There are two sides to every problem. And just like any other line of work, Keystone employees are often asked which Browser they “endorse.” Preferred Browser differs person to person; it’s just opinion. It’s like asking your doctor which brand of cough medicine is best. One might treat the coughing better; another might treat the ache in your throat better. Different Browsers are better at different aspects of the Internet and your computer. But what do the experts at Keystone think?

Before we get into specifics, it is important to know that Keystone is made up of two distinct branches – the Computer Networking side and the Web Design side. Our networking guys will always take a more technical approach that will be the best solution for a hardware problem. The design team likes innovation, speed, and creativity. In general, the design side prefers Mozilla Firefox and the networking side prefers Internet Explorer.

One of our Network and Systems Administrators, Adam Arnold, names Internet Explorer as his Browser of choice. He claims IE is the best because it “properly integrates with all Microsoft products and allows you to utilize all Microsoft resources within our network.” When I talked to the networking team they each said something similar. Internet Explorer is also preferred because of its speedy search results and long list of accelerators. The accelerators can be used when you highlight some text and click on the small arrow that appears. IE provides a long list of fast links to other web pages where you might use that text, like highlighting the phrase “Hendersonville, TN” and then getting a map of the area. These are only a few of the advantages named with Internet Explorer. Another favorite of our networking team is Internet Explorer’s ability to support ActiveX.

In my mind, Microsoft has to be a leading provider of PC accessories and software… Windows, Windows Live, Microsoft Office, PC hardware, and so on, and so on. Not to mention all their other fun projects like the Xbox, Zune, Bing, and the Windows Phone.

When I talked to the Web design half of the office, I discovered they mostly favored Mozilla Firefox, with the exception of one loyal Google Chrome advocate. Keystone’s Interactive Designer, Jamie Holland, believes Firefox is best because, “It displays webpages more accurately than others, it has 3^rd party extensions that help me do my job better, it also gives me the false feeling that it’s a safer way to browse.” Like Jamie, most of our web guys prefer Firefox because of its speed and third-party extensions. The third-party extensions, or add-ons, provide all sorts of advantages such as blocking advertisements, helping download videos, and speeding up flash downloads. One of our favorites is Rank Checker, a very helpful SEO tool. Another smaller, but still helpful, feature (that one Keystone employee pointed out) is Firefox’s spell check available anywhere within the Browser. If you’re a Mac user you’ll be used to this, but for others who have never experienced spell check outside Word, it will blow your mind.

Keystone’s overall opinions are pretty close to the market share hierarchy worldwide: IE is first with 60% market share, then Firefox with about 25%, and Chrome comes in third with 7%. Some other Browsers that you might know well in the top ten include Safari, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla, and Opera. Check them all out here.

Firefox seems to always be striving to keep up with their big rival, Internet Explorer. With the release of Internet Explorer 8 just 3 weeks ago, Mozilla returned with an updated version of their current browser, now called Firefox 3.5.

The Mozilla Web browser is second most popular in the world, even though Firefox has the market share of about half that of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Firefox 3.5 has adopted a lot of the same features as Internet Explorer is so well known for. A new tab feature allowing you to manage your tabs easier than Firefox 3. Also like Internet Explorer, Firefox 3.5 offers a Private Browsing feature allowing you to conceal all history, cookie, search information, etc. for a particular site like your were never there. You can also manage your history much easier on the new Firefox by offering easy to use select history erase. Probably the most talked about improvement of Firefox 3.5 is its speed. Because Mozilla created a new JavaScript engine, they claim it has improved Firefox’s speed times three from Firefox 3 and times ten from Firefox 2.

Being available for Windows, Mac, and Linux gives Firefox a leg up on Internet Explorer (which is not available for Mac users). The new Safari 4 claimed 11 million downloads after just three days. Today, Firefox 3.5 hit 4.3 million downloads and still rising. That might seem like a huge number but Firefox has seen much bigger before. When Mozilla launched Firefox 3, it received 8 million downloads in the first 24 hours setting a world record.

Mozilla has done a great job at keeping up with its competition, but the new Firefox 3.5 isn’t much different from Firefox 3. Speed, privacy, and tabs are really the only new features worth talking about. Only time will tell if this new version is as great as Mozilla claims.

Seems to be a big week for news related to various web browsers.  Since there’s so much to talk about regarding browsers, we thought we’d do a little round-up here to keep you all in the know.

1. Google Chrome is now out of Beta Testing

Google’s Chrome browser has officially come out of beta and is now a stable release.  That doesn’t mean they’re done tweaking and improving Chrome, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a bug-free browsing experience–I still can’t get the thing to install right on my laptop.

So we’re still not exactly recommending you go out and switch from Internet Explorer to Chrome.  But Google releasing their own web browser in direct competition with Microsoft (who has long been the only dominant player in the browser wars) is big news in the world of tech and could shape the future of the web.

2. Microsoft’s IE8 to be more helpful to the disabled.

Microsoft has announced that they’re adding several new features to the next version of Internet Explorer  that are aimed at improving the browsing experience for disabled people.  It’s great to see them thinking along these lines, and it’s nice to know that they are still trying to innovate.

3. Mozilla’s Firefox browser gains market share.

For the past several years, the Firefox browser has been David to Internet Explorer’s Goliath.  Popular with a tiny sliver of the Internet browsing population, but nowhere near enough to be a serious competitor to Microsoft.

That’s all changing, however.  Slowly, over time, Firefox has crept up on IE, and recently past the 20% mark in market share for the first time.  That means that 20% of the people online are using Firefox.  Still not a large enough chunk to put Microsoft’s dominance in jeopardy, but probably making them begin to sweat a bit.

4. New browser causes controversy.

A company has released a new browser developed specifically for African Americans.  It’s called Blackbird, and it’s got features built in such as news feeds and social networking tools that are designed to help African Americans connect with each other through the Blackbird web browsing experience.  Oh, and it’s already terribly controversial, as you can probably imagine.

I have been awaiting the release of Google’s first web browser, called Chrome, since news of its pending release exploded everywhere yesterday.  Seems they accidentally sent the announcement of Chrome a bit early, and some bloggers ran with the story.

Since then, I’ve been checking the supposed download page regularly, and until a few moments ago, it was a dead link.

Now, however, the Beta download of Google Chrome is available–in fact, I’m writing this post via Chrome.  For some of the uninitiated… a “beta test” is an early version that is likely to be buggy and unstable–we’re not recommending you download it just yet.  Here, in random order, are my initial thoughts and first impressions:

• Upon install, Chrome tries to import settings from your current default browser (Firefox for me), and I experienced an error with that which crashed Chrome.  Oops.  When I restarted it, however, the settings had been imported just fine.  This is nice because all my browser-stored passwords were already remembered.  Sweet.
• Google is claiming that Chrome is faster and more secure.  At this point, however, it’s not visibly any faster than Firefox.  In fact, it seems to take a fraction of a second longer to load a page than Firefox 3 (which is pretty darn fast to begin with).
• I love the trimmed down nature of Chrome.  It’s really no-frills in terms of UI, and the lack of bloat, combined with the tabs being on top of the window instead of below the address bar means you see more of the page than ever before.  I’m a big Netvibes user, and have several feeds on several tabs… and Chrome allows me to see and scan even more of my favorite content than Firefox or IE.  Right off the bat, this is a great feature and will probably keep me using Chrome a lot more.
• My coworker also downloaded Chrome, and he got a strange, glitchy look to his windows… with a mirrored sliver of the on-page content showing up in duplicate on the right next to the scroll bar.  It also wouldn’t let him scroll.  Hey… it’s a Beta release.  I’m sure they’ll find and promptly fix stuff like this… and I’m not sure what my friend might have running on his machine that may have contributed to it.
• I like the idea of the “incognito” window.  There’s plenty of concern online these days with privacy, especially where Google is concerned.  And while it may seem odd to simply trust Google when they say that “incognito” browsing never stores anything anywhere… the project is open-source.  That will allow for some checks and balances regarding how well the shielded browsing function works.
• I also love the feature where a crash only closes the current tab instead of the whole browser.  I was able to browse to a site I know crashes browsers (a site we’re currently developing) and the crash did, indeed, close only the open tab and not the entire browser.  That is a fantastic addition that cannot be overstated if you’re a power-browser.

All in all, the first few minutes of testing it out have been a postiive experience for me.  I am unashamed of the fact that I use and love tons of Google products beyond search (docs, gears, calendars, gmail, and more), so maybe you can label me a homer.  But better competition in the browser market is nothing but good for the consumer.

For Firefox, however, it’s probably a very bad day.  Google has long been a top financial supporter of Firefox (through an arrangement with the Google Toolbar).  I don’t think Firefox is destined to die or anything–they have a rabid fan base.  But they’re definitely going to need to seek dollars from new sources if Chrome gains any foothold on the market.

And this is a clear step from Google to infringe on Microsoft’s territory.  Should be interesting to see how it impacts that rivalry as well.

Stay tuned.  I’ll be playing with it more in the coming days and will be sure to update you on my findings.

UPDATE: So upon further testing… there are a lot of reports that the Chrome browser is a memory hog, slowing down your machine’s performance.  It browses the web fast enough… but I personally have seen it clog up my PC resources and slow down all programs.  I’m sure this is not the same for everyone, and I’m guessing it’ll be fixed as testing continues.  But for now, it’s reason enough to keep me from using it regularly.

There’s a growing number of web users who turn to Mozilla’s Firefox browser for their surfing needs.  Each year, Firefox gains little bits of market share on Internet Explorer (Microsoft’s King of Browsers).

There are four of us here in the Keystone office that are total Firefox disciples (and three more who, sadly, insist on sticking with IE).  Firefox has built its niche on being a faster, more secure browsing experience–oh, and they invented the whole “tabbed browsing” thing that IE and Safari and everyone else has since copied.

Well, last week saw the release of Firefox 3, the newest release, and I’m pretty pleased to tell you that it’s the best Firefox yet.  There are, according to Mozilla, over 15,000 improvements in this new version.  Many of the things you’ll notice are aesthetic:  the back button is a bit bigger, the tabs scroll and animate during browsing in a very slick manner, etc.  There’s also a new address bar that Firefox calls the Awesome Bar.  It’s supposedly better at predicting what you’re trying to type so you can get to your preferred destination even more quickly.  And, as usual, there have been some security updates that make Firefox’s already safe experience even safer.

But here’s the real reason you should go download and install Firefox 3:  It is fast!  Lightning fast.  Noticeably faster than Firefox 2, and light years faster than IE.  For me… that alone was reason to upgrade.

So if you’re a Firefox user, but you either hadn’t heard there was a new version, or you were holding out until it was verified as a quality version… wait no more.  Head over to Mozilla’s site and grab a copy of Firefox 3 for yourself today. You won’t regret it.