Without looking at any stats, I'm confident to say web browsers are in the top three most used applications by PC users. In fact, the relevance of the web browser is soon to surpass its original intent with Google developing an operating system revolving around Chrome. But without delving too deep into what the future may hold, today the browser is where many of us spend a majority of our time, be it for production, consumption or recreational purposes.
We've come a long way since the early days of Firefox, which reopened the door for the browser's evolution. Today the picture is more complete than ever, with five major browsers competing for our attention. There are the usual suspects: IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome, as well as a handful of alternatives worth trying.
With that level of competition, you can expect development to continue accelerating. A rampant new version of Chrome is released every few weeks, and Mozilla is planning something similar, but for now we have a new major revision of Firefox in beta. Opera has remained small on the desktop, but has made impressive strides in the mobile market and on embedded devices, while Apple has turned itself into a leader by driving WebKit and bringing it to the iPhone. IE still holds the largest market share and Microsoft is working hard on Internet Explorer 9, but this may be their last opportunity to redeem themselves with early adopters, having the last two builds widely regarded as laggards.
Without further ado, we want to hear about your preferred browser or combination of browsers.
Discuss and vote in our poll.