People say: The best Web browser: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, or Safari?

Choosing among Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari is not simple. All are perfectly good choices, but one may be slightly better for certain users than others. Bellow you may find the most interesting thoughts on this topic from LI members.

«The perfect balance of features & speed is Opera. Resource footprint & speed are my chief priorities when browsing. I like Firefox and am a fan of open source software, but FF tends to chew up more system resources than any other browser I have ever used. IE I use almost exclusively for interacting with the MS site. I find it slower to open and slow to load pages. Chrome is good, nearly as fast as Opera in my experience, but I dislike the interface. I cannot speak to Safari. I remember using it and not being blown away by its speed. »
Ed Han

«It’s a close race between Firefox and Chrome. I love many of the plug-in that make FF so easy to use, especially the S3 plug-in for my Amazon account. That just makes the upload super simple. However, sometimes it’s a little “clunky”. I use Chrome for my primary browser. In the last 90 days it began to crash more frequently than before. I only use IE if the site will not support anything else (and there still are some). »
Dan Scott
Lawyer, Coach, Entrepreneur

«If you start with features or flexibility, IE is out! There is not much to customizing it unless you can do some application development; IE7Pro is an example it adds features but how many of us can say we could have wrote that program compared to writing an add-on/extension/widget for the other browsers? Firefox as far as feature or flexibility goes would top the chart; you cannot create your own build with the other browsers like you can with Firefox. Examples of alternative Firefox’s is Flock, Camino, Fennec, etc. Not to mention that the engine under neath it all can be used for other things. I would say Chrome, Opera and Safari are relatively tied regarding features and flexibility; the most you can do with them is create add-ons. Firefox overall has the balance of features, speed, innovations, and flexibility. Some may say it is a resource hog, but so are the others once you start tacking on add-ons/extensions/widgets. The add-ons are what bog them down. There is nothing you cannot do with Firefox. What would make Firefox even more superior is the ability to enable/disable without restarting like Chrome and Safari. Firefox well more specifically the engine behind it all can be formed to do numerous things. If you where my mom and dad well into their 80’s I would tell you to use Chrome (it’s just plain simple). If you are like me and want full control over your bookmarks (sorting, duplication, tagging, suggestions, etc), advertising, custom page editing, leaving post it notes on sites you go to, and integration then go with Firefox. »
Richard Lloyd
Freelance IT Consultant

«I’m a Chrome user. I used to use Firefox, but starting with 3.5 it became quite the resource hog. There is no reason for a web browser to use 100MB+ of memory with no add-ons and sitting on about: blank. For the add-ons that I used in Firefox, I’ve found replacements in Chrome. I like that my toolbars can stay active (processing data) but out of the way in Chrome. I never found a way to do that in Firefox. I used Opera for a short while until I learned that my data was being bounced through their servers. If I want data bounced anywhere like that, I’ll use TOR. I never really liked the interface in Safari. Seemed clumsy to me, like most things Apple. The only thing that I use IE for any more is Microsoft.com sites and Netflix instant (stupid unnecessary DRM). If your website requires me to use IE (or even Firefox) to use and locks me out otherwise, I leave. »
Brian Altenhofel
Web developer

And which of the leading browsers is the perfect balance of features, speed, innovation, and flexibility for you?

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