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Google Chrome As time passes, Google Chrome is undergoing hardly noticeable, yet important changes: it is becoming more secure, which is definitely great. The new Chrome has undergone 15 security fixes, with the majority of them being of medium or high severity and only one considered to be critical.
So, surfing the Internet with Chrome has become safer.
The new key feature Chrome boasts is the inclusion of getUserMedia API. This technology lets Web applications use your computer's camera and microphone without installing any plug-ins, making the first step for the WebRTC – a new standard for the high-quality real-time communication on the Web.
When Chrome 21 was released, the developers encouraged the users to try out several 'toys' based upon the getUserMedia API technology. One of these 'experiences', as Google call them, allowed you to live-view the drawing of your portrait on the sand done by a robot in the Science Museum in London. It was made upon your photo, taken through the web camera and changed into an outline picture. Unfortunately, I still haven't tried it, but I'd like to, because it really sounds cool.
Google Chrome is also following the tendency of graphic experience perfection, started by Apple with the introduction of their high-resolution Retina display. Now those of us who are the happy owners of devices with Retinas can taste the full quality the technology can provide, enjoying the high-quality graphics even when browsing. Unfortunately, without a retina display before your eyes it is impossible to say if it really differs from how it was before.
The latest releases of Chrome show that the Google team have focused mainly upon security, which is really good news for users. Yet, some bugs do remain, like unstable work of flash video plug-ins, and these are yet to be solved.
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Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox ranks among the most widely used web browsers. This preference is not casual if we take into consideration the multiple advantages this application has. Probably the most widely valued of its characteristics is speed, due to its highly efficient rendering engine.
However, this is not the only reason why so many users have chosen Mozilla Firefox as their default browser. Other appreciated characteristics are its low usage of resources and its compatibility with various web standards.
Mozilla Firefox has an easy-to-use, nicely designed interface. Moreover, if you do not like the default look, you will probably find another one you like, because there is an extensive set of skins available online. However, in my opinion, it does not look as streamlined as Google Chrome. As most modern browsers, it allows using tabs to browse various web pages at the same time. Some recent modifications to the way tabs are used include closing a group of tabs with a click, but it does not let re-open recently closed tabs right from the toolbar.
Although versions of this program are available for a long list of languages, it is a pity that you cannot readily switch between languages, something you can easily do in Chrome. Fortunately, it does allow spell checking in multiple languages.
As this browser has a wide supportive community, frequent versions are released, which bring the user an increasing number of advantages. For example, the newest versions of Mozilla Firefox can play H.264 video without the need to install add-ons or extensions. Similarly, they can manage Javascript objects with increasing efficiency, thus reducing the time necessary to render pages. Moreover, the availability of a download manager allows you to pause and resume download jobs.
In terms of security, Mozilla Firefox is among the safest browsers. It uses strong encryption algorithms to protect your data when you are using the HTTPS protocol. Likewise, it uses smart cards for proper authentication and provides antiphishing protection. Unluckily, many users claim that the antiphising mechanism (consisting on sending data to online servers) opens a breach that lessens their privacy.
As said above, Mozilla Firefox is compatible with various web standards. What is more, if you install an extension called IE Tab, this will allow you to use IE's rendering engine within a Mozilla Firefox tab. This can solve the problems that appear when you try to open a web page using Microsoft web
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Opera Though it does not enjoy the same popularity of IE, Firefox, and Chrome, Opera is one of the first alternatives that comes to mind when looking for a secure, feature-rich, and fast browser. With a redesigned interface and packed with powerful features, this version of Opera focuses on making web browsing a more enjoyable experience.
The new features of Opera 25 center on website organization and easy access. The start page presents a brand-new way of saving and organizing websites with Speed Dial, Discover, and Bookmarks. Speed Dial shows a 3x3 grid that offers a convenient manner to keep the most visited sites always at hand. This grid can be customized and it is possible to organize related websites into groups. The Visual Bookmarks feature arranges favorite webpages in small windows or thumbnails that display their content. That way, bookmarks can be viewed as a gallery of images and can be organized into folders with custom titles. The Discover section lets you find out selected new content, top stories, news, and articles of your interest.
Opera's new interface reflects an elegant, clean environment that arranges all browser options under a single button, and integrates the address bar with the built-in search in one single area. It lets you work with multiple tabs (in fact, Opera was the first browser to include tabs), pin the ones you want to keep at hand, and preview other tabs simply by hovering the mouse pointer over them. The Tab Preview feature will come in handy to take a glance at other web pages without leaving your current tab. Besides, Opera is highly customizable, supporting add-ons to extend its functionality as well as themes to tweak its appearance.
In terms of speed, Opera has always been a highly competitive browser and this version does not disappoint. Besides, if your connection is slow, Opera Turbo can help you optimize speed by compressing web pages and reducing image quality. As for security and privacy, Opera alerts you of suspicious web sites and gives you the possibility of blocking pop-ups. It also enables you to remove browsing data and history, and even navigate with a private session to avoid leaving traces of the sites you visit.
To sum up, Opera is a robust web browser that manages to stay on par with its competitors, combining an extensive set of features with remarkable speed and a clean, user-friendly interface.
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Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 9.0 is the latest browser from Microsoft. This is a real improvement over the program we all knew only three or four years ago, although you probably will not notice many differences if you are upgrading from version 8, as the major changes are hidden “beneath the hood”.
The Web has come a long way since it started. Today’s websites are full of images, flash applications, videos, and everyone expects them to be interactive, respond to their current location (work, home, or an exotic holiday’s destination), translate to their native language, and be easy to use. Fast and complete. There is too much information and too little time. We communicate with our friends, share family pictures, and even do our shopping online. And for all of that, we rely on our web browser. This program has become an integral part of our lives.
Internet Explorer 9 has focused on several features where his competitors were gaining an edge. Speed was always one of those, and Microsoft made significant improvements in this area. This time all the sites seem to appear fast and smoothly, and the annoying delay in opening new tabs found in previous versions is also gone.
Nowadays Internet Explorer comes with an Add-On Advisor which will tell you how long each add-on takes to load and asks if you want to disable it. Although this gives you more of an insight as to why your browsing may be slowing down, it is usually more of a nuisance than a feature: users want to surf the Web, and not really spend time configuring the browser.
As always, Microsoft is one step ahead when it comes to integrating its software with Windows operating system. In this new version, for instance, you will be able to pin your favorite webpage to the taskbar and open them later with one single click. Security concerns are not new, and Internet Explorer comes with several security features that help you prevent phishing scams (for example, when someone tries to “impersonate” your bank), installing malware, or accessing dangerous sites.
There were few cosmetic changes as well. The most impressive is the possibility to position your tab list right next to the address bar. This little change allows for an almost full screen browsing, with the Internet “filling” most of the screen, while a minimum set of controls are left at the top. This is a new browser trend started by Google’s Chrome.
Another trend Microsoft adopted (this time from Mozilla’s Firefox) is the “one box” concept (as named by Microsoft itself). Every time the user is faced with a non essential option (saving a password, for instance), the browser will continue its work and a yellow box will appear on the bottom, allowing the user to choose not only what to do, but also when to make that choice.
Developers will also like Internet Explorer, as it has highly improved its tools to help them analyze websites (html, css, and javascript are cleanly separated).
The latest few versions of Internet Explorer came with a 64 bits version. This is a new technology which is becoming rapidly dominant in today’s hardware and software. Nevertheless, there are some opinion makers clamming version 9.0 of Internet Explorer works faster in 32-bit mode. After installing, you will get two icons: the simple “Internet Explorer” and “Internet Explorer (64-bit)”. You should go with the first by now. In fact, some sites will not work with the latter (you will not be able to see any videos in YouTube, for instance).
To sum it all up, Internet Explorer has shown great improvement over the last few years, but in the end it seems to be keeping up with the competition rather than innovating. You can be almost sure you will not come across any site that does not work correctly with it (on the downside, hackers are much more active against Microsoft). On the other hand, if you follow latest trends in browsers technology, you will recognize all the major benefits of this version, for example, the opportunity to type your search queries and website addresses in the same place, the domain highlight for extra readability and security, recently closed tabs list, the option to show, pause, and resume your downloads, or the “new tab” displaying the list of your most visited pages.
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