Posts Tagged ‘Safari’
A lot of people should have had the Microsoft browser ballot by now but was it as much of a choice as you think?
There were twelve browsers on offer but in reality they were only four. Why four, well they all use one of four rendering engines Trident, Webkit, Gecko or Presto. This means that any browsers using the same rendering engine should handle how it shows a website the same.
- Tridentis in the following browsers
- Internet Explorer
- Avant
- Maxthon
- Slim
- Green Browser
- Sleipnir
- Webkit is used in the following browsers
- Chrome
- Safari
- Gecko is in the following browsers
- Firefox
- Flock
- K-meleon
- Sleipner
- Presto is used in the following browser
- Opera
Why do browsers use the same rendering engine? Why reinvent the wheel, it is easier and cheaper for them to use one that is already built after all browsers are usually free so it helps reduce the amount of money spent on programming new ones.
Now that bit is over how do you decide what browser you want to use? Is it what I am used to, what someone recommended? Below we are going to look at some of the more technical reasons and let you have an informed choice. I will only
I will show results from sunspider, ACID3 and Browser support. These are industry standards that show how good the browsers are at displaying the the website. click on the images for a larger view
ACID3
| Safari 4 | Opera 10 | Google Chrome 2.0 & 3.0beta | Firefox 3.5 |
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| Internet explorer 8 |
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As you can see Internet explorer is way below the rest and if you think than the new Internet explorer 9 will do any better
It sill falls short compared to the rest.
Sunspider
Sunspider tests the speed the browsers handle javascript, which helps make a web page more dynamic, and like all speed tests the faster the better.
- Safari 4: 603ms
- Google Chrome 3.0 Beta: 636ms
- Google Chrome 2.0: 720ms
- Firefox 3.5: 1278ms
- Opera 10 Beta: 2975ms
- Opera 9.64: 3931ms
- Internet Explorer 8: 5441ms
Again as for internet explorer 9 it is better but it still lags behind
E9 PDC 2009 Demo 834.00ms
IE9 Mix 2010 Platform Preview 1.9.7745.6019 598.80ms
Browser support
This will show what your browser will support with HTML5 the new way of streaming video as youtube has started to offer this.
Safari 4
Firefor 3.5
Google Chrome
Opera 10
Internet Explorer 8
Internet explorer 9 does support HTML5 and CSS3 but I do not have a comparison chart for it.
If you are wanting more browser comparisons then have a look at sixvisions website
We will allow you draw your own conclusions as to which browser you want to use as it’s not all down to technical statistics but also down to individual preferences and what you are used to using.
Sunspider and Acid3 results from cybernetnews
Browser comparison from deepbluesky
If you want do download any of these browsers click on the links below
The battle between the EU and Microsoft
After years of court battles, hefty fines and more fines in the future it looks like Microsoft have finally given the EU a solution they are happy with. If you use Internet Explorer in the EU you will be sent a small update giving you the choice of between 10 and 12 different browsers including some of the more common ones. This will happen on XP, Vista and windows 7 machines and is reportedly going to be in a neutral window and not in an Internet Explorer windows with the options in a random order.
The main browsers will be:
Internet Explorer , Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari on the main page but you can scroll to get AOL, Maxthon, K-Meleon, Flock, Avant Browser, Sleipnir and Slim Browser. This list will be reviewed every 6 months and Microsoft expects 100 million machines to have displayed the pop-up by mid-March.
Browser Popularity
The percentage of global internet traffic using the following browsers:
Internet Explorer – 56%
Mozilla Firefox – 32%
Google Chrome 5%
Safari – 4%
Opera – 2%
This could just be the beginning with other now wanting to challenge other default programs the Windows bundles, like notepad.
What browsers do you use and why?
I use Internet Explorer for Microsoft sites and go between Safari and Chrome form my main browsing. I used to like Firefox but I think it has went downhill in the last year.
