With Firefox 8’s early arrival, and new major updates to three of the other major Web browsers, Chrome 15; Opera 11.5, and Safari 5.1.1 it’s high time to take another look at our current generation of Internet Web browsers and see what’s what. Only Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) 9 hasn’t seen a significant improvement in the last few months.
Why did I choose these browsers? The answer is simple. These are the most popular Web browsers out there. While Internet Explorer has dropped below 50% of the total Web browser market, it’s still the most popular Web browser. In most of the world, IE is followed by Mozilla Firefox, although in some places, such as much of Latin America, number three, Google’s Chrome, has already moved up to second place. After that Apple’s Safari, which owns the mobile Web browser market, comes in number four, and Opera hangs out to the fifth spot.
As time has gone on, Web browsers have been improving. For example, it wasn’t that long ago that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was a major security problem in and of itself. True, the pre-historic IE 6 is still an infamous security hole, but only a fool would run it. Today, IE 9 is probably as secure as Google Chrome and they don’t come any safer. But, in all honesty, all the 2011 Web browsers are far more secure than their predecessors.