 in General Ramblings, eLearning | Tags: eLearning, firefox I have just been reading David Fair’s post: Which internet browser is best for learning professionals? [...]
By: 12 Firefox Add-Ons « An eLearning Experience on October 21, 2008
at 8:23 am
I have just posted “12 Firefox Add-Ons” which includes an add-on that allows you to render pages using the Internet Explorer engine . . . within Firefox!
Check it out: http://mfubib.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/12-firefox-add-ons/
By: mfubib on October 21, 2008
at 8:26 am
Thanks, Matthew! I was hoping to hear from someone who was more knowledgeable about FireFox than I am. Anyone following these comments should check out Matthew’s firefox post.
By: learningjourneys on October 21, 2008
at 9:13 am
[...] Internet browsers … Since posing the question “Which Internet browser is best for learning professionals?” last week, I have received great feedback and learned new information that bears [...]
By: Update: Internet browsers … « Learning Journeys on October 21, 2008
at 2:31 pm
I have been a Flock fan for a year now. I enjoy the ease of account user name and passwords and that for each social network a current record is recorded.
I have recently experimented with Google Chrome. I am enjoying what seems to be more speed. The clean look is nice as well. The best part of Chrome is that each tab is a separate system and if that tab is having problems loading, the others run fine.
By: Eldon Germann on October 21, 2008
at 11:07 pm
I recently started using Chrome after hearing about it through a tweak. I loved it at first; speed was great, reliability was always there and I love the download bar at the bottom of the page. I really do not want to go searching for my downloads when I am tired and patiently waiting for them to complete.
One pet peeve I do have, however, is when I use Google Page Creator for my class websites, I find google does not support the uploading of images very well. I have a difficult time getting it to work, so I usually go back to ol’ faithful, Flock.
When I first started using Flock, I loved the idea of a social browser. The idea of having a bar at the side of my screen with all my contacts and friends from msn, facebook, etc. available was great. But eventually I would close the bar so I could have my full screen back.
I think I will continue to float back and forth between browsers for now. It is kind of like cooking, sometimes you need semi-sweet chocolate chips and other times you want the pure milk chocolate chips….just depends on the task
By: Michelle Munro on October 22, 2008
at 7:53 am
I’m glad to see there is so much interest in Google Chrome and Flock. I couldn’t tear myself away from Google Chrome for awhile. By the time it is officially released, it will probably be hard to beat for speed and ease-of-use. Still, I have found myself, lately, using Flock almost exclusively. Like you say, Michelle, it really depends on the task or how you use a browser. RSS feeds are very important to me, and Flock keeps me up-to-date while allowing me to perform other browser functions at the same time. If speed were my main motivator, I would probably stick with Google Chrome.
By: learningjourneys on October 22, 2008
at 8:56 am