trenzterra Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 (edited) The browser wars are long over, but that does not mean that Internet Explorer will rule forever. Alternatives are coming up very quickly, even surpassing some of the features Internet Explorer has. Meanwhile, the newly formed IE team has to fix the web that it has broken. But that's not the issue for the end user. What they want is a browser with sufficient functionality, speed, and of course, displaying stuff well. Who are the contenders? Opera 7.5, Firefox 0.91 and Internet Explorer 6 SP1. First, we take a look at the screen area of the browsers. ------------------------------- Screen area ------------------------------- Setup: Internet Explorer: Menu bar, icon bar, address bar Firefox: Menu bar, icon + address bar Opera: Menu bar, icon + address bar Notes: There's actually a text ad in unregistered copies in Opera, and I have one too. Therefore, I just take a screenshot, edit the screenshot and move the menu bar up to where the text ad is, and there I roughly calculate the area. And IE has too many icons, if not I could have moved the address bar to where the icon bar is. Test: The test is easy to conduct. I just switch between windows, and there you can get a gauge about what is happening. For more accurate testing, I put them side by side too. Results: Opera wins, followed by Firefox. I use the default theme for Firefox for the testing, if you use Qute, you will find that they both have the same screen area. Internet Explorer could have done better if the address bar was next to the icon bar. Internet Explorer: 1 Firefox: 2 Opera: 3 ------------------------------- Default Theme ------------------------------- Some people just aren't motivated to find new themes, so they just stick with the default one... So let's evaluate the default theme. Notes: I am using Windows XP with Internet Explorer, so we'll judge by that theme. We'll also use the default themes for Opera and Firefox. Test: Well, just look. Results: Opera wins hands down. The theme is applied everywhere, including checkboxes and ticks. Internet Explorer comes in second, for its well detailed icons which are nice looking, although there are some inconsistencies once you open up Internet Options. However, Firefox's theme sucks. It looks like it has been made in Microsoft Paint. If you gave me Qute, I would give it a better rank than Opera. Internet Explorer: 2 Firefox: 1 Opera: 3 ------------------------------- Ease of Use ------------------------------- Simplicity is bliss. Test: I looked around, playing with features and exploring. Results: Opera has a very organised and consistent feel, but it still lost to Firefox and Internet Explorer. The features are overwhelming and are sorted into many different categories, and doing something as simple as switching proxy servers required me to look around a bit. Internet Explorer's was not so bad, although it was also cluttered. Firefox gave me the most ease of use, it was simple and easy to navigate, and the features are laid out very nicely and neatly. It looked the most professional. Internet Explorer: 2 Firefox: 3 Opera: 1 ------------------------------- Speed ------------------------------- What's the point of surfing the net with slow speed? Here, we take the browsers to the speed test. You have to render pages quickly to keep up. Test: I used estimation, and in some cases, accurate timing. Results: Firefox took 3 seconds, Opera took 5 seconds and Internet Explorer took 10 seconds. Internet Explorer: 1 Firefox: 3 Opera: 2 ------------------------------- Rendering Engine ------------------------------- However fast it gets, if you can't render things well, YOU DIE! Notes: Internet Explorer broke the web, now it must fix it. Test: Just open a page with complex CSS and stuff. Results: Both Opera and Firefox tie with each other. They both display pages very well and smooth. Internet Explorer comes in third, it broke the web and uses its own standards. And they don't support W3C's standards very well. Internet Explorer: 1 Firefox: 3 Opera: 3 ------------------------------- Downloads ------------------------------- Downloads are important in every web browser. Almost everyone will use them. We're not talking about web pages, images etc, but zip files, exe files and more. Test: Download a file. Results: Both Opera and Firefox are very good contenders, but I gave an extra point to Firefox for its simplicity again. Opera has lots of functionality but is very hard to access a simple feature such as cleaning up. But it lets you open via WinZip if you have it etc., so it's more convenient. You can restart the download in Opera too, which you can't do in Firefox. However, nothing can beat Firefox's functionality. Internet Explorer: 1 Firefox: 3 Opera: 2 ------------------------------- Functionalities ------------------------------- Functionalities are little extras that are vital. These do not include plug-ins. Test: Explore the functionalities. Results: Opera wins, no doubt. Cluttered it may be, its functions cannot be beaten by both IE and Firefox. You can write notes and morre in Opera which you can't do in any other browser. Firefox comes in second, it has a very good extension manager, and DOM Inspector is expected to work soon. Internet Explorer has no tab browser, images etc, so it obviously loses. Internet Explorer: 1 Firefox: 2 Opera: 3 ------------------------------- Plug-ins ------------------------------- Plug-ins are very nifty extras that some people might use at some point. Test: Test out how to install and uninstall plug-ins. Results: Firefox wins in this section, with its very easy to use extension manager. IE comes in second, although it is very easily exploited particularly in this area. I couldn't find any extension manager in Opera, so it comes in last. Internet Explorer: 2 Firefox: 3 Opera: 1 ------------------------------- Support ------------------------------- Which brings us to our last section, support. Test: See the help system. Results: For some reason, the help file is missing in FF 0.91 although it was present in 0.9. But still, it loses, although it has a friendly community, because it's not present. Internet Explorer is second, it's help file is quite informative although it's messy. Opera is first in this section, it's help file is easy to navigate and it's community is friendly. Internet Explorer: 2 Firefox: 1 Opera: 3 ------------------------------- Results ------------------------------- Both Firefox and Opera tie with each other with 21 points. Internet Explorer, meanwhile, only receives 13 points. However, I would like to give an extra point to Firefox because of it's overall simplicity and look. If only Opera was free... Edited July 5, 2004 by trenzterra Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJerman Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Nice, however there is one thing I notice wrong there. I would give Firefox a higher score for features because there are new extensions being made every day. PLUS... Mouse gestures are most definatly not exclusive to Opera, take a clickie on this linkie right here ;) http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/#mousegest Anyway, Great review! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trenzterra Posted May 23, 2004 Author Share Posted May 23, 2004 Ah, I forgot about that. Updated it :) Thanks for the praise anyway, I appreciate it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RadishTM Veteran Posted May 23, 2004 Veteran Share Posted May 23, 2004 A decent review, good work (Y) :) Radish? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zhangm Supervisor Posted May 23, 2004 Supervisor Share Posted May 23, 2004 Uhhhm, right. Phoenix: 0.1 - 0.5 Firebird: 0.6 - 0.7 FireFox: 0.8 - 0.8+ Know your browser history. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trenzterra Posted May 23, 2004 Author Share Posted May 23, 2004 Damn, Firebird is like so old now, that I forgot what ver was it. I swear I didn't know Phoenix lasted so long! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nexus- Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 ok nice but i think you forgot to mention Firefox > IE > Opera :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trenzterra Posted May 23, 2004 Author Share Posted May 23, 2004 Yeah, but just too bad Opera has too many features that I can't make it third. :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Warwagon MVC Posted May 23, 2004 MVC Share Posted May 23, 2004 Good Work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Veteran Posted May 23, 2004 Veteran Share Posted May 23, 2004 Under the features category, you said you were taking into account plugins, yet you didn't mention the possiblities offered with ActiveX in IE... Sure it can be used to install spyware, but just READ WHAT YOU'RE INSTALLING before you click yes :wacko: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PseudoRandomDragon Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Unfortunately, ActiveX is full of holes. It also is a problem for those who share a computer with others. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
em_te Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Nice, however there is one thing I notice wrong there. I would give Firefox a higher score for features because there are new extensions being made every day. PLUS... Mouse gestures are most definatly not exclusive to Opera, take a clickie on this linkie right here ;) http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/#mousegestAnyway, Great review! :) And mouse gestures for IE is here: http://www.tcbmi.com/strokeit/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Veteran Posted May 23, 2004 Veteran Share Posted May 23, 2004 Unfortunately, ActiveX is full of holes. Such as? :huh: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
em_te Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Internet Explorer supports many features that both Firefox and Opera don't support, but that is because the features they support do not adhere to the W3C standard, so it's virtually useless. They aren't completely useless provided that you use them as value-added features rather then requirements. For example, IE supports rotating images to any angle which I use to create simple animations. But when run on other browsers like Firefox, it also animates but just doesn't rotate. No loss of functionality there. Although IE has full CSS1 support, it probably doesn't have full CSS2 and 3 support. The reason for such incompatibility is also because of Internet Explorer, so because of IE, we can't design sites so well. XHTML and CSS was designed to degrade gracefully in older browsers for this purpose so you should go ahead and use it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bearded Kirklander Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 I prefer My IE 2 with IE 6, but think Mozilla with the AutoScroll and Tab Browsing extentions is pretty outstanding. I don't like Opera at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Such as? :huh: I couldnt agree more, activex is great, for things like msn chat, and y! etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zhangm Supervisor Posted May 23, 2004 Supervisor Share Posted May 23, 2004 You gotta laugh at the irony that the only XPI exploit for FireFox so far installs a search bar...on IE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elliot Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Here, we don't take in account that IE is integrated in Windows blah blah, we take it from the end-user perspective But the end-users perspective is that IE loads faster, even if they don't know it's because it's intergrated. :hmmm: Can't help but feel you're biased against IE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mstx Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 You gotta laugh at the irony that the only XPI exploit for FireFox so far installs a search bar...on IE. :rofl: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sp0rk Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Such as? :huh: Such as the last 10 or so ActiveX computing zone exploits that allow remote execution of VBscript code or exes on a machine. New variations are constantly popping up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weasel Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Such as? :huh: Are you kidding? Look at all these security bulletins concerning ActiveX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trenzterra Posted May 23, 2004 Author Share Posted May 23, 2004 Made some changes: Mentioned about Google Toolbar Virtually useless now bad (Don't know of a better word yet) Mentioned about plug-ins for IE. No, I'm not bias against IE, it's the only browser I use on a day-to-day basis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galley Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Opera's side panel is great, plus you didn't mention that the ads are disabled in the registered version. That also gets you faster tech support. How cold anyone use a browser without tabs these days? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aldo Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 I couldnt agree more, activex is great, for things like msn chat, and y! etc What?! I don't think I've seen one good use for ActiveX which couldnt of been done better in java or flash. ActiveX is horrible and it will hopefully die with everyone turning it off due to the amount of 'install xyz dialer' popups on the web. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aldo Posted May 23, 2004 Share Posted May 23, 2004 Opera's side panel is great, plus you didn't mention that the ads are disabled in the registered version. That also gets you faster tech support. How cold anyone use a browser without tabs these days? Personally I think it's better if you compare it only for the free version. You can also buy tech support from Mozilla if you wish. One point that hasn't been mentioned is that Opera has a built in email client, whereas FireFox and IE dont... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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