I had the eset download site open in another tab and it prompted me for a user id and password in order to download the new version.  From this screen I attempted to click back on my gmail tab – but it wouldn’t let me. The user id/password screen was occupying the browser’s complete attention.

I then downloaded chrome and tried it again – and guess what – it worked.  So there is a real usability difference between IE and chrome – in that the tabs are very independent in chrome – vs. interdependent in IE.   I had forgotten this difference – but it made things more difficult for me….

Sometime last year I finally made the plunge and tried Firefox.  I was quite impressed with Firefox – especially with it’s support for more standards (like curved borders!!) and the extensions.  It’s just neat to be able to apply a theme to the browser so it looks cooler.

Recently I decided to try out Google Chrome as I had heard a lot about it too. I find myself really liking Google Chrome – as it seems to work very well.  While I haven’t measured it – it seems to use less resources than Firefox does – and it has some nice features.  I like how the the downloads work – with a bar at the bottom appearing to show the progress and the recent downloads.  The status bar only appears when it’s needed.   You can right-click on a page and it will give you a print option,  search Google on that word, etc.  What I also like about Chrome (or Firefox) is that they have built-in spell checking.

So I narrowly recommend Chrome over Firefox – more for it’s efficiency.  They are both better browsers than IE – offering better standards compliance (web pages work better) and great extensions.  If you are still using IE (Internet Explorer) I would encourage you to try out Firefox or Chrome:

• Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ (open source from Mozilla Foundation)
• Google Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome (open source – version built by Google)