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Which is the best browser? Certainly it would have to be a standards-based browser, so that would rule out Internet Explorer 7 and before (IE 8 is at least better than previous releases, even if it’s still not at all outstanding). Preferably a good browser would be free and open source so that it offers a free and accessible platform for developers, so that would rule out Opera (which really is an excellent browser, though probably not a platform in itself). Safari meets the free and open source test (more or less given its relationship to the Webkit project), but given that it comes from Apple, there is some questions as to whether it can likely offer a solid and open development platform.
But offering all of those things is Mozilla’s Firefox and Google’s Chrome. So which one of those is better? Since Firefox has been around for a few years, it has a lead in the overall platform situation–many features, add-ons and plugins are available to modify the browser for myriad specialized uses, including the ability to use bookmarklets in the toolbar, implement IRC chat, use the Stumbleupon toolbar, and use local Javascript create UI changes on popular web sites like Gmail or Yahoo Mail.
But Chrome already has a plugin system in beta builds, so many of the popular tools available on Firefox should be available soon. So the really difference comes down to usability and performance. And those are the reasons I have recently gone back to Firefox after using Chrome for several months. Even though Chrome is really very fast, Firefox 3.5 has narrowed the raw performance gap compared to Chrome (and the also very fast Safari) for loading one page at a time. And in terms of handling multiple tabs and overall user interface, Firefox is just better. It can load a page that you open up in a tab, even with Flash in it, even though you don’t visit it. Chrome can’t really seem to load a page effectively unless you sit with its tab open, at least for a few seconds. In the modern multi-tabbed web user experience, it’s easy to see why Firefox is definitely in the lead for now.