The Browser War: Chrome, Firefox or IE… which is your favorite?

'browser war' illustration by Galit Weisberg

We see stats every other month about the “browser wars” and which internet browser is creeping up on the other or completely getting slaughtered. But how do YOU feel about the browsers we use everyday? Do you have a favorite?

For years, I was a Firefox fanatic. I loaded it up with tons of Add Ons like ScreenGrab and ReadItLater and pretty much swore by it until Google Chrome came out. Granted, it took me a while to give Chrome a chance but eventually Firefox‘s crashing and lagging drove me beyond my limit. Once given a serious test-drive, Chrome quickly became my new favorite. But while Chrome has many great Extensions (a lot like Firefox‘s Add Ons), I’ve yet to find a substitute for some of my favorites. Nonetheless, I’ve made my little nest on Chrome and would prefer to not have to move anywhere else.

As a designer that needs to see how sites render in multiple browsers — and because Firefox has Extensions that I can’t find elsewhere — I do use Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari from time to time. So far, I’ve had few complaints about Chrome aside from the fact that it sometimes disappears without warning… majorly annoying. Also… let’s not forget to mention that while Chrome saves your last visited websites (as most browsers do), I’ve had infuriating moments where the session has been completely lost… even more annoying. While I could continue, nothing I’ve encountered could sway me completely away from my home at Chrome… maybe.

I was recently working on a web project and a page that I thought was fine turned out to look screwed up in Internet Explorer but what else is new? While trying to fix the error, I lost the file on both my computer and the servers. PANIC! Before I really freaked out, I attempted to search my browser cache but couldn’t find what I was looking for. “Where’s Chrome’s offline mode?” A quick Google search revealed that Chrome does not in fact have an offline mode. “WTF!?” Apparently the feature is only available by enabling Google Gears. “Seriously?”

I immediately ran to the other browsers that I’d used that day but I guess I didn’t open that specific page anywhere else but Chrome. I looked on my local drive and even tried an application called Chrome Cache View which only shows the files — you cannot save them from the application. Feeling completely defeated, my only option was to access a colleague’s system as they had used Internet Explorer to see the page earlier that day. I searched the browser history, viewed the page in offline mode, saved it… and therefore saved my ass. “Internet Explorer was useful for something?”

You’ve read all of this to learn that I no longer have a favorite internet browser… I hate them all. How about you?