Which web browser is the best?

It really depends on what you are looking for in a browser. Internet Explorer has been around for ages, and has the full support of Microsoft behind it. It's got over 70% of the market share and as a result is recognisable to almost everybody. It is sleek and powerful, but on old(ish) computers that may slow you down a bit. Still, as the standard browser, you won't find many other negatives with it.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamil...

Mozilla FireFox is a highly customizable browser. It has the advantage of being the one of only browsers that is compatible with all operating systems. New themes and gadgets are released every week, and this gives a personal feel to it when viewing websites. Although it slows the computer down, it isn't as bad as IE, though on a fast computer, you won't notice much of a difference between the two.

FireFox 3.0.4: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all.html

Other options available are Opera Browser. This browser offers very limited customization features (only a colour change in fact), but because of this gives very fast browsing. It was mainly developed for low memory computers, and is more of an "Internet Suite" than just a browser. It provides users with the tools and technology to perform a wide variety of internet related tasks like viewing web pages, searching the Internet, sending and receiving emails, conducting online chats, and even displaying the latest Widgets. It doesn't require as many resources as IE or FF, but it isn't very fun to browse in something that looks as out-of-date as it does.

Opera 9.62: http://www.opera.com/download/

The final major browser is Apple Safari. In my opinion it is the fastest of the 4 browser and my personal favourite. Its style is based on the iTunes layout and it doesn't offer any customizability, but if you like iTunes, you'll love this browser. Its major downfall is the fact that it doesn't render (load) webpages very well. This can become very irritating while browsing so most people don't give it a second thought. It has many of the same features as IE and Firefox, including: QuickTime multimedia technology, a tabbed-browsing interface system, and internet searching tools. It does run very fast (even on slow computers) and has the best startup time of all browsers. If you find that the pages you usually visit work fine on Safari, you won't have anything bad to say about it.

Safari 3.2: http://support.apple.com/downloads/Safari_3_2_for_...

A new introduction to the Browser market is Google Chrome, Google's first attempt at an internet browser. It is currently in a beta version, but it seems to be one of the fastest browsers out there. But, as it is still in beta, there are many stability and security problems with it. I would recommend against using it as your primary browser, for the moment at least, until the final release comes out.

Google Chrome 0.3.154.9 Beta: http://www.google.com/chrome/index.html?hl=en&bran...

So it really depends on what kind of person you are and what type of computer you have. You can't go wrong with IE or FF, but under stress, they perform slowly, Opera is a boring looking browser but can run where the other two can't, Safari has problems with rendering many webpages and there are far too many security risks with Chrome, but is much the fastest of them all. I personally use all five of them (but IE and Safari are my main two) and have no problem with any of them.

Hope that helps.

Hands down, it's Firefox.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by the plug ins thing, it's something you have to do with any browser, some just keep it behind the scenes a bit. That, and IE does have a lot of that stuff on board already.

Anyhoo...Firefox is Open Sourced. That alone gets high marks. Instead of a team of 10 or 20 developers, you have thousands. Add ons, themes...all that.. you can't beat it.

Chrome is decent for a beta browser. Skins and what not, well I don't really have much use for em, but Chrome lacks a lot of features.

IE 8 is in Beta, and is a pretty decent piece of software. The browser market really forced MS to up its game on this release, and stop creating half-compliant software that drives developers crazy. As a web developer, i couldn't be more thankful for that.

IE } as simple to use as any browser (except for textonly ones!); for the "you don't need to donwload that or that" read FF. (so: zero good things to IE!)

FF } «you need to install all of those freaking plug-ins» ... it would happen also with IE, if it wouldn't be preinstalled (that's how monopoly works); you won't get the same "install that freakin plugin" just because it is already installed because someone pushhed in your throat that IE crap.

Opera } simply the best web compliance, css and svg support (check out the text-shadow css2 prop). it's completely free, bug fixes are made at common rate, i use it often, never crashed and never asked for money... luckly i've no Vista!

Google Chrome } too young, but promising

putting aside G Chrome just because it is not on the competition yet, my classification is

Opera, Firefox, ............................ Internet Explorer

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@charlie7...

i can program a site that won't work with IE. i can project web services that work only on Firefox, and on GNU/Linux, because of some needed prog/service/plugin that is not present for Windows.

Those are not browsers' faults: they are programmers/service providers' faults!

Since there's a monopoly, it happens commonly the opposite (firefox can't, IE can), but it is not a issue of Firefox: do not complain with the mozilla programmers or Firefox versions (3 full version no support for a microsofterish-only closed monopolyst service? wow, since we believe in freedom and democracy, we should shout hurray when Firefox does not support crap)... what about IE version 7 taht is not STANDARD (publically available for free) compliant yet?!

INTERNET EXPLORER. Hands down.

Yeah, Firefox is ok... and it's very popular. However, there are still far too many sites that Firefox can't process, and you end up switching back to IE anyways.

My bank's website, Charter One, has some online resources we can access that Firefox can't figure out how to load.

My school website uses software that allows us to view online classes with Powerpoint presentations online, and Firefox can't handle them.

There are example after example of websites that Firefox (after 3 full versions now) can't load, so until it can do what IE can do, it's stuck at second best.

I love Firefox.. I've never had any problems with it freezing, and mos to of the viruses are programmed around IE as it's the most popular, so I feel safer with Firefox

it's just an awesome programme

Firefox is best. It comes with all sorts off addons you can install, its super simple to use, it doesn't hog your system resources, it's fast, and most importantly it's SAFE. Much safer than say IE. I switched over from IE about 2 years ago, and i couldn't be happier. Give it a go.

Firefox rocks! Even when it crashes (infrequently) it saves your session so you get right back to where you were before.

Don't use IE, as a web developer I hate IE. The don't comply to internet standards and everything displays wonky unit you write browser specific hacks to fix it. Don't support IE!

i like firefox but ive never used opera or google chrome so i wouldnt know which ones best

Web is like global. and internet is like internet. FOr me, ITS THE SAME!

In my opinion the best is google chrome but it is not the perfect.I have never tried it so I can't say you details but I think it is the best among others