matt hamann

Ask any ten different people what their favorite browser is and it’s possible you might possibly end up with ten completely different opinions. That’s because these days browsers are a dime a dozen and it’s mostly up to the consumer which browser he or she uses. Major players in today’s market include Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, and Opera. With the exception of Internet Explorer, all of these browsers are more or less available for any OS you use. But which one is the right browser? Which is the best? That question has become the object of many a debate and a post like this can’t settle it once and for all–especially with the daily changing face of technology. But although some web developers (designers especially) would like to have only one global browser (or at least force all browsers to use the same rendering engine), there is actually good reason in having a diverse market.

The hating of Internet Explorer

There’s no question that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer remains the dominant browser on the market at this time. Between the number of users surfing with version 6, 7, or 8, well over 50% of the world is still IE-centric. Yet you’ll find developers, designers, and consumers have developed the widespread opinion that Internet Explorer is bad. Period. This, simply, is not true.

Back when Internet Explorer 6 was released with Windows XP in 2001, it really began to change the face of the Internet itself. We started to see a lot more plugins being written to make websites more “dynamic.” Broadband connections were seriously beginning to take off and the phenomenon we now know as Google was setting the stage to become one of the Internet’s dominating forces. IE6 was compliant with HTML4 web standards, made possible the widespread use of CSS, and was fast and light. As an integral part of the Windows operating system, it took full advantage of certain performance enhancements. IE6, as much as it is despised now for it’s lack of HTML standards support, is really partially responsible for getting us where we are today. Versions 7 and 8 may have been Microsoft’s catch-up game, but as far as standards-compliant browsers go, things have come a long way since 2001.

Enter Firefox

The next major market player was officially introduced in 2005 by Mozilla, creator of Firefox’s ancestors Mozilla Suite and Netscape. Version 1.0 was slow to catch on outside the developer community, but many saw it as a good future competitor to Microsoft’s browser market domination. Firefox re-defined the way we use the Internet by successfully introducing tabbed-browsing for the first time. Some would correctly argue that Opera was the first to implement this feature, but Opera’s failure to capture significant market-share makes Firefox tabbed-browsing’s rightful ancestor. Version 2.0 saw a small spike in usage and by the time version 3.0 arrived in mid-2008, Firefox had gained significant hold on over 30% of Internet users. Firefox uses the Gecko rendering engine and has been influential in setting the bar for browsers being standards compliant.

Webkit: Safari and Chrome

Apple’s Safari and Google’s Chrome are even more recent additions to the browser community. Together they have further upped the ante for browser competition. Until Safari 3.0 was released, the browser was pretty unsuccessful. All but the most loyal Mac users immediately downloaded Firefox upon getting a new computer. Version 3.0 was the first truly successful implementation of Safari as a mainstream browser and version 4.0 may receive relatively equal use to Firefox on the OS X platform. As a competitor to other browsers on the Microsoft Windows platform, Safari has largely failed to capture any sort of audience.

The other Webkit-equipped browser is Google Chrome. It’s announcement was a surprise to many and it’s subsequent popularity has been an even greater shock. (I’m actually using Chrome to write this post). It remains to be seen if the trend will continue, especially as Google prepares to release their own Chrome-based operating system. Safari and Chrome contain very similar feature sets.

The Webkit and Mozilla Gecko 1.9 rendering engines are two of the first to officially support a preliminary implementation of CSS3 attributes. While Microsoft has been playing catch-up, Apple, Google, and Mozilla have been pushing the envelope by rewriting their Javascript engines, introducing new browser features, and preparing to support future Internet standards. In fact, Firefox 3.5 is the first browser to support HTML 5. It includes powerful new architecture to support native HTML 5 video and local persistent storage for web applications.

We can see from the history of these various browsers that innovation drives the web. The W3C will often ratify new standards based on implementations completed by browser vendors–especially if a feature is supported across multiple browsers. We can only hope that the market-share will continue to even out as it has done up to this point. With each manufacturer seeking to bring new features to market before its competitors, we will continue to use innovative technologies in our daily online routines.