As a geek and web junkie the browser you choose is very important. The browser is your portal to the world wide web and if you choose the wrong one for your own needs then you won't have as great an e-xperience (sorry >.<) browsing the Internet as you could. Yesterday I realized I had 5 browsers installed on my Vista machine, count 'em, five! There was the bundled Internet Explorer 7, the evangelized Firefox 2, the mobile-king Opera 9, the social Flock 0.9 and the new kid on the Windows turf, Safari for Windows. In this journal entry I will endeavor to whittle them down until I find the best browser for my needs, and I intend to share my journey with you. Now aren't you lucky?

General

This is the vague category where I discuss each browser but focus on no particular feature.

Internet Explorer 7

The UI for Internet Explorer isn't that bad. It's simple and really has on the basics required for browsing (it even hides the File, Edit, View etc menus by default.) I feel that if the AERO glass wasn't there however then IE7 would feel far too heavy. In other words, AERO relieves a lot of the apparent window weight of IE7.

Continuing with the bulky theme, I feel that the tabs are too big and gaudy. I understand this was probably done to accommodate the elderly and those new to computers with less control of the mouse, but I am not one of them and frankly the bulky tabs annoy me as they add more 'weight' to IE7 and wastes a lot of space.

Moving away from the chrome now I'd like to mention something which every developer already knows. IE7 has poor standards support. Yes it is better than IE6 but that's not saying much considering IE6 is a dinosaur of a browser. My website displays fine in every other browser (apart from Opera but we'll get to that) yet in IE7 things seem to be out of place. I understand that it's our job as web developer's to make up for IE7's bugs - and this is all well when you're getting paid for your time - but when you are developing websites in your own time then it's difficult to sacrifice personal time on bug fixing. Either way, it's not good enough for IE7 to render pages so different to other browsers.

Firefox 2

Firefox 2. The Browser. This is the browser that makes the knees of geeks all over the world go weak. It has also been my browser of choice since 1.5 came out. It sure has a lot of fanfare around it but let's see if it can stand up to the noise.

Extensions. They are the building blocks of Firefox's success to date. Sure, at the start it was the standards compliance but there are a lot of standards compliant browsers around these days so I don't think it's the reason anymore. Instead, Firefox extensibility through Extensions is what makes it the browser for most geeks. With Extensions you can do almost anything and everything you want with Firefox. My favourite extensions are the Web Developer's Toolbar and my Ma.gnolia button. I have others installed, like Stylish, Firebug and Google Gears but I don't find myself using these too often.

Firefox is also heavy. In fact it's heavier than IE7 because it receives the same bulky AERO borders and title bar that IE7 gets and then on top of that it's got 4 rows of toolbars and menus compared to IE7's two. For this reason I end up using Firefox only when it's maximised, doing this lightens up the 'apparent weight' of the Window as it's spread out across a larger area.

Tabs. I feel like Firefox has hit the sweet spot for tabs. Not too big to make me feel like they are wasting my precious space but not too small as too make them difficult to use for someone new to a mouse.

Opera 8

Not only does Opera 9's UI look like it's come out of a Cartoon Network show but it also failed to load my website as well as Google. This was frustrating to say the least and I really couldn't be bothered uninstalling and reinstalling Opera. It seems every other browser updates itself (or at least asks me to do so) and if Opera didn't then I wasn't going to chase after it. It's a shame as Opera is meant to have great standards compliancy and I would have liked to check it out but really worth the effort? No.

Flock 0.9

What a train wreck! The UI team at Flickr could really learn a thing from the phrase "less is more", or "too much of anything is a bad thing." All you have to do is look at this image of the toolbar and understand what I mean. There is way to much going on there! I feel that they had something with their "Media Bar", here's a thought. One button. Yes, only one, that opens up the Media Bar which then gives you access to all the social stuff. I've never seen so many icons in one place before.

Getting past the visual overload I'd like to mention that Flock 0.9 is now compatible with Firefox extensions so it is just as extensible as Firefox - although I think adding any more to the Flock browser will make the world implode.

Paul Stamatiou has more on Flock 0.9

Safari 3 Beta (for Windows)

Browser Bliss! From a visual standpoint Safari wins hands down. The icons are simple and easy to understand. Customizing the toolbar feels very organic as does re-ordering tabs, dragging a tab into a new window and of course that beautiful genie effect. Ah...

Safari's tabs are perfect for me. Well almost, the size and look of the tabs are just wonderful except for the fact that the "Close" button is on the left side of every tab. Apple, you are now on a Windows machine - follow Windows UI standards and put the freaking "Close" button on the right like we are used to!

That's the other nitpick about Safari's look. It's UI is not designed for the Windows environment. In between all my Windows it stands out like a sore-thumb. If Microsoft didn't follow Apple's UI laws then the Mac fan-boys would be all over them, why can't Apple realise they are not in OSX when they are in Windows - they are in fact in Windows! Get it right Apple, and while you're at it fix iTunes.

No extensions. This is a killer blow to Safari for me. I don't heavily rely on extensions for normal browsing as I only use the Ma.gnolia extension (in Firefox) but this isn't available in Safari. I did try the bookmarklets for Ma.gnolia and Safari for Windows isn't supported yet. Great! Safari OSX and Safari Windows is not the same browser?

Bookmarks/Favourites

I don't use these a lot (in fact I don't use local bookmarks at all) but most people seem to so I thought I'd look at them anyway.

Sidebar

Firefox 2 and Internet Explorer both manage favourites in a sidebar, Flock does the same however I didn't take a screenshot as I'm over it's UI. I like this as it means you can drag tabs into the favourites as well as links from within the current page you are viewing. That's nice.

Full Page

Safari and Opera choose to go down the route where managing bookmarks took place in a seperate tab. This is also the way that Flock used to handle bookmarks. I think this is stupid because although it may still be possible to drag tabs to form bookmarks, you cannot drag links on the current page to form bookmarks.

Add a Bookmark/Bookmark Bar/Social Bookmarking

All the browser have a "Add as Bookmark" feature which is simple to use and works well although Safari wins because it has that wonderful genie effect.

They also all have a Bookmarks bar which is expected as it's become de facto. These bookmark bars can be hidden of course if you don't use them often.

Flock is the only browser which supports adding bookmarks to Delicious and Ma.gnolia however Firefox (and I believe IE7) also supports this with Extensions or Add-ons.

RSS

RSS is the new thing on the Internet and with it's integration in IE7 it is on it's way to becoming mainstream. Like Bookmarks I don't use the local RSS storage because I find myself constantly switching between different machines. Instead, I rely on Google's Reader for my RSS goodness.

Internet Explorer 7

As IE7 now supports RSS I believe it is finally on it's way to becoming mainstream, YAY. IE7 let's you select which feed from the page you want to access then gives a nicely formatted page with the feed. It gives you the option to subscribe to the feed and then also sort the feed items currently being viewed. This is much, much better than showing people the raw XML file which is what some browsers used to do.

Safari 3 Beta (Windows)

Safari takes a similar approach to Internet Explorer. When a feed is picked up a blue (odd choice since RSS is associated with ORANGE) RSS icon shows up in the address bar. When it's clicked the above formatted page is presented. In true Apple fashion it looks much better than IE7's version. When viewing a feed the RSS icon in the address bar is inverted (white on blue goes to blue on white) and when this is clicked you are returned to the page you were visiting before. Nice.

Safari offers a lot more functionality on it's formatted page such as the ability to change the length of entry shown and to email the link to this feed to someone. Unfortunately Safari only lets Bookmark the feed, unlike IE7, which allows you to subscribe to the feed in Google Reader.

Firefox 2

The only good thing Firefox has going for it in terms of RSS is when you click on the RSS icon it gives you (or atleast me) the option of adding it to either my Google homepage or Google Reader. That's good because it is all that it does. In my experience Firefox shows no formatted version of the feed.

Preferences/Options

The way we change our browsers to suit us is very important. It can't be too difficult but it needs to be customizable.

Internet Explorer 7

I'm going to give IE7 some slack. It can't change much of it's Options panel because it's got a huge user-base that wouln't respond well to the change in the Options section (they've had to get used to a new look while browsing, if they had to figure out how to fine0tune there browser, again, then they'd be very unhappy.) Frankly, IE7 has the worst Options menu in my opinion. Everything is really boring.

Firefox 2

Firefox 2 has a very simple and easy to use Options dialog. Everything is grouped, easy to find and understand and the visual clues in the tabs makes things simpler and more enjoyable to use. Using Firefox's options dialog is a lot more like a car fan tweaking his car's engine than IE7's experience which can be likened to figuring out how to use that Japanese imported DVD player. One is fun, the other is frustrating.

Safari 3 Beta (Windows)

Safari has arguably the best and simplest Preferences dialog of the lot. It doesn't even require you to hit OK, changes are made on the fly (which can be a bit disorientating at first.) The Preferences dialog has it's own window (it can be operated seperate of the browser window from which it was summoned) and well, looks great. I also love the fact that it changes size depending on the options available on that particular tab. It allows you to minimise the space used by the Preferences dialog.

Text Rendering

Simply, text rendering is extremely important for the usability of a browser. For this section I'd like to redirect you to a great post by Khaled Abou Alfa about Font Rendering.

In closing

After this entire journey through browser land I've come out with not one, but two winners. When I use browser I have two hats, the web developer hat and the web junkie hat. Firefox is the browser for developing on the web at the moment but for me Safari is so much better for everyday browsing. I'd like to make a closing statement about each browser.

Firefox 2 - Web Development

This should come as no surprise to you that Firefox 2 comes out on top as my browser of choice for web development. In fact at the moment it really is the only contender with it's great standards compliance and the wonderful "Web Developer Toolbar" and "Firebug" extensions. I really can't develop without them so Firefox is sticking around.

Safari Beta 3 (Windows) - Day to Day Browsing

The main reasons for Safari winning are it's simple interface and beautiful text rendering. At first it's a bit odd but once you get used to it there is no going back. Safari's text rendering really comes out on top. Coupled with it's simple to use interface, Safari is the best day-to-day browser for me.

I would like to see some extensions available for Safari on Windows so that services like Ma.gnolia and Google Reader can release extensions for it. Or - I would like OSX Safari and Windows Safari to behave the same way so that developers don't have to create two different bookmarklets to work in Safari. This is really the thing I am missing in Safari. I need to be able to bookmark to Ma.gnolia easily and I need to be able to subscribe my feeds into Google Reader.

Finally Safari needs to become more native in the Windows environment. I've gotten used to it now, but Apple, don't be so hypocritical. Also fix your status bar, that indented text is really hard to read when it comes to URIs.