Microsoft's Spartan browser vs. the rest: How will it stack up?
Microsoft's Spartan browser vs. the rest: How will it
stack up?
Browser battle: Microsoft Spartan vs. Google Chrome vs.
Mozilla Firefox vs. Microsoft IE
By Jon Gold
Network World | Apr 14, 2015 3:46 AM PT
Microsoft’s upcoming Spartan browser is set to be the
first big new release in the desktop browser market for quite some time,
upsetting a tentative equilibrium that has existed for roughly the past two
years.
Broadly speaking, the trend has been that Google Chrome
is the new 800-pound gorilla of the market, taking market share from both
Internet Explorer and Firefox, with niche players like Opera and Safari
maintaining relatively minimal user bases.
But beyond that, it’s difficult to be more specific –
major indices like W3Schools, StatCounter and NetMarketShare all paint very
different pictures of the overall landscape. NetMarketShare’s numbers show
Chrome surpassing Firefox’s market share in May 2014, and pushing farther ahead
since – but both remain well behind IE nearly 60% share, which only began to
decline in December.
W3Schools, by contrast, suggest that Chrome is on top,
and has been for a long time – surpassing IE in 2011 and accounting for 62.5%
traffic in the most recent monthly figures, compared to 22.9% for Firefox and
just 8% for IE. StatCounter’s picture is different again, showing that Internet
Explorer is in second place at 19.5%, behind a dominant Chrome at 52.3% and
only just ahead of Firefox, with 18.4%.
It’s important to remember that each index is measuring
different data – W3Schools is counting only visitors to its own site. All three
sources, however, agree that Chrome’s market share is headed north, while the
other two of the big three are either treading water or declining. Can Spartan
change that? Read on.
Spartan
For many, it’s not exactly a confidence booster that
Microsoft’s forthcoming new browser will be a “Windows App,” rather than a
traditional desktop application. It sports the characteristic borderless frames
and blockily minimalist aesthetic, and the overall impression is of a
stripped-down, simplified version of IE, according to an initial appreciation by
Network World’s Howard Wen.
But, in a lot of ways, that’s probably a good thing –
Chrome’s got a very similar look and feel, and it’s doing pretty well for
itself.
Spartan appears as a Windows app
More important to Chrome’s popularity, however, is raw
performance – and early indications are that Spartan has that by the gallon.
Experts told InfoWorld last week that Spartan’s Chakra JavaScript engine is
“hands[-]down the fastest JavaScript engine out there now,” and praised its
rendering performance as “really, really nice” as well. (That said, the same
experts said the browser’s HTML5 performance was sub-par.)
Is it going to single-handedly restore Microsoft’s
supremacy in PC browsers? Certainly not right away. But, from here, it does
look highly competitive.
Chrome
So what about the browser Spartan’s trying to knock off
of its perch? Chrome’s still got major advantages over the rest of the field,
including a perceived performance edge, simple and elegant design, and tight
integration with Google’s wildly popular web services like Gmail.
For the moment, those features seem to be keeping Chrome
in the ascendancy. Moves like the upcoming adoption of HTTP/2 – a new web
protocol that should further boost performance – reflect a continued focus on a
successful design philosophy. Probably the biggest point of criticism for
Chrome is that its integration with the rest of Google’s services – and,
consequently, with its ludicrously profitable advertising business – makes for
something of a privacy nightmare.
Google’s ongoing legal battles over user privacy in
general – particularly in the European Union – may scare off those for whom
privacy is a well-understood and important issue, but beyond that, users as a
whole haven’t let those concerns stop them from adopting Chrome in huge
numbers.
Firefox
From its roots in the wreckage of Netscape Navigator,
Firefox has become among the best-known and most-used pieces of open-source
software in the world – but it’s never quite taken over the market the way some
thought it might when it really started to take off, about a decade ago.
It’s tough to escape the conclusion that Chrome
essentially stole Firefox’s thunder – taking over as the alternative to
Internet Explorer before Firefox had fully stepped into the role. The
flexibility, via the huge ecosystem of extensions, is still there, but the
browser’s reputation (fair or unfair) for lackluster performance next to its
Google-powered rival may have damaged its brand.
But Firefox is starting to find its stride again in terms
of development and features – a new focus on performance is evident from the
first new release of 2015, and the WebRTC communication gadget Hello is an
intriguing one. Firefox isn’t done yet.
Internet Explorer
Finally, what about Internet Explorer? Well, for
starters, it’s essentially doomed – Spartan, or whatever its eventual release
name is, is definitely Microsoft’s browser of the future. But IE will stick
around for a while, largely for compatibility reasons.
Microsoft IE browser Microsoft
It’s not a standout, in terms of features or performance
– but it’s at least been developed more assiduously than it was during its long
period of unchallenged primacy, and remains a perfectly usable browser today.
Unless you want to use a better one, that is. Or if you're on a Mac, where IE
hasn't worked in 10 years.
IE’s never going to win many popularity contests among
developers, but it’s undeniably still one of the most-used browsers in the
world, and will continue to be a factor long after the release of Spartan –
even if Spartan will be Microsoft’s main attempt to re-conquer the space.
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