Different computer users use different web browsers. Some people use Internet Explorer which is the built-in web browser of Windows OS. Some people prefer to use Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or other 3rd party web browsers.
Did you ever wish to compare these browsers to find out which is the best among all? Don’t worry. Microsoft has compared the latest stable version of Internet Explorer with latest beta versions of other 3rd party browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome and has released the comparison chart for public.
Please note that these browser versions were the latest at the time of testing and writing this article.
The big comparison chart shows various tests divided in following categories:
- Performance
- Ease of Use
- Security
- Reliability
- Privacy
- Web Standards and Compatibility
- Developer Tools
And following is the official comparison chart:
Performance: | Firefox | Chrome | IE |
Fast startup and shutdown | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Fast JavaScript engine for better performance | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Popular websites load quickly | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Full hardware acceleration for text, graphics, and video provided by default | Yes | ||
Notification when add-ons slow browser performance | Yes | ||
Ease of Use: | |||
Simple browsing controls for a better browsing experience | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Change and add search providers within the search box | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Search provider suggestions as you type in the search box | Yes | Yes | Yes |
New Tab page includes quick access to common tasks and websites | Yes | Yes | |
Websites can be pinned to the taskbar in Windows 7 | Yes | Yes | |
Tear-off tabs with Windows 7? Aero Snap | Yes | Yes | |
Reopen accidentally closed tabs | Yes | Yes | |
Combined search and Address bar | Yes | Yes | |
Visual search suggestions shown as you type | Yes | ||
Jump Lists and thumbnail preview controls for pinned sites | Yes | ||
Accelerators for quick access to web services without leaving the page | Yes | ||
Security: | |||
Protection from malicious cross-site scripting attacks | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Best protection against phishing attacks | Yes | Yes | |
Domain name highlighting in the Address bar | Yes | Yes | |
Most protection against socially engineered malware | Yes | ||
Reliability: | |||
Crashed tabs stay isolated from all other tabs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Automatic recovery of crashed tabs | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Tab recovery with messaging and prompting when websites time out | Yes | ||
Privacy: | |||
Prevent others from seeing what sites you have visited on your PC | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Control whether certain third parties can track your browsing activity | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Web Standards and Compatibility: | |||
Supports common and future standards including HTML5 | Yes | Yes | Yes |
WebM-encoded HTML5 video supported when a VP8 codec is installed | Yes | Yes | Yes |
H.264-encoded HTML5 video support | Yes | ||
Compatibility mode to view websites designed for older browsers | Yes | ||
Developer Tools: | |||
Tool set (HTML, CSS, JavaScript editing, profiling, network inspection) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Developer tools built-in to the browser | Yes | Yes | |
Tools that show pages in different rendering engines | Yes |
After looking at the tests everything seems the best for IE obviously. But we should not forget that Microsoft took the test upon beta versions of Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome where as they took the final version of IE.