IE vs. Firefox vs. Chrome - Objective Evaluations?
 

Is there a site which has objective (or more objective) comparisons between the advantages and disadvantages of the different browsers?

I'm running Firefox 4 beta. Been a Firefox user and beta tester for many years.
Good story on the differences between Firefox and IE 8 which I also run.
I go to a detailing web site, much like Pelican. One day I go to site and I get a warning
from Firefox that the site has a problem, Firefox considers it a harmful site and asks me to
reconsider going there. I opt out and load up IE8....it goes right to it, and YES the site had been hijacked ! There is a down side to Firefox, I notice that some sites tend to write their code just
for IE. On occasion I find Firefox has issues with some sites not loading right.

Web browsers seem to have fan boys as loyal as Mac users or haters. It is usually black or white. I hope you can get some good even handed input. I would like to have the same information.

Chrome looks nice, but seems to lack plugins to limit vulnerabilities. With firefox I can block ads, scripts and such on a site by site basis. I really dont like the the idea of giving google more information than I need to. I can block google analytics with firefox and noscript. With chrome, google sees everything I do with ease.

Explorer is the target of most of the exploits, so I won't run it on my machines.

Chrome does have the problem with being 'in bed' with google - and I am leery of the amount of information shared between them.

If you want some of chrome's features (I personally like the tiny downloads status bar) - but like the more independent nature of firefox - on Mozilla there is a list of plugins that add some of the functionality of Chrome to firefox...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collections/saint-michael/run-firefox-like-chrome/

I am always on a mac - so IE - ;)

Firefox uses lot's of resources, but is IMHO most robust. Also, there is this little Ad-On called "Adblock Plus" which is best thing that happened in browser scene for a long time.

Basically, you subscribe to list of sites that are to be blocked and voilá, banners, adds and other bandwidth-heavy things are filtered out. Pages load much more quickly and you don't need as much bandwidth.

So, again, away from Personal anecdotes, does someone have a link to a data driven comparison of the different browers?

Performance Comparison of Major Web Browsers

Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done

Web Browser Grand Prix: The Top Five, Tested And Ranked : Introduction

Chrome is almost always ranked highest - but they rarely mention the trade-off with the symbiotic relationship between google and chrome.

I really like Chrome, but if I opened more than two tabs, it tended to freeze. Also, at certain times, you'd click a link and it would just hang.

Been using FF for years, and am still very happy with it. Not too many people sticking up for IE :)

Chrome = fail

I installed it on my tablet and the finger scroll feature doesn't work.

From a developer standpoint, IE can be a nightmare.

Unlike other browsers, IE does not follow CSS standards (2 nor 3). They have their own filters that can sometimes cause rendering issues in other browsers. Then there's VB and ActiveX controls. Fun!

At my shop we design sites for mozilla compatibility and follow the DOM strictly. We're trying to go for HTML 5 strict but unfortunately the majority of our user base is using older Versions of FF (<3). We see about 42% FF, 28 IE, and the rest split between chrome, safari, misc.

I went to firefox from chrome about two years ago and haven't looked back.

try a search on ZDnet, James

With Pwn2Own looming, Mozilla and Google ship browser patches | ZDNet

Well, that doesn't exactly make Chrome or Firefox look any better than IE. Chrome just failed on my HP Slate 500 (You can't scroll in a Window with your finger. You have to use the scroll bar on the side!). Firefox seems to work OK, but I haven't seen anything that looks like an advantage.

The one thing I did notice on the Android Tablet, the Web access was slow, but dedicated "apps" were fast for the same content. I suspect this is browser optimization, or a lack thereof.

Again, What I'd really like to find is a 3 column objective run down of the different browsers and what works best for what. Smaller, faster, tablet optimized, etc.

You're going to have a hard time with that. I did a little searching earlier because I was thinking "how hard can it be, the mags run that sort of story all of the time". Well, I was wrong, it isn't easy to find that sort of info. That sort of article runs every year or two, but if you read an article comparing the browsers from early 2010 or any time in 2009, you may as well ignore it all. Too much changes in a year WRT browsers. You'd have to read an article that was run in the last 3 months for it to actually mean much to you.

If you're looking for your Slate, that's one thing, if you're looking for a desktop or laptop, that'll be something else again, and if you're curious about performance on your Android based tablet, that's something else entirely. The probably won't be the same for all three. It might be the same for the Slate and a Windows PC, but not definitely.

For the Android based, try the standard browser, Chrome, Dolphin, and Opera. There seem to be followers of all of them. I think the biggest "pro" to using Chrome on an Android device is that you can set things up so that bookmarks and browser "stuff" is synced to all devices where you run Chrome. That might be useful for some.

Good luck, I couldn't find anything useful.

Bzzzt, Wrong Answer!!

Link #1 is from 2009. That makes it pretty much useless.

Link #2 is better, but it's still over a year old, written Jan 2010

Link #3 is slightly better, it's from March of 2010.

Do you know what's funny about your statement? (I'm a FF user, and I'd have thought you were right, but) according to two of the links that were posted by Foxpaws, Firefox is almost universally the lowest memory user of the whole lot of them. Think about that for a minute!

Yes, adblock plus is great. If you want to get even more secure and more anonymous (well, slightly less unique at least), then install "noscript". With noscript you will have more initial configuration to do than with adblock, but I think it's worth it.

No script will essentially turn off everything on web pages that you visit except html. Then, as you visit your normal pages, you can start turning stuff back on based on the source of the script. For instance, when you pull up a webpage, you may pull up 3 or 13 different scripts from pages like facebook, ad sites, and assorted tracking sites. But, there may be one script that is for the site that you actually went to. You can tell no script (very easily) allow the script for the site and keep blocking the scripts from every where else. It'll remember your choice next time. It seems to decrease memory usage and increase speed.

Steve - I did the best I could...

And as you said - isn't it personal choice? And obviously since he is looking at a specific platform perhaps redbeard should just load all 3 and see which one he likes - well, now down to 2 since Chrome doesn't work on it. ( and personally I would be down to 1 - the evil empire should never, ever be allowed to run free on any computer ;) )

I use Firefox on everything but my android powered phone (I know - iPhone - but AT&T is crappy where I live, and I have a contract with t-mobile and can't move over to Verizon for another year). Opera works great on my phone - far more robust than anything else - smooth, tiny, happy.

Yep, I know. I figured I'd find more out there when I searched too. There just wasn't anything current. Who knows, ZDNet could come out with a new article next week, or it could be 8 months from now.

I use Firefox on all of my PCs. I even use a portable version on a USB stick on my work laptop since I'm not allowed to install FF on that laptop. I've been using Firefox since the beginning. On my android phone, I use Dolphin, Opera and the standard builti in browser. They all work well.

I would absolutely not recommend an iPhone. I think they are decent devices, but I far prefer Android based phones. I had a G1 on T-mobile when they first came out and upgraded to the G2 last year. I love them. I think Android is superior to Apple's iOS. I've also been a T-mobile customer since they were Aerial.

ZDnet had a couple of good articles, one of which shows the IE 9 is faster than Chrome! The reviewer initially had a hard time believing it!

It is funny, I used to have a subscription to ZDnet, back when it was part of Compuserve...