What Browser? Don't Ask Google
Ever since the browser wars and the 1998 Microsoft antitrust trial (during which the software giant was convicted of monopolistic and illegal business practices for its bundling of Windows with Internet Explorer), consumers have been largely unaware of how they access the Internet. These magical portals are too often "chosen" by consumers through a manipulative dance during which the partner - generally a huge corporation with mind share and stock shares at stake - remains unseen.
"Some folks at Google," as the project team is quaintly described on Google's new What Browser site, were charged with explaining what a browser is and what choices consumers have. They got halfway there; but as far as helping consumers make informed choices, information is still limited to pretty colors and shiny logos.
Browsers Made Simple
The cornerstone of the site is this average user-friendly animated video explaining in painfully simple terms what a web browser does. It's not an OS, and it's not a search engine. It was simple enough that my 8-year-old niece didn't have too much of a problem with the post-video comprehension check I gave her.
The site gives equally simple text tutorials on how to change a homepage, a default search engine, and a default browser. Credit must go to the "folks" at Google for making these parts of the site accessible to the average Internet user, something that is difficult for a justifiably biased technology company to do.
Talk Nerdy to Me
The "Under the Hood" section of the site seemed like it might give the geekier among us some food for thought with regard to browser performance. It contained this history lesson of a browser timeline from Wikipedia and a series of diagnostic tests, mostly related to browsers' processing of JavaScript.
We ran the Google-developed V8 Benchmark Suite on four major browsers. It broke Internet Explorer, and returned seemingly arbitrary results of 164, 673, and 1794 for Firefox, Safari, and Chrome, respectively, on a scale of "bigger is better." We ran the WebKit SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark on all four browsers, as well. You can click through to see our results for Chrome, IE, Safari, and Firefox.
Google's Still Got Some 'Splainin' To Do
We also opened the site with Epiphany, and WhatBrowser said it was Firefox 3. When we tried it out on Konqueror, well...
What browser? indeed. We're still waiting to see what result the Google site will return.
Which brings us to our final and most serious criticism. The site features the logos of the five major web browsers: Internet Explorer, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Opera. No mention is made of the many other available options nor of their current existence.
The reason we feel these browsers should have been in some way included in Google's browser icebreaker is the same reason we feel there should have been at least some discussion of each browser's corporate affiliations, best uses, and technical capabilities: Out of fairness to the aforementioned casual Internet user who, after looking at this page, might know what his browser is but still won't have a clear idea of whether or why he should consider using other browsers.
I'm primarily a Chrome user, and I love the lightweight interface and speed. But it's not the most reliable for enterprise web-based software such as WebEx and certain other web applications. When I'm testing web apps for work, I very often have to break out one of my standby browsers.
The flip side of that coin is that, since IE is still a dominant figure in the territory, most apps and sites will still perform well enough in Internet Explorer. I can think of just one app I've tested this year that didn't have any IE support.
Some users will care whether or not their browser is open-sourced, or whether or not it's standards-compliant. Some will care much more that it's reliable for using enterprise web-based software. But the glaring absence of this information from Google's presentation shows us that, in the effort to avoid obvious accusations of favoritism, they've neglected a great opportunity to create an informed consumer culture around web browsers.
By presenting just the logos of five browsers, Google has done something to make consumers slightly more aware of their options but nothing to break down the rhetoric- and sentiment-driven attitudes of average users toward technology products.
So, let's have a little conversation about that now: What's your browser of choice, and why? When did you start thinking critically about your browser? What performance or other issues trouble you most? Let us know in the comments.
Facebook
Comments
Subscribe to comments for this post OR Subscribe to comments for all ReadWriteWeb posts
Using: Firefox 3.5.3
Justification: Add-ons
Case closed.
Personal preference: Google Chrome, I prefer speed, correct rendering, safety and stability.
I like the simple descriptions on the website. And as far the other browsers are not mentioned on the website; I don't think the purpose of the website is to promote any browser specifically (To bad for Konqueror and Epiphany), but to make users self-aware of a computer. Hence the mainstream browsers.
We can deny the fact that there are still people who don't know what a browser is and how it works, or we can do something about that.
Unfortunately there are little or no commercials or infomercials on TV and series and movies tend to make up their own software/browsers.
It's great your 8-year-old niece understood the message, but for a senior aged person this can be quite a challenge.
I mostly use Firefox at work, for three main reasons:
a) Strongly customizable
b) Reliable
c) Simply because it's not the most popular
Besides that, i like Safari as well (running on MacOS off course), and never actually switched o Chrome because it doesn't have a Linux version yet and even if had, i just can't afford missing the Add-ons which became so dependent.
well, don't need to mention IE right ;-)
I just went to What Browser? using Stainless. What Browser? tells me I'm using Safari 4, which proves one of your points.
I love your article for I love thinking as thinking should be: profound & broad.
Right now I'm using Stainless. It's new and it's still very basic. But I love it. It's clean and fast. I think I will stick to it for a while.
But I had have Safari and Firefox at hand. They are both great. Firefox for all the wonderful and/or powerful add-ons and Safari because it doesn't need all those add-ons.
I prefer using Chrome purely for the great performance. In the event of incompatibility I drop down to Firefox or IE. Firefox is my preferred browser for development - mainly because of the plug-ins.
I don't think that its a problem that Google only listed the major browsers. There is no point listing every option as that would probably just confuse the viewer. The target audience is not technical so less is more.
I would like to see a major sporting event or music concert streamed, with HTML5 video, to make people realize that the browser they use really DOES make a difference.
Check out this short HTML5 video, with Chrome 3 or Safari 4:
http://demo.sproutcore.com/video/
Now, try to watch it with IE 8. You can't.
Now install the Chrome Frame plug-in for IE8 & try to watch it. You can!*
*You may need to prefix the URL with "cf:".
Oh...there's also a Javascript NES emulator here (you definitely need Chrome/Chrome Frame, to play the games):
http://benfirshman.com/projects/jsnes/
I only use the Mozilla Firefox.. Mozilla is my favourite browser and its only the browser where i feel free to browse & download anything..
None of the main browsers are anywhere near perfect. I use Chrome for my main speedy browsing on one monitor, Firefox on the other monitor for plug ins and then IE when an app needs it or I want to zoom on pages.
I use IE7 at work (mandatory) and IE8 at home just to make my life simplier. I know that if I start using Firefox at home my blood pressure will go up when I'm at work having problems with IE7.
This article makes some goog points.
However, I am at a loss to understand why we feel that Google is responsible for educating users about what browsers they are using.
There are 2 kinds of users discussed here, the "average user" and the "geekier among us". Yet, I think that most people (I'm not sure if this makes us "average") are somewhere in the middle. We know what browser were using and what are friends are using; we use Twitter, FaceBook and maybe even MySpace, but we don't have a clue what Google-developed V8 Benchmark Suite" is or what it is used for.
And I don't think that it is your responsibility to explain it to me, but I appreciate that you tried.
Thanks for listening.
I mostly use Opera. It's fast, sleek, has a GREAT engine, zooming is just sexy and it has just the right capabilities ... in Firefox I need quite a few extensions to get what Opera gives me out of the box.
However, I also can't live without Firefox due to some plugins (Zotero, Table2Clipboard ... I work a lot with bibliographic data). Also, some few sites have problems with Opera so I will sometimes use Firefox to view them.
Still, if I could get Zotero for Opera, and perhaps another extension or two, I'd probably kick Firefox and just use O.
I switch back and forth between Firefox and Chrome.
Firefox pros: extensions, customizable bookmarks toolbar, compatibility with Bit.ly Sidebar and similar products from Tumblr, Posterous, and Google Reader share.
Firefox cons: gets slower and slower the longer it's on and the more tabs opened
Chrome pros: speedy, great for streaming video and quick tasks
Chrome cons: no bells and whistles
That's my two cents :)
ReadWriteWeb must pay contributors by the word -- that's the only way to justify writing 764 words about a junk website that's only worth 5 seconds of my time.
Actually, lazeroids does work in IE. Try it out.
I use Google Chrome for most stuff, and Firefox if I need a particular extension.
I'll also use IE7/8 if I absolutely have to, but that is rare.
I chose Chrome for speed and stability. I like Firefox for its extensions.
So....
google put out a page explaining the basices of browsers.
Its easy to complain.
Did you do any better either!
Jolie, another point of criticism is the procedure of changing a home page in Firefox. (I use Firefox 3.5.3.) The procedure lists Mac-specific steps! I use Windows XP. Perhaps, What Browser should have been a little more alert and tested the underlying operating system too before presenting computer-specific steps to change the home page.