The era when Google Chrome was head and shoulders above the competition has ended. Today’s popular browsers compete on a level playing field. Internet Explorer 11 — the oft overlooked Microsoft standby — has blossomed into a lean and fast browser for Widows 8. Mozilla Firefox, Opera, and Google Chrome continue to ramp up their version numbers, and Safari tenaciously scuttles along as the under-appreciated byproduct of Apple’s quest for global domination. Gone are the days when choosing a browser for all your Internet perusing needs was a no brainer. Today, with all the competition, choosing the right browser has become a something of a tough decision. Fortunately, you can’t really go wrong with any of the popular browsers anymore, but there are a few things here and there that give each its own competitive edge over the others.

Installation, updates, and compatibility : Installation across the five browsers is inherently the same. Users can download them from their respective websites if they aren’t built into your operating system already (i.e. Safari comes preinstalled on Mac OS X and IE 11 on Windows 8), and each will typically download in under 30 seconds depending on your Internet connection. Unfortunately, Internet Explorer will force you to fully reboot your machine, likely due to the increased hardware acceleration and several updated features. The rest of our lineup doesn’t require a reboot, only a quick browser closure.

List of Browser Compatibility :
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera: Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux
Internet Explorer (32 and 64-bit): Windows
Safari: Mac OS X

When it comes to updates, Opera, Firefox, and Chrome have the advantage. They install silently, quickly, and transparently download updates in the background and automatically apply the new software when you relaunch the programs. What’s more, the third-party browsers update most frequently, every few weeks, so any major problems are likely to be fixed quicker than with IE and Safari. Users can also manually install updates on Firefox if they would like to have greater control over the browser or prefer to use an older version for whatever reason. Keep in mind that turning off automatic updates is more likely to put your computer at risk, though, since each browser is continuously adding security fixes and other key stability updates.

Design and ease of use
If I didn’t know better, I’d say that the current trend in browser design is for the browser to disappear entirely. IE, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome all attempt to be as minimal as possible, offering next to no actual text and small, monochromatic buttons that discretely blend with the aesthetic design of operating systems like Windows 8 and Mac OS X. Overall, all five browsers appear to achieve their goals fairly well.

Benchmark Tests Compared
Most of the browsers are compatible with Web standards and handle speed with relative ease. A casual user probably won’t notice a difference in the Web page rendering speed between browsers. All five browsers are much faster and leaner than the browsers of a few years ago and become even more so with each new build. Below are our benchmark results for the five browsers, bold text indicates the winner for each category.

Security and Privacy
The most valuable tool for secure browsing is user discretion. Sure, every browser has encountered security broaches in the past. And Internet Explorer and Chrome’s reputation for protecting users’ security and privacy credentials is spotty at best. Chrome, Safari, and Firefox rely on Google’s Safe Browsing API to detect potentially dangerous sites. Thanks to constant updates, Mozilla, Chrome and Opera all make constant security updates. But Chrome takes security a bit further by also scanning for potentially harmful downloads. There’s also encryption ad-ons currently in the works at Google. All browsers offer a privacy session option. Private sessions prevent the storage of history, temporary Internet files, and cookies. For example, Internet Explorer 11 features a security measure called Tracking Protection. Only Internet Explorer goes so far as to to block trackers completely from communicating with your browser. What’s more, according to a 2013 NSS study, only Internet Explorer blocks trackers used on more than 90 percent of potentially hazardous sites.