If you are like most people, you may not have any idea which web browser you use or which browser is best. We asked our Technology Team to provide us with some suggestions. Here is what they reported:
First of all, let’s start with the basics. Your web browser is the software that allows you to browse the Internet and view websites. If you have a Windows computer, chances are that you have a version of Internet Explorer on your machine – Version 8 is the latest. If you have a Mac, you might have Safari. Although these default browsers are the most popular for their respective platforms, we recommend upgrading your browser to either one of our favorites: Firefox Mozilla or Google Chrome.
Without getting too technical in our discussion, we find that the Mozilla browser and the Chrome browser both load larger web pages faster. Is it really faster? Or does it just seem faster? Well, the Mozilla browser and the Chrome browser will display the information that is received from the server incrementally so that the top of the page will display before the bottom of the page. This is different from Internet Explorer where the entire page must be received before any of it will be loaded. We find this to be a major bonus when viewing large web pages.
Mozilla also has a great new feature that will allow you to store your browser history and favorites across multiple machines. That can be handy, as well. One favorite feature of the Chrome browser is the ability to drag the corner of most text boxes to change their size. This is convenient when you are typing more information into a text box than the site designer may have intended. Check it out – we think you will like it. I personally like to use two browsers on my computer for maximum multitasking. Most web designers will use Internet Explorer as a standard for their design, but many of the designers that I know really prefer to design for Firefox. If you want to try out one of these new browsers, here are some convenient links, below. See how your web browsing experience is improved.
(If you insist on running Internet Explorer, you should have the most recent version. Version 9 is available in beta as of this writing. Try it if you dare.)
