The battle of the browsers has been with us for some time now and we are no longer stuck with Internet Explorer! There are two great alternatives out there, Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, but which is the best? Well that can depend a lot upon what you want out of a web browser, both of them have their advantages so let’s see how they compare.

Look and feel - Chrome looks and feels a lot like any of Google’s products, it is simple but very neatly presented. It does away with any unnecessary toolbars and buttons (including the home button by default which is annoying!) and opts for the simple and clean look. What is good about this is that your browser window itself takes up more of the screen since there is more room for it, plus you have fewer distractions when browsing and you can actually focus on the page itself. Even the options menu is straight forward with only the necessary things open for configuration.

Firefox by default is slightly different and has the a few extra buttons and toolbars but still has a nice and easy to use interface. The great thing about Firefox is that there are many themes that allow you to totally customise the look of the interface; although Chrome has a few itself it’s nowhere near the number that the Firefox community offer.

Speed and performance - Chrome is by far the fastest browser I’ve ever used, the program itself loads fast and it loads pages very quick also, two very important things in my opinion. Rendering big JavaScript scripts and larger graphics are faster in Chrome than they are in Firefox. The other advantage with Chrome is the fact that each new tab uses its own processor thread and makes managing them from an operating systems point a view a lot more efficient. It is the one thing you will notice with Firefox; as soon as you start opening quite a few tabs you will see your CPU and memory usage shoot up, Chrome on the other hand is able to handle this a lot better.

Add-ons and customisation - This is where Firefox is the winner hands down. The amount of plug-ins available for Firefox is unbelievable; every single type of plug-in is available for doing just about anything you could ask for from a browser. While Chrome also offers some add-ons they are only a drop in the ocean compare to the amount Firefox has. But not only that, the Firefox add-ons are installable with the click of a button whilst most the Chrome ones require some additional configuring which just looks like a headache most of the time!

Couple that with the huge number of themes and Firefox is by far the most versatile Web Browser ever. This is great for people who love to customise the look and feel of the browser but it does come with a downside. Once you start installing add-ons for Firefox you will soon notice how the performance is affected. At one point I had 5 add-ons installed that did various things and it would take Firefox around 15 seconds to load for the first time – not so good!

Summary – Both are great browsers don’t get me wrong, but Chrome definitely has the edge, mainly for the fact that it is so quick and efficient and speed is of the essence for a web browser. On the other hand if you simple cannot live without lots of add-ons then Firefox might be a safer bet, but be prepared to do a lot more waiting around!

Mozilla Firefox has become a household name for web browsers and its plain to see that they have had a roaring success in the past couple years. According to w3school’s website, almost 50% of online users are now using Firefox, compare this to around 35% for IE users and its clear to see that Firefox must have something about it thats attracting so many users.

I myself switched to Firefox a few years ago and have never looked back, the majority of people would probably say the same and Microsoft have obviously got some catching up to do!

So which browser is better? Well I have yet to meet someone who has a valid argument as to why Internet Explorer is better and from what I can see, everything that Internet explorer can do Firefox can do, and in most cases a lot better. Lets compare a few features between the two browsers.

Security – Without a shadow of a doubt firefox is much more secure that Internet explorer, this is especially the case for Internet explorer 6 which is a very vulnerable web browser to be using. I am still yet to come across a case of ‘browser hijacking’ for Firefox and although they are possible they are very few and far between. On the other hand hijacks for Internet explorer are very common, these usually consist of the home page being changed, additional toolbars being installed or search results being hijacked and replaced. Internet explorer is also a lot more vulnerable to ‘drive-by’ exploits, and whilst these have been possible on Firefox they have been a lot less frequent than IE.

Performance – In terms of memory usage Firefox is probably a bit more of a drain on system resources than Internet Explorer, with that being said, the latest version is a lot more efficient and less of a memory hog. Internet explorer 8 on the other hand seems to be more of a memory demon that IE6 and 7, this is probably down to the new ‘Windows Vista’ interface style that IE8 has adopted.

Functionality – Well this one has got to go to Firefox really, with it being an open source browser there are all kinds of add-ons and themes available. These are all easily installable at the click of a button and can customise your Firefox to look and operate however you want it to. Internet explorer on the other hand is nowhere near as customisable, and whilst some themes are available they are not as easy to install, the same goes for add-ons.

Features – Firefox offers many features including a saved passwords manager, one click bookmarking, Smart location bar, restore ability (for when your browser crashes) Internet explorer on the other hand is still very much featureless, although version 8 has a few added ones that version 7 didnt have.

Overall – Without a doubt I would pick Firefox for its security, functionality and reliability. It has so much more to offer than Internet Explorer and I personally think that its only a matter of time before were all using Firefox. For those who have never tried it I highly recommend you give it a try, you wont regret it!