The web browser is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, if you count Tim Berners-Lee’s 1991 introduction of the WorldWideWeb software. Almost from that start, the browser wars have been raging. With new competitors in the fray and longtime entries spinning up new technologies, conveniences, protections, and features, your choice of browser software is just as important as it ever was.
For the last few years, the browser landscape has been dominated by Google. The same company that serves more web content than any other (according to comScore), also claims nearly 70 percent of the browser market with Chrome (based on NetMarketShare and StatCounter numbers). That’s for desktop use, but if you add in mobile, Chrome is still king, with a share of over 60 percent. So dominant is Chrome that most other browsers now use its underlying Chromium rendering code, with Firefox the only remaining top-to-bottom independent competitor.
Chrome on Top
Chrome may be leading in usage (except, of course, on Apple devices), but it’s not ahead by every measure or by number of capabilities. Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Opera all have features not found in Google’s browser. That’s not to say that Chrome isn’t an excellent piece of software, but you should know that there are worthy alternatives.
Here we examine the top five browsers in the U.S. in order of popularity. Unfortunately, that rules out Brave and Vivaldi—both first-class and unique choices—but you can read about them in our article covering the best alternative web browsers.
So what’s important in a browser these days? Speed and compatibility remain the top requirements. But in this day of the ever-present smartphone, the linkage between your desktop browser and your phone has become increasingly important. Indeed, some browsers now let you send a webpage from one device to another, and all let you sync bookmarks between them.
Compatibility Counts
A rough measure of standards compatibility is the HTML5test website, which scores browsers’ compatibility with the moving target of web standards. The maximum possible score is 555, with points awarded for each standard supported. Chrome maintains its longtime lead on this test with a score of 528. Opera and other Chromium-based browsers hew closely to Chrome, while Firefox and Safari hold up the rear, at 491 and 471, respectively. Just a few years ago, a score in the 300s was considered excellent, and Internet Explorer (still used by millions) is stuck at 312. Despite that, some custom business web apps still require that obsolete bit of software.
Faster Is Better
For speed testing, we run each browser through the JetStream benchmark, which we consider the most comprehensive browser performance benchmark. It runs 64 tests, measuring, according to its documentation, “the speed of internet applications variety of JavaScript and Web Assembly benchmarks, covering a variety of advanced workloads and programming techniques.” It reports a higher-is-better score based on a geometric mean of all the tests run. It takes longer to run than most benchmarks. We tested on a Surface Book convertible with a 2.4GHz Core i5 processor and 8GB RAM and a 3.1GHz Core i4 MacBook Pro.
Take benchmark results with a grain of salt, however, since purely synthetic tests don’t measure every component of actual browsing conditions. In short, Chrome wins this benchmark on Windows 10, while Safari takes the prize on macOS. Firefox has fallen behind on both platforms.
In terms of disk space usage, Opera is the slimmest on both macOS and Windows 10. The OS-supplied browser sizes aren’t reliable, since their makers can hide code anywhere on the system, so, for example, take that 19MB size for Safari with a huge grain of salt. We noticed that Chrome installs itself in the Programs (x86) folder, which is normally only for 32-bit apps; nevertheless, typing chrome://version/ in the address bar showed we were testing with the 64-bit version.
For memory use testing, we load a dozen media-heavy websites into all the browsers at the same time and report the MB of RAM reported by Task Manager. Note that some browsers use sleeping tabs, meaning they unload the content of tabs you’re not viewing from memory. To be honest, higher memory use here can result in snappier performance, since you don’t have to wait for sleeping tabs to get reloaded.
Privacy Is Paramount
Privacy, customization, convenience features, tab and start-page tools, and mobile integration have replaced speed and standards support as today’s primary differentiators. All browsers now can remember passwords for you and sync them (in encrypted form) as well as your browsing history and bookmarks between desktops or laptops and mobile devices. Chrome by default signs you into Google services like Gmail and YouTube, which some consider presumptuous.
Privacy mavens like to use VPNs (virtual private networks) to hide browsing activities from ISPs and any other intervening entities between you and the site you’re visiting. Opera is the only browser that includes a built-in VPN (Firefox offers one at extra cost). Firefox also has a good privacy story, with a private mode that not only discards a session’s history and cookies but also hides your activities from third-party tracking sites during the private session. Firefox recently implemented DNS over HTTPS, which hides your web address lookups from your ISP. In addition, Edge, Firefox, and Safari include fingerprint protection—preventing trackers from identifying you based on your hardware and software setup. Firefox also has built-in Content Blocking to fend off known trackers and cryptocurrency-mining ploys.
Tools, Conveniences, and Goodies
Useful browsing tools can play a part in your decision, too. One, Reading Mode, strips webpages of clutter—mostly ads, videos, and content pitches—so you can focus on text. Another is the Share button. With this era’s obsession with social media, it’s nearly an essential convenience.
Opera is alone among the popular web browsers included here with a built-in cryptocurrency wallet, though the aforementioned Brave browser also includes one. Opera is notable for its Speed Dial, which consists of pinned tiles on your home screen (though the other browsers have similar functionality) and a toolbar for accessing frequently needed services such as WhatsApp.
Microsoft Edge offers voice-reading of webpages with remarkably realistic speech, a helpfully customizable homepage, detailed privacy settings, and (soon) a Collections feature for web research. Firefox lets you instantly save a page to Pocket or open a new Container in case you want to be logged into the same site with two different identities. Screenshot tools are making their way into browsers, with Edge, Firefox, and Opera for starters.
If you feel strongly about one browser or another, as is likely the case if you’re reading this, please feel free to let us know about it in the comment section below.
