Following the legal agreement between Microsoft and the European Competition Commission in December 2009, millions of Internet Explorer users in Europe now have the option of choosing an alternative browser.
However, many internet users don’t know what other browsers exist as up until now, as Microsoft have dominated the internet browser market by building Internet Explorer into Windows.
Here is a list of some of the most commonly used internet browsers and the differences between them:
Mozilla Firefox (www.Mozilla.com)
Firefox has long been one of the most common Internet Explorer alternatives and with the arrival of its new version Firefox 4, Mozilla have really upped their game. Firefox offers over 6000 add-ons, customisation, private browsing and built-in spell checking.
Mozilla have really upped their game -Firefox offers over 6000 add-ons, customisation, private browsing and built-in spell checking
Google Chrome (www.google.co.uk/chrome)
Google Chrome has become increasingly popular. Due to its light weight, cut-down look it’s one of the speediest browsers available. With the need for Macromedia Flash Player to run many websites, Google have made things very easy with Chrome by building in in to the browser. Users can also search for websites directly from the address bar using the Google search engine.
Internet Explorer 9 (http://www.microsoft.com/uk/windows)
Microsoft have recently released their latest web browser Internet Explorer 9. Unfortunately they have only made this update available to users running Windows Vista and Windows 7, which is rather disappointing considering many users are still running Windows XP.
Internet Explorer has had an incredible refresh, in version 7 and 8 it had become increasingly sluggish, however according to recent speed reviews it now beats Google Chrome.
Microsoft have taken a clean page look from Google Chrome by removing many of the buttons that were very rarely used.
The only thing that Internet Explorer doesn’t have on offer are the third party add-ons available with other browsers.
Apple Safari (http://www.apple.com/safari)
The Safari browser runs on all Apple devices including the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Mac. Apple have also created a version of Safari to run on Windows.
Safari’s features are comparable to the other browsers reviewed. Additional features include spell checking and resizable text boxes. The only downside with Safari is that it doesn’t include any anti-phishing technology that is included with other browsers.
