http://www.maximumpc.com|DEC 08 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| 17
And the Winner Is...
T
hough both contenders put up a good showing, neither has what
it takes to dethrone Mozilla’s Firefox 3 as our browser of choice.
Firefox is still your best bet in the browser market, given its proven
stability, solid security, intuitive interface, and generous add-on
library that makes net junkies like us ecstatic.
We can’t imagine replacing Firefox with either IE8 or Chrome
since both of these alternatives are still in their respective betastages, with plenty of room for improvement. IE8 must still work on
memory management and website rendering speed (compatibility
being a whole separate issue). Chrome is simple and easy to use
but lacks some essential add-ons, like mouse gestures. It may take
a while before either of these new browsers reaches maturity, but
at least their presence breathes some life into the recently lopsided
browser war.ROUND 5
BROWSING PRIVACY
Microsoft calls it InPrivate browsing while Google calls it
Incognito mode, but both browsers have basically the same
feature that allows users to surf the web without saving
browser and search history, form data, or passwords. This
feature is useful if you’re on a public terminal or want to
hide your potentially embarrassing browsing habits from
loved ones. IE8’s Delete Browser History function has also
been tweaked, allowing you to preserve a bookmarked
site’s cookies when others are erased, so you don’t lose
important login information.
WINNER: TIEROUND 3
INTERFACE
IE8 is certainly inundated
with buttons. The enabled-
by-default Favorites Bar
(called the Links bar in
IE7) includes a new Add
Favorite button that makes
it easier to add bookmarks
and bookmark folders.
IE8’s Home button allows
the user to select several
different home pages, but
the feature seems to be an
unnecessary duplicate of
the Favorites Bar.
In Windows XP Classic
mode, IE8’s buttons are
almost indecipherable,
and it takes a bit of click-
ing around to fi gure out
each button’s purpose.
Chrome’s interface is un-
cluttered and spare—even
the window borders seem
minimalist by compari-
son—and its top-mounted
tab placement is a bril-
liantly innovative concept.
Why didn’t anyone think of
this before?
WINNER: CHROMEROUND 4
PERFORMANCE
We tested the speed of both browsers by measuring the load
times of 10 popular websites three times each on a freshly
booted system. As we expected, Chrome came out on top in
this category. Some JavaScript and fl ash-heavy sites took
more than 30 seconds to fully load in IE8, compared to an
average of 8 seconds for Chrome. Microsoft’s browser also
had issues correctly rendering older sites, which necessitated
using the new Compatibility View button.
Each tab in Chrome is its own system process, so closing
a tab is like shutting down a complete application, freeing
the memory that was used. This prevents memory leaks
from destabilizing your computer over time, but revisiting
previously viewed websites requires a complete reload.
Additionally, Chrome has a pretty impressive task manager
feature, which lets you know how much memory each web-
site you have open is using. IE8 also keeps tabs on separate
processes but had the tendency to slow our test system down
after prolonged use, without any indication of how much
memory it was using.
WINNER: CHROMECHROME
Free, http://www.google.com/chrome