5 Reasons for an Alternate Browser
by Derrick Wlodarz
1) Choice
One of the best reasons why I advocate switching from IE 7 or 8 is also one of the most compelling: the number of choices are numerous! Yes, there are more browsers out there than you have probably heard of, or will likely care to try, but the biggest players in the market are the best viable alternatives you should focus on. Mozilla Firefox is the big gorilla which has been around since 2004 and does a great job. Opera is another fine choice but has issues with compatibility on many pages still. And finally Google Chrome, which has been around since late 2008, but in my book is probably the best alternate browser out there. However, you can only get a feel for something if you give it a try yourself. While one browser may suit someone else better, you may be more receptive to the layout or features of another browser. Download them all and give them a run, and after a week or so, uninstall the ones you don't want.You can find the latest version of Chrome here:
You can find the latest version of Opera here:
You can find the latest version of Firefox here:
2) Speed
Out of all the benefits of switching browsers, another pivotal reason (possibly the most beneficial) is the speed increase you will instantly notice. Compared to Internet Explorer 6 of yesteryear, IE 7 and 8 are dreams. But again, that is only relative. Placed up against Chrome or Firefox, even IE8 is quick to show its molasses. When I speak of speed, I am not necessarily talking about what we traditionally think of as "download" speeds. Those are roughly the same across all browsers. What IS at play here is page loading (or rendering, in geek speak) time. Think of how much time you spend waiting on website to load and transition between pages, load photos, etc. With how most of the modern "web" is built today, advanced calculations and formulas make up a lot of what we see on the outset when we visit, say, CNN.com or Yahoo. And it comes down to who can process those formulas the fastest with the most accuracy. This is where IE7/8 are dearly lacking, making your normal day to day operations that much longer to accomplish. In raw numbers, Google Chrome is the current champion of page rendering speed, with Opera and Firefox battling for second and third place.
3) Security
Too many machines these days are needlessly placed at the helm of hackers because of all the exploits and holes within IE. And I am not necessarily harking on IE 7/8 for being lackluster in security features - by common standards, they are not. But think about what kind of target users of IE present to the writers of all the nasty spyware on the web today: a gold mine. These users are generally less likely to keep their machines updated with Windows Update, are more likely to have anti-malware products that are either missing or expired, and also tend to visit more risky websites. The above recipe is fairly well known as one of disaster. For this reason, switching to Firefox or Chome (or anything outside of IE) is a BIG improvement within itself. Due to the nature of the rapid development schedules of all the alternative browsers (especially that of Chrome and Firefox, which has new releases every month or so) they can easily incorporate new features and patches to close old holes. Microsoft doesn't have this luxury because so many legacy corporate web applications depend on the stability of IE's backbone. In turn, security is one area where IE inherently suffers in the long term. Your best bets for a safe browser experience are Firefox or Chrome, which are at the forefront of fighting spyware attacks spawning from the web.4) Extensions
You've probably heard something about these little applets called "extensions" from other computer users. They are another big draw to alternative browsers. Nearly all of the major browsers outside of IE have them, but Chrome and Firefox have the largest thriving collection which is still growing. The number of possibilities with these extensions are limitless, and add functionality from the way photos are displayed on pages to how you can save bookmarks, even down to how you fill out forms and also can filter out advertisements. No one will ever be able to utilize all of these extensions, but with some hunting, you could surely find a few things to make life easier. Google Chrome's extensions market can be found here:
Firefox extensions can be found here:
5) Tabbed Browsing
The days of having an entire seperate window open for every website you need to visit is so 1999. Instead of cluttering your taskbar with multiple IE windows, all modern browsers incorporate what are called "tabs." These tabs represent what we used to consider entirely seperate windows for our desired websites. Each browser has a different way of incorporating this functionality, but it's roughly the same for all of them now, including IE 7 and 8. And even though IE 7 and 8 have tabbed browsing (taking after Firefox's rise to fame in the years from 2004-2006) the other browsers still do it better, with extensions that change how you can preview all active tabs and other related functionalities. IE is relatively new to this game of tabbed browsing, while Firefox and Chrome (even Opera and Safari) were built from the ground up to support tabs. Chrome takes the concept a step further and even makes every tab it's own "process" within Windows, instead of bundling all tabs into one "process" memory basket. Geek speak aside, how does this benefit you as the end user? Well, if one website crashes within Firefox, you lose everything you were doing on EVERY website in Firefox at the time of the crash. Google Chrome, meanwhile, will only close down the sole crashed site and allow you to keep working. For multitaskers with many open tabs and mission-critical functions going on at once, this could mean 10-15 or more mins worth of work in progress lost just due to one broken site.
Of course, the list of reasons why switching to an alternate browser is a good idea is much larger than what I could possibly concoct here. But you get the idea..... more speed, better security, and plenty of choice. I like Microsoft in many respects, but don't let them put a strangehold on your choice of web browser. The web used to be an IE-only playground but it is anything but this day in age. Give something else a try and see - you will likely love one or another.
http://www.google.com/chrome http://www.opera.com/browser/download/
Comments