Sophomore Jenny Yang feels a burning frustration rising up to form a throbbing headache as she sees the little error screen pop up for what seems like the hundredth time. “We’re sorry, Firefox had a problem and crashed.”
“No, you’re not sorry!” she says angrily, feeling like the next thing that is going to crash is her sanity. “Maybe trying out this new Firefox thing wasn’t such a good idea after all…”
With the growing age of computers, there are a lot more options for the people sitting behind them. From Mac to PC, to Snow Leopard vs. Windows, there is also a new heated debate: the Browser Wars. Right now, according to 2010 browsers statistics on StatCounter GlobalStats, the top five competitors of 2010 from order of most used to least used are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Opera.
Jacob Gube, the founder and Chief Editor of the online blog “Six Revisions” that covers “useful information for Web Developers and Designers,” contributes his part to the web browser brawl. He writes, “The latest version of the top five major web browsers were tested under six performance indicators to see how they stack up against each other.” These indicators were page load time, browser cache performance, DOM selection speed, CSS rendering speed, JavaScript speed, and CPU usage under stress (See sidebar).
The victor that came out on top for overall best performance was Google Chrome, followed by Mozilla Firefox who was neck to neck with Apple Safari and Norwegian Opera following close behind. Internet Explorer was placed last by a generous margin. Other browser ranking sites, such as consumersearch.com, generally follow this trend. A speedy page load time is probably a factor everyone looks for. “I use Chrome [because] it loads faster and works faster,” junior Nicholas Frijia said. In addition, sophomore Jill Lepus said, “I use Firefox because it is faster than Internet Explorer.” According to Michael Muchmore’s article, “How to Choose the Best Web Browser,” some other things to consider besides browser speed are its customizability, convenience features, and site compatibility.
Frijia is not the only student at JC to use Chrome, and it seems to be the most popular choice among the student body for attributes such as a user friendly interface and simple, convenient functions. “I prefer Chrome because I like how when you open a new tab, it shows your eight most visited sites. [Chrome is] pretty much user friendly and easy to navigate,” freshman Brianna Glase said. “[I use Chrome because] it looks clean and it is easy to use,” senior Greg Johnson, a fellow Chrome user, said.
As for Yang, she is back to old-school Internet Explorer. “It’s comfortable for me to use and I’m used to it,” she said as she goes back to happily surfing the net her way.
Grace Kim can be reached for comments at [email protected]