Browser Wars: Chrome vs. IE11 vs. Firefox

Browser makers all say they want websites to be able to do everything that standalone applications are capable of. I've even heard one vendor posit that a very sophisticated program like Adobe Lightroom could eventually land in the browser. For this to happen, browsers need a lot more capabilities and lot more speed. The good news? Browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Opera are headed in exactly that direction. Today's browser can both do more things with your PC than their ancestors could, and they're able to do them a lot faster.
So what are the pieces that have fallen into place since our last survey of the browser landscape? For one, raw speed has been ramped up to unprecedented levels. And not just speed as measured on benchmarks—though that indeed has taken a dramatic uptick. But the startup time and actual page download and rendering have been ramped up, too. Scores on the often-cited Sunspider JavaScript benchmark have made dramatic gains: For example the latest version of Chrome posted a time of 47 milliseconds on my test PC, compared with scores of over 1000ms and even in the 10 thousands in previous browser generations.
And the speed of transmitting the Web content is getting a boost as well, with technologies like SPDY—a replacement for HTTP that compresses data. All the major browsers now support SPDY. Microsoft has done extensive work on optimizing the networking code in Internet Explorer, and Opera uses a page caching Off-Road technique to bring sites in with as much as an 80 percent reduction in the amount of data that has to be transferred.
Another consideration is memory use. Firefox for a long time had a bad rap when it came to using up too much memory, but members of Mozilla's MemShrink team have done a bang-up job of remedying this situation: On my quick and dirty memory use test, Firefox came in significantly lighter in its use of system RAM than all other comers. Firefox also for a long time trailed IE and Chrome in the time it took for the browser itself to start up. But that, too, is no longer an issue.
Hardware acceleration—using your computer's graphics card to speed up some aspects of page rendering—has been Microsoft's answer to giving websites the power to perform like native apps. The company has put out several performance demos on IETestdrive.com. While the other browsers have followed suit and implemented their own hardware acceleration, IE11's performance on some of these, such as the amusing PenguinMark, is staggeringly faster than the others.
New Standards. But as I mentioned, speed alone won't give website's full applications status: You need capabilities too. And standards like WebGL and WebRTC have stepped in to fill this need. WebGL, which has after a long holdout finally made its way into Internet Explorer 11, gives browsers a 3D graphics API that lets sophisticated interfaces like those used in today's console and PC games run inside a browser. IE11 joins all the other browsers in this roundup in supporting WebGL.
WebRTC is a particularly cool technology that first made its debut in Opera, and now is implemented in Chrome and Firefox as well. This technology allows a browser to give webpages access to your PC's webcam and microphone. Microsoft rightly explains IE's lack of WebRTC support because it isn't yet a W3C-approved, or "recommended" standard, and could pose security issues—remember, there's never been a security target like Internet Explorer, so the company must understandably move cautiously when implementing new capabilities. Google, on the opposite site of that argument, has not only implemented it, but now uses WebRTC on its flagship search page to enable voice searching.
Security and Privacy. No discussion of Web browsers would be complete without a mention of security and privacy. All of the browsers have multiple protections against malware and phishing now. Studies by NSS Labs come out every so often showing the relative levels of effectiveness in each browser. In the latest phishing study, Firefox led the pack, while in the latest general malware study had IE on top. Privacy is a related issue. All of the browsers have private modes, which protect your browsing sessions from nosy people with access to your PC, but privacy from nosy websites is another issue entirely. I've found IE's Tracking Protection to be the most effective tool for this. The Do Not Track setting (an initiative by the Firefox folks) is now available in all browsers, though its effectiveness is debatable.
So how are they doing? Browser market share trends are moving differently than in recent history. According to Net Applications, which is the only measure of actual unique users rather than raw page views, Internet Explorer started the year with 48.5 percent of browser use and most recently (in November 2013) had a 50.4 percent share. A gain of 2 percent may not sound like much, but considering the billions of Internet users worldwide, each percentage point represents tens of millions of users. Chrome, which had been rapidly rising, dropped from 15.6 percent to 14.5 percent over the same period; Firefox trended down from 17.5 to 16 percent, and Opera treaded water at between 1 and 2 percent.
How old is your OS? One consideration in your browser choice is what operating system version you're running. If you're on Windows XP or Vista, Internet Explorer 11 won't be available to you: it only runs on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. The latest versions of Firefox, Chrome and Opera, however, can still be installed on a Windows machine dating back to XP, as well as to Macs and Linux boxes.
Lesser-known players. A promising dark horse from China: Maxthon actually leads HMTL5Test.com scores. But its new version 4.2 just dropped as we were completing this roundup. We'll update this roundup after testing the new version. Opera, long a major browser innovator, is no longer a completely independently built browser, since now it relies on all of Chrome's underlying code to render webpages. This has the benefit of that engine's speed and high degree of new standards support, but it also means that Opera can't innovate with things like CSS for Paged Media, a clever way for pages to resemble interactive e-books, and in fact (unlike WebRTC) a recommended standard at the W3C.
So there's a recap in what's been going on in the world of Web browsers over the last few months. As you can see, it's an ever-evolving and exciting field. To help you choose which is right for you, delve into the reviews below.

FEATURED IN THIS ROUNDUP

Chrome 31
Chrome's speed and minimalist design have deservedly attracted a devoted group of users to Google's browser. Leading HTML5 support means it will be ready for the future, application-like Web. Hardware acceleration adds even more speed, and though Google has implemented Do Not Track privacy protection (set to off by default), it's probably not the best choice for privacy mavens. Read the full review ››

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Firefox 26
Firefox versions keep coming at a fast clip, now that Mozilla hews to a Chrome-like rapid release schedule. These frequent versions haven't brought the kind of earth-shattering changes we used to see in new full-number Firefox updates, but the development teams have tackled issues of importance to a lot of Web users—startup time, memory use, speed, and of course security. This lean, fast, customizable browser can hold its own against any competitor, and it offers graphics hardware acceleration, good HTML5 support, and the unique Panorama system for organizing lots of tabs. Read the full review ››

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Internet Explorer 11 (IE11)
Now available for Windows 7 as well as for Windows 8 (but not for Vista or XP), Microsoft's latest browser is faster, trimmer, far more compliant with HTML5—a major improvement over its predecessor. It even now supports WebGL and SPDY, but not WebRTC. IE brings some unique capabilities like tab-pinning and leading hardware acceleration, and excellent privacy tools like Do Not Track enabled by default and the more-powerful Tracking Protection feature.
Read the full review ››

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Maxthon 4
Recently re-dubbed a "Cloud Browser," thanks to its extensive syncing service, Maxthon is the app in this roundup known and used by the fewest people. But it offers among the most in tools, and surprisingly good performance and HTML5 support. If the idea of being able to take a screen capture of a webpage, download video, or switch to a dark view for night viewing appeals to you, give Maxthon a download. Site compatibility is guaranteed, since Maxthon uses both Chrome and IE's webpage rendering engines. The latest version even adds hardward acceleration. Read the full review ››

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Opera 18
Like the other current browsers, Opera is fast, compliant with HTML5, and spare of interface. Long an innovator, recently it's added support for HTML5 getUserMedia, which lets webpages access your webcam (with your permission, of course). Opera's Off-road mode speeds up the Web on slow connections through caching. It's dropped a few of its distinguishing plusses like built-in BitTorrent and email clients, and now defers to Chrome code for its page rendering—which does mean it's fast and supportive of new standards. Read the full review ››

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