The official weblog of ClickBook.net. ClickBook streamlines the process of appointment scheduling for small business, schools and other organisations. For technical updates please visit the Technical Blog.

About ’browsers’

Mark Demicoli  14 January 2011 07:47:16 PM
When you buy a computer, it will almost always come with a built-in internet 'browser'.  The choice of browser that your vendor imposes upon you is decided for political or commercial reasons.  That's all I'll say about that for now.

Image:About ’browsers’

You are probably using Internet Explorer, Apple Safari or Mozilla Firefox to 'drive' the internet, and you probably didn't decide to either.  Some might even use Google Chrome, the new kid on the block.

Your browser is your 'car' to navigate the 'roads' of the internet.  This post is a quick rundown of the 'cars' available, and how you can choose the right 'car' for you.

The key browsers today are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari and Google Chrome.  All of these are available on both the PC and Mac.  Here is our experience of the main players.  If you want to avoid the nerd-logic, skip ahead to the end.  The following few paragraphs are purely academic.


Image:About ’browsers’


Internet Explorer, while being the essential vehicle of the internet during most of the 90's and early 2000's, has now become slow and belligerent.  Once a pioneer in the area, it is now best avoided, due to it's corporate focus, audacious (failed) attempts to set standards with a resting on it's market dominance,  and rejection of world standards.

FireFox was the breath of fresh air, so to speak, bringing discipline to Internet browsing.  We have a lot of respect for Firefox, however it may not be suitable for computers with limited memory.  It IS a bit of a hog, and slows down over time, while providing many more features for the serious browser user.  Even so, it's extensive features and fabulous support for 'plugins' cannot be discounted.

Apple Safari is Apple's standard Internet browser on all Mac computers.  It has in recent times been released for Windows users, however it should be approached with caution on PCs, as it is built on the same technology as Internet Explorer.  For Apple users, Mozilla Firefox is a serious alternative when things don't quite work on your favourite websites.

Then, ofcourse, we have Google Chrome, the new kid on the block. It has made a hugely impressive debut into the market. Much like FireFox in it's ability to browse the web problem free, it is significantly smaller and quick to load and therefore best recommended on computers that are slower.   Yes, Google Chrome is effectively the fastest browser out there.

If our bias isn't obvious, let me spell it out.

We really like Mozilla FireFox and Google Chrome.  In fact, we do our initial testing of new features on FireFox due to it's adherence to internet standards.  Due to it's various personalities, we spend a lot of time making ClickBook work on Internet Explorer, which we wish we did not have to.

Sorry Microsoft!

Mozilla Firefox can be found here, and Google Chrome can be found at here.