Web Browsers : blocks scripts from suspicious websites

6 Best Web Browsers

Selecting a web browser is a difficult task for many especially when there are many sophisticated ones around, each offering lightning speeds, high security and many add-ons. In order to find the best browser, ComputerWorld tested the latest versions of six widely used desktop and laptop browsers on speed, safety, extra features and extension benchmarks. The results were interesting with a surprise third place winner RocketMelt 0.9, which is almost new and comes integrated with Facebook. Here are the rankings of six browsers.

#6 Apple Safari 5.1.2

Safari came in the last position - Safari is a simple and adequate browser with solid security features. It didn’t score well on speed benchmarks but performed well with Windows machines. Organizing Safari without iCloud is troublesome. With the integration of browser sandboxing in Apple’s new Lion OS, the safari now has more security tools and features. It also came last in HTML5 testing.

Good: Solid security Network, Fastest mobile synchronizing while using iOS devices

Bad: Slow in loading pages built with HTML5 and JavaScript

#5 Opera 11.61

Opera came in fifth position - If you are looking for speed, this is the best browser for you. The beautiful feature in opera is “widgets”- light applications from games to RSS feeds, which runs on your desktop as separate programmes. The browser also has another tool called Opera Turbo, which compress the web pages to few bytes and enable easy browsing for users with slow internet connection. On the other hand, it is not much customizable and the interface takes a little time to getting used to.

Good: Quick loading, unique browsing experience with widgets.

Bad: Low in security options, not HTML5 friendly.

#4: Internet Explorer 9

IE9 won the fourth position - The browser from Microsoft was always lagging behind its rivals. But with the introduction of new features including the ability to block sites from collecting data on your browsing habits and the new Application Reputation app, which scans and warns about the downloads for malicious files, the browser finally overcome some of its rivals. It also has inbuilt cross-site scripting protection, which blocks scripts from suspicious websites. It came second in the HTML5 benchmark test, but finished last in processing JavaScript.

Good: Security features, faster HTML5 processing

Bad: Tab management, no themes and automated bookmark sync.

#3: Facebook RockMelt 0.9

RockM elt, the not so popular browser surprisingly finished third. - It looks similar to chrome as it is built on Google’s chromium framework. The browser is completely integrated with Facebook and has many features to make the social-fans happy. A strip located on the browser will display your Facebook friend’s icons and their availability to chat. Within the browser, you can also choose apps for different websites that notify you of a newly posted comment. By signing in through Facebook, your bookmarks and settings are automatically synchronized through the Facebook account among computers and iOS devices that use RockMelt app, as the browser collects your browsing habits. It processed HTML5 faster than Chrome but many extensions that work on Chrome didn’t function in RockMelt.

Good: Automatic sync among computers, Make “Facebooking” easy, JavaScript and pages load smoothly.

Bad: Facebook sign-in required to use the complete features of this browser, little number of add-ons and extensions.

#2: Mozilla Firefox 10

The most Versatile browser, finished second. - Firefox is a feature-filled browser and with the new version, it became more beautiful, with a simplified interface, which can be customized in many ways. The big advantage of Firefox is the thousands of add-ons, but with the addition of more add-ons, the browser tends to perform slowly. It finished first in HTML5 tests and third in loading JavaScripts. But it was little slower in loading web pages. It will work with any security software and has a good pop-up filter, malware protection and support private browsing. The best feature is it will allow you to collect tabs into manageable groups like work, home etc which will come handy in many situations.