Web Browsers

By:

Ahmed Hussain

A web browser (commonly referred to as a browser) is a software application for retrieving, presenting and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI/URL) and may be a web page, image, video or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users easily to navigate their browsers to related resources.

Although browsers are primarily intended to use the World Wide Web, they can also be used to access information provided by web servers in private networks or files in file systems.

The major web browsers are Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera, and Safari.

Web Browsers

History of Web Browser.

The first web browser was invented in 1990 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. It was called WorldWideWeb and was later renamed Nexus. The first commonly available web browser with a graphical user interface was Erwise. The development of Erwise was initiated by Robert Cailliau. In 1993, browser software was further innovated by Marc Andreessen with

the release of Mosaic, "the world's first popular browser", which made the World Wide Web system easy to use and more accessible to the average person. Andreesen's browser sparked the internet boom of the 1990s. The introduction of Mosaic in 1993 – one of the first graphical web browsers – led to an explosion in web use. Andreessen, the leader of the Mosaic team at NCSA, soon started his own company, named Netscape, and released the Mosaic-influenced Netscape Navigator in 1994, which quickly became the world's most popular browser, accounting for 90% of all web use at its peak.

History of Web Browser.(Cont.)

Microsoft responded with its Internet Explorer in 1995, also heavily influenced by Mosaic, initiating the industry's first browser war. Bundled with Windows, Internet Explorer gained dominance in the web browser market; Internet Explorer usage share peaked at over 95% by 2002.

 Opera debuted in 1996, it has never achieved widespread use,

having less than 2% browser usage share as of February 2012 according to Net Applications. Its Opera-mini version has an additive share, in April 2011 amounting to 1.1% of overall browser use, but focused on the fast-growing mobile phone web browser market, being preinstalled on over 40 million phones. It is also available on several other embedded systems, including Nintendo's Wii video game console.

Different Web Browsers

• Google Chrome.• Mozilla Firefox.• Microsoft Internet Explorer.• Apple Safari.• Opera.• Netscape Navigator.

• Developed by Google Inc.• Initial release September 2, 2008• Written in Assembly, C, C++, Java,

JavaScript, Python.• OS Android, iOS , Linux , OS X , Windows  • Engines Blink(WebKit on iOS), V8• Platform x86, x64, 32-bit ARM • Available in 53 language• License is Freeware under Google Chrome Terms of

Service

About Chrome.

About Chrome.(Cont.)

Google Chrome is a freeware web browser developed by Google. It used the WebKit layout engine until version 27 and, with the exception of its iOS releases, from version 28 and beyond uses the WebKit fork Blink. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and as a stable public release on December 11, 2008.

As of July 2014, StatCounter estimates that Google Chrome has a 45% worldwide usage share of web browsers so this estimate indicates it is the most widely used web browser in the world.

In September 2008, Google released the majority of Chrome's source code as an open-source project called Chromium, on which Chrome releases are still based. A notable component that is not open source is the built-in Flash player.

Development of Chrome.

Chrome was assembled from 25 different code libraries from Google and third parties such as Mozilla's Netscape Portable Runtime, Network Security Services, NPAPI, Skia Graphics Engine, SQLite, and a number of other open-source projects. 

The V8 JavaScript virtual machine was considered a sufficiently important project to be split off (as was Adobe/Mozilla's Tamarin) and handled by a separate team in Denmark coordinated by Lars Bak at Aarhus.

According to Google, existing implementations were designed "for small programs, where the performance and interactivity of the system weren't that important", but web applications such as Gmail "are using the web browser to the fullest when it comes to DOM manipulations and JavaScript", and therefore would significantly benefit from a JavaScript engine that could work faster.

Development of Chrome.(Cont.)

Chrome uses the Blink rendering engine to display web pages. Based on WebKit, Blink only uses WebKit's "WebCore" components while substituting all other components, such as its own multi-process architecture in place of WebKit's native implementation.

Chrome is internally tested with unit testing, "automated user interface testing of scripted user actions", fuzz testing, as well as WebKit's layout tests (99% of which Chrome is claimed to have passed), and against commonly accessed websites inside the Google index within 20–30 minutes.

Google created Gears for Chrome, which added features for web developers typically relating to the building of web applications, including offline support. However, Google phased out Gears in favor of HTML5.

Chrome’s Features.

Google Chrome aims to be secure, fast, simple  and stable. There are extensive differences from its peers in Chrome's minimalistic user interface, which is a typical of modern web browsers. For example, Chrome does not render RSS feeds. One of Chrome's strengths is its application performance and JavaScript processing speed, both of which were independently verified by multiple websites to be the swiftest among the major browsers of its time. Many of Chrome's unique features had been previously announced by other browser developers, but Google was the first to implement and publicly release them. For example, a prominent graphical user interface (GUI) innovation, the merging of the address bar and search bar (the Omnibox), was first announced by Mozilla in May 2008 as a planned feature for Firefox. Both Internet Explorer 9 and Safari (version 6) have since merged the search and address bar.

Bookmarks and settings synchronisation

Chrome allows users to synchronize their bookmarks, history, and settings across all devices with the browser installed by sending and receiving data through a chosen Google Account, which in turn updates all signed-in instances of Chrome. This can be authenticated either through Google credentials, or a sync passphrase.

Chrome Security.

Chrome periodically retrieves updates of two blacklists (one for phishing and one for malware), and warns users when they attempt to visit a site Chrome sees as potentially harmful. This service is also made available for use by others via a free public API called "Google Safe Browsing API".

Chrome uses a complex process-allocation model to allocate different tabs to fit into different processes to prevent what happens in one tab from affecting what happens in others. Following the principle of least privilege, each process is stripped of its rights and can compute, but cannot interact with sensitive areas (e.g. OS memory, user files) — this is similar to the "Protected Mode" used by Internet Explorer 9 and 10. The Sandbox Team is said to have "taken this existing process boundary and made it into a jail." This enforces a computer security model whereby there are two levels of multilevel security (user and sandbox) and the sandbox can only respond to communication requests initiated by the user. On Linux sandboxing uses the seccomp mode

Google introduced download scanning protection in Chrome 17. Chrome tries to prevent malware with Sandboxing. The Sandbox monitors each and every webpage tab separately. When the user opens a malicious website, Chrome contains the malware in an area called a sandbox. The other tabs that the user has open are unaffected. When the user closes the bad page, the malware goes with it leaving other tabs and the computer unaffected. Chrome also automatically updates to the latest security features to maximize user protection from malware.

Chrome Security.(Cont.)

Privacy mode

• The private browsing feature called Incognito mode prevents the browser from permanently storing any history information or cookies from the websites visited.

Incognito mode is similar to the private browsing feature in other web browsers.

Mozilla Firefox

• Developed by Mozilla Foundation and contributors, Mozilla Corporation

• Initial release September 23, 2002.• Written in C++, JavaScript, C, Cascading Style

Sheets, XUL,XBL• Operating system Windows, OS X, Linux, Android,

Firefox OS, FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD,OpenIndiana.• Engines Gecko, SpiderMonkey .• Available in 79 languages• License MPL

About Firefox.

Mozilla Firefox (known simply as Firefox) is a free and open-source web browser developed for Windows, OS X, and Linux, with a mobile version for Android, by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards.

As of February 2014, Firefox has between 12% and 22% of worldwide usage, making it, per different sources, the third most popular web browser. According to Mozilla, Firefox counts over 450 million users around the world. The browser has had particular success in Indonesia, Iran, Germany, and Poland, where it is the most popular browser with 55%,

46%, 43%, and 41% of the market share, respectively.

Firefox’s Features.

Features include tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental find, live bookmarking, Smart Bookmarks, a download manager, private browsing, location-aware browsing (also known as "geolocation") based on a Google service and an integrated search system that uses Google by default in most localizations. Functions can be added through extensions, created by third-party developers, of which there is a wide selection, a feature that has attracted many of Firefox's users.

Additionally, Firefox provides an environment for web developers in which they can use built-in tools, such as the Error Console or the DOM Inspector, or extensions, such as Firebug.

Firefox uses a sandbox security model, and limits scripts from accessing data from other web sites based on the same-origin policy. It uses SSL/TLS to protect communications with web servers using strong cryptography when using the HTTPS protocol. It also provides support for web applications to use smartcards for authentication purposes.

The Mozilla Foundation offers a "bug bounty" (up to 3000 USD cash reward and a Mozilla T-shirt) to researchers who discover severe security holes in Firefox. Official guidelines for handling security vulnerabilities discourage early disclosure of vulnerabilities so as not to give potential attackers an advantage in creating exploits.

Firefox Security.

Because Firefox generally has fewer publicly known unpatched security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer, improved security is often cited as a reason to switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox. The Washington Post reported that exploit code for known critical unpatched security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer was available for 284 days in 2006. In comparison, exploit code for known, critical security vulnerabilities in Firefox was available for nine days before Mozilla issued a patch to remedy the problem.

A 2006 Symantec study showed that, although Firefox had surpassed other browsers in the number of vendor-confirmed vulnerabilities that year through September, these vulnerabilities were patched far more quickly than those found in other browsers – Firefox's vulnerabilities were fixed on average one day after the exploit code was made available, as compared to nine days for Internet Explorer. Symantec later clarified their statement, saying that Firefox still had fewer security vulnerabilities than Internet Explorer, as counted by security researchers.

Firefox Security.(Cont.)

Licensing.

Firefox source code is free software, with most of it being released under the Mozilla Public License (MPL).This license permits anyone to view, modify, and/or redistribute the source code. As a result, several publicly released applications have been built from it, such as Netscape, Flock, Miro, Iceweasel, and Songbird.

In the past, Firefox was licensed solely under the MPL, then version 1.1, which the Free Software Foundation criticized for being weak copyleft, as the license permitted, in limited ways, proprietary derivative works. Additionally, code only licensed under MPL 1.1 could not legally be linked with code under the GPL. To address these concerns, Mozilla re-licensed most of Firefox under the tri-license scheme of MPL 1.1, GPL 2.0, or LGPL 2.1. Since the re-licensing, developers were free to choose the license under which they received most of the code, to suit their intended use: GPL or LGPL linking and derivative works when one of those licenses is chosen, or MPL use (including the possibility of proprietary derivative works) if they chose the MPL. However, on January 3, 2012, Mozilla released the GPL-compatible MPL 2.0,and with the release of Firefox 13 on June 5, 2012, Mozilla used it to replace the tri-licensing scheme.

The crash reporting service was initially closed source, but switched with version 3 from a program called Talkback to the open source Breakpad & Socorro.

Microsoft Internet Explorer.

• Original author Thomas Reardon.• Developed by Microsoft.• Initial release August 16, 1995.• Written in C++.• Engines Trident, Chakra.• Available in 95 languages.• License Proprietary, requires a

Windows license.

Internet Explorer is one of the most widely used web browsers, attaining a peak of about 95% usage share during 2002 and 2003. Its usage share has since declined with the launch of Firefox (2004) and Google Chrome (2008), and with the growing popularity of operating systems such as OS X, Linux and Android that do not run Internet Explorer. Estimates for Internet Explorer's overall market share range from 27.4% to 54.13%, as of October 2012 (browser market share is notoriously difficult to calculate). Microsoft spent over US$100 million per year on Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, with over 1000 people working on it by 1999.

About IE.

Since its first release, Microsoft has added features and technologies such as basic table display (in version .5), XMLHttpRequest (in version 5), which aids creation of dynamic web pages; and Internationalized Domain Names (in version 7), which allow Web sites to have native-language addresses with non-Latin characters. The browser has also received scrutiny throughout its development for use of third-party technology (such as the source code of Spyglass Mosaic, used without royalty in early versions) and security and privacy vulnerabilities, and both the United States and the European Union have alleged that integration of Internet Explorer with Windows has been to the detriment of other browsers.

The latest stable release is Internet Explorer 11, with an interface allowing for use as both a desktop application, and as a Windows 8 application.

About IE.(Cont.)

Versions of Internet Explorer for other operating systems have also been produced, including an Xbox 360 version called Internet Explorer for Xbox and an embedded OEM version called Pocket Internet Explorer, later rebranded Internet Explorer Mobile, which is based on Internet Explorer 9 and made for Windows Phone, Windows CE, and previously, based on Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Mobile. It remains in development alongside the desktop versions. Internet Explorer for Mac and Internet Explorer for UNIX (Solaris and HP-UX) have been discontinued.

On April 26, 2014, Microsoft issued a security advisory relating to a vulnerability that could allow "remote code execution" in Internet Explorer versions 6 to 11. The vulnerability was resolved with a security update May 1, 2014

About IE.(Cont.)

Internet Explorer has been designed to view a broad range of web pages and provide certain features within the operating system, including Microsoft Update. During the heyday of the browser wars, Internet Explorer superseded Netscape only when it caught up technologically to support the progressive features of the time.

IE’s Features.

Favicon:Support for favicons was first added

in Internet Explorer 5. Internet Explorer supports favicons in PNG, static GIF and native Windows icon formats. In Windows Vista and later, Internet Explorer can display native Windows icons that have embedded PNG files.

IE’s Features.

Group Policy

Internet Explorer is fully configurable using Group Policy. Administrators of Windows Server domains (for domain-joined computers) or the local computer can apply and enforce a variety of settings on computers that affect the user interface (such as disabling menu items and individual configuration options), as well as underlying security features such as downloading of files, zone configuration, per-site settings, ActiveX control behavior and others. Policy settings can be configured for each user and for each machine. Internet Explorer also supports Integrated Windows Authentication.

IE’s Features.

Internet Explorer uses a zone-based security framework that groups sites based on certain conditions, including whether it is an Internet- or intranet-based site as well as a user-editable whitelist. Security restrictions are applied per zone; all the sites in a zone are subject to the restrictions.

Internet Explorer 6 SP2 onwards uses the Attachment Execution Service of Microsoft Windows to mark executable files downloaded from the Internet as being potentially unsafe. Accessing files marked as such will prompt the user to make an explicit trust decision to execute the file, as executables originating from the Internet can be potentially unsafe. This helps in preventing accidental installation of malware.

Internet Explorer 7 introduced the phishing filter, that restricts access to phishing sites unless the user overrides the decision. With version 8, it also blocks access to sites known to host malware. Downloads are also checked to see if they are known to be malware-infected.

IE Security.

In Windows Vista, Internet Explorer by default runs in what is called Protected Mode, where the privileges of the browser itself are severely restricted—it cannot make any system-wide changes. One can optionally turn this mode off but this is not recommended. This also effectively restricts the privileges of any add-ons. As a result, even if the browser or any add-on is compromised, the damage the security breach can cause is limited.

Patches and updates to the browser are released periodically and made available through the Windows Update service, as well as through Automatic Updates. Although security patches continue to be released for a range of platforms, most feature additions and security infrastructure improvements are only made available on operating systems which are in Microsoft's mainstream support phase.

On December 16, 2008, Trend Micro recommended users switch to rival browsers until an emergency IE patch was released to fix a potential security risk which "could allow outside users to take control of a person's computer and steal their passwords". Microsoft representatives countered this recommendation, claiming that "0.02% of internet sites" were affected by the flaw.

On December 17, 2008, a fix to the security problem above became available, with the release of the Security Update for Internet Explorer KB960714, which is available from Microsoft Windows Update's webpage. Microsoft has said that this update fixes the security risk found by Trend Micro the previous day.

In 2011, a report by Accuvant, funded by Google, rated the security (based on sandboxing) of Internet Explorer worse than Google Chrome but better than Mozilla Firefox.

IE Security.(Cont.)

Apple Safari.

• Developed by Apple Inc.• Initial release January 7, 2003• Written in C++,Objective- COperating

system OS X, iOS• Engines WebKit, Nitro• License Freeware, some components

GNU LGPL

Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003, on the company's OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the native browser for iOS.

A version of Safari for the Microsoft Windows operating system was first released on June 11, 2007, and supported Windows XP Service Pack 2, or later, but it has been discontinued. Safari 5.1.7, released on May 9, 2012, is the last version available for Windows.

According to Net Applications, Safari accounted for 46.07% of mobile web browsing traffic and 5.28% of desktop traffic in June 2014, giving a combined market share of 12.32%.

About Safari.(Cont.)

On Mac OS X, Safari is a Cocoa application. It uses Apple's WebKit for rendering web pages and running JavaScript. WebKit consists of WebCore (based on Konqueror's KHTML engine) and JavaScriptCore (originally based on KDE's JavaScript engine, named KJS). Like KHTML and KJS, WebCore and JavaScriptCore are free software and are released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License. Some Apple improvements to the KHTML code are merged back into the Konqueror project. Apple also releases additional code under an open source 2-clause BSD-like license.

Until Safari 6.0, it included a built-in web feed aggregator that supported the RSS and Atom standards. Current features include Private Browsing (a mode in which no record of information about the user's web activity is retained by the browser),a "Ask websites not to track me" privacy setting, the ability to archive web content in WebArchive format, the ability to e-mail complete web pages directly from a browser menu, the ability to search bookmarks, and the ability to share tabs between all Macs and iOS devices running appropriate versions of software via an iCloud account.

Safari’s Features.

• Apple maintains a plug-in blacklist that it can remotely update to prevent potentially dangerous or vulnerable plug-ins from running on Safari. So far, Apple has blocked versions of Flash and Java.

Safari Security.

Browser exploits

In the PWN2OWN contest at the 2008 CanSecWest security conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, a successful exploit of Safari caused Mac OS X to be the first OS to fall in a hacking competition. Participants competed to find a way to read the contents of a file located on the user's desktop, in one of three operating systems: Mac OS X Leopard, Windows Vista SP1, and Ubuntu 7.10. On the second day of the contest, when users were allowed to physically interact with the computers (the prior day permitted only network attacks), Charlie Miller compromised Mac OS X through an unpatched vulnerability of the PCRE library used by Safari. Miller had been aware of the flaw prior to the beginning of the conference and worked to exploit it unannounced, as is the common approach in these contests. The exploited vulnerability was patched in Safari 3.1.1, among other flaws.

In the 2009 PWN2OWN contest, Charlie Miller performed another successful exploit of Safari to hack into a Mac. Miller again acknowledged that he had advance knowledge of the security flaw prior to the competition, and had done considerable research and preparation work on the exploit. Apple released a patch for this exploit and others on May 12, 2009 with Safari 3.2.3.

Safari Security.(Cont.)

Safari on Mac.

Safari on iPod.

Safari on iPhone.

Safari on iPad.

Safari on Windows.

Safari on Linux.

pera.

• Developed by Opera Software.• Initial release1995.

• Written in C++.• Operating system Windows, OS X,

Linux, FreeBSD, iOS, Android, BlackBerry.

• Engines Blink, V8.• Available in 42 languages.• License Proprietary freeware  with open-source components.

About pera.

Opera is a web browser developed by Opera Software. The latest version currently runs on Microsoft Windows and OS X operating systems and uses the Blink layout engine. An earlier version using the Presto layout engine is still supported, and additionally runs on Linux and FreeBSD systems. As of August 2014, a Blink-based Linux version is available on the developer stream. Editions of Opera are available for devices running the Android, iOS, Symbian, Maemo, Bada, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile operating systems, and for Java ME capable devices.

According to Opera Software, the browser had more than 350 million users worldwide (more than 270 million users with mobile versions) in December 2013. Opera has been noted for originating many features later adopted by other web browsers. A prominent example is Speed Dial.

• Opera includes built-in tabbed browsing, a bookmarks bar, add-ons, and a download manager. Opera has "Speed Dial", which allows the user to add an unlimited number of pages shown in thumbnail form in a page displayed when a new tab is opened. Speed Dial allows the user to more easily navigate to the selected web pages.

pera’s Features.

One security feature is the option to delete private data, such as HTTP cookies, browsing history, items in cache and passwords with the click of a button. This lets users erase personal data after browsing from a shared computer.

When visiting a site, Opera displays a security badge in the address bar which shows details about the website, including security certificates. The browser checks the website that is being visited against blacklists for phishing and malware, and displays a warning page if it matches any of these lists.

pera Security.

To catch security flaws and other software bugs before they are exploited or become a serious problem, the Opera Software company maintains a public web form where users can submit bug reports.

In January 2007, Asa Dotzler of the competing Mozilla Corporation accused the Opera Software company of downplaying information about security vulnerabilities in Opera that were fixed in December 2006. Dotzler claimed that users were not clearly informed of security vulnerabilities present in the previous version of Opera, and thus they would not realize that they needed to upgrade to the latest version or risk being exploited. Opera responded to these accusations the next day.

pera Security.(Cont.)

Netscape Navigator.

• Developed by Netscape Communications Corporation.

• Initial release15 December 1994 .• Cross-platform

Netscape Navigator was a proprietary web browser. It was the flagship product of the Netscape Communications Corp and was the dominant web browser in terms of usage share in the 1990s, but by 2002 its usage had almost disappeared. This was primarily due to the increased usage of Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser software, and partly because the Netscape Corporation (later purchased by AOL) did not sustain Netscape Navigator's technical innovation after the late 1990s.

The business demise of Netscape was a central premise of Microsoft's antitrust trial, wherein the Court ruled that Microsoft Corporation's bundling of Internet Explorer with the Windows operating system was a monopolistic and illegal business practice. The decision came too late for Netscape however, as Internet Explorer had by then become the dominant web browser in Windows.

About NN.

The Netscape Navigator web browser was succeeded by Netscape Communicator. Netscape Communicator's 4.x source code was the base for the Netscape-developed Mozilla Application Suite, which was later renamed SeaMonkey. Netscape's Mozilla Suite also served as the base for a browser-only spinoff called Mozilla Firefox and Netscape versions 6 through 9.

AOL stopped development of Netscape Navigator on 28 December 2007, but continued supporting the web browser with security updates until 1 March 2008. AOL allows downloading of archived versions of the Netscape Navigator web browser family. AOL maintains the Netscape website as an Internet portal.

About NN.

Decline.

With the success of Netscape showing the importance of the web (more people were using the Internet due in part to the ease of using Netscape), Internet browsing began to be seen as a potentially profitable market. Following Netscape's lead, Microsoft started a campaign to enter the web browser software market. Like Netscape before them, Microsoft licensed the Mosaic source code from Spyglass, Inc.(which in turn licensed code from University of Illinois). Using this basic code, Microsoft created Internet Explorer (IE).

The competition between Microsoft and Netscape dominated the Browser Wars. Internet Explorer, Version 1.0 (shipped in the Internet Jumpstart Kit in Microsoft Plus! For Windows 95) and IE, Version 2.0 (the first cross-platform version of the web browser, supporting both Windows and Mac OS) were thought by many to be inferior and primitive when compared to contemporary versions of Netscape Navigator. With the release of IE version 3.0 (1996) Microsoft was able to catch up with Netscape competitively, with IE Version 4.0 (1997) further improving in terms of market share. IE 5.0 (1999) improved stability and took significant market share from Netscape Navigator for the first time.

At decade's end, Netscape's web browser had lost dominance over the Windows platform, and the August 1997 Microsoft financial agreement to invest one hundred and fifty million dollars in Apple required that Apple make Internet Explorer the default web browser in new Mac OS distributions. The latest IE Mac release at that time was Internet Explorer version 3.0 for Macintosh, but Internet Explorer 4 was released later that year.

Microsoft succeeded in having ISPs and PC vendors distribute Internet Explorer to their customers instead of Netscape Navigator, mostly due to Microsoft using its leverage from Windows OEM licenses, and partly aided by Microsoft's investment in making IE brandable, such that a customized version of IE could be offered. Also, web developers used proprietary, browser-specific extensions in web pages. Both Microsoft and Netscape were found guilty of supporting this, having added many proprietary HTML tags to their browsers, which forced users to choose between two competing and almost incompatible web browsers.

Decline.(Cont.)

On 28 December 2007, the Netscape developers announced that AOL had canceled development of Netscape Navigator, leaving it unsupported as of 1 March 2008. Despite this, archived and unsupported versions of the browser remain available for download. Firefox would go on to win back market share from Internet Explorer in the next round of the browser wars.

Decline.(Cont.)

Netscape for Windows.

Netscape for Mac.

Comparison.

Browser compatibility.

• Google Chrome: Windows, Mac OS X and Linux

• Mozilla Firefox : Windows, Mac OS X and Linux (Not compatible on iOS)

• Internet Explorer: Windows (7 & 8)• Safari: Mac OS X (Safari 5.17 is available to

download for Windows)• Opera : Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux

Benchmark Tests Compared

Browser Acid3 Sunspider

Kraken JavaScript

Octane 2.0

HTML Compliance

Chrome 100 555.7 ms 1590.4 ms

23881 506/555

IE 100 91.8 ms 2234.2ms 14958 374/555

Firefox 100 164.5 ms 1316.0 ms

20757 467/555

Safari 100 280.4 ms 55.89 fps 5377 378/500

Opera 100 188.2 ms 1496.5 ms

23961 497/555

Popularity

Market Share

Browsers Rating (Users) Estimated Marketshare

Marketshare growth ( year over year)

Chrome 4.0 32.5% 9.8%

IE 2.6 22% -34%

Firefox 4.3 12.6% -8.9%

Safari 3.6 12.7% 19.4%

Opera 4.6 0.61% 84.9%

Netscape 3.3 N/a N/a

By:- http://web-browsers.findthebest.com/

Chrome has maximum Marketshare.