Battle of the Browsers

So, we have 4 major browsers, with each one having a piece of the statistics pie, which goes something like this:

• Internet Explorer: 60,10 %
• Firefox: 28,29%
• Safari: 4,47%
• Chrome: 4,58%
• Opera: 2,02%

(Source Wikipedia)

So, the prize goes to Internet Explorer, a crappy web-browser, slow, ugly and insecure. The second best, is my ex-all-time-favorite, Mozilla's Firefox, a great browser, but a little old-school, in my opinion. The third medal goes to Apple's Safari. Out of that 4,47%, the procentage of users that are using Sarafi, on a different OS than Mac OS, is about 0,2% in my opinion. I, never used it, I don't know how good, or fast or secure it is, but I hear good things.

Now let me tell you about the 4th one. I've been talking lately about the Chrome OS, well this is the browser :). That means that you browse the internet with it :D. Simple right? Chrome is a relatively new browser. I've been using it since the launch of the 4 beta version. Why did I migrate from Firefox? Well, it gave me something totally new, called the BookmarkSync. Before, when I reinstalled my operating system, in Firefox, I had to export my bookmarks, reinstall the system, then import them back. What Chrome let's you do, is sync them with your Google Account, so you just have to login and Chrome does the rest. Now you can sync them between the same computer, after you reinstall an OS, or you have more than one computer on which you need the same bookmarks. It's great!

Here's a small demo from the people of Google

In my opinion, the only thing that kept Chrome under Firefox in accesability was Firefox's capability to use extensions. You know... The small pieces of code, that develop into a small program that works in your browser. Yeah, the one that let's you twitt from your menu bar, or the weather forecast, or the addblocker up there, those are all extensions. Basically anything that you add to your browser in order to make it more to your likeing is a extension. Well, since last night, Chrome has them too. The last version launched, supports extensions, and in a better way than Firefox does even. You just have to click them, they will automatically download, ask you if you want them installed, and if you click yes, they will appear straight in your address bar. No browser restart required, no nothing, just works with two clicks! Today I tried and installed about 20 extensions at the same time, and neither the OS or the browser, were the bit least affected about their presence. No lags, or crashes or anything, they simply work great. And if you used Firefox with extensions, you should know, that after a few installs, the browser started to feel a bit tired.

In the end, get Chrome Beta here, and the extensions here, and just have your fun with them :)

PS: Lately I've been writing a lot about Google, but this isn't a "I (heart) Google" blog, it's a personal tech blog, so my next post will be about a few cool tips&tricks in Windows 7.