Browser Wars

Google Chrome

The always-experimenting folks at Google have created a wonderfully simple browser.  Its most impressive backend feature is “sandboxing”, which uses a separate processor for each browsing tab.  This means faster speeds when juggling multiple tabs, as well as only losing one tab when it crashes as opposed to the whole session.

Chrome nixes the search engine bar on the right and integrates it into one intuitive search bar, which gives you search engine results and/or the actual website URL.  An overall minimalist look leaves more real estate for actual web page, and unlike Firefox’s pop-up download manager, Chrome integrates theirs. (If you want to see Chrome show off, click the image below to experience a really cool interactive music video!

RockMelt

Still available by invitation only, RockMelt is all about social networking. A vertical bar on the right contains a list of your most frequently-visited sites, as well as live feeds from all your social networking sites. A vertical bar on the left contains your friends’ profiles, which you can drag and drop to share with. RockMelt also introduces a cool new way to search. It puts the search bar on the right like Firefox, but instead of taking you to a search engine page, the real-time search results drop down into a list. Clicking a link brings up its page, but the list stays there until you click the page itself. In addition being the go-to browser for social networking hounds, RockMelt will probably bring significant time savings to the chronic Googler. Check out their intro video by clicking the image below.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox’s edge is in its massive pool of add-ons.  They’ve got a big head start with over 170 million add-ons to customize your browsing experience.  Especially in the web design realm, the Mozilla community has developed a slew of extremely useful add-ons, making Firefox the go-to browser for a lot of web designers.  The same community has also produced tens of thousands of customized skins to “trick out” your browser and brighten your surfing experience.