Top 5 Browsers

Top 5 Broswers in the world

In the world there are top 5 browsers, i.e., 

1. Microsoft Internet Explorer(IE)
2. Firefox
3. Opera
4. Apple Safari
5. Google Chrome

1.Internet Explorer(IE):

Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year. Later versions were available as free downloads, or in service packs, and included in the OEM service releases of Windows 95 and later versions of Windows.

Internet Explorer is one of the most widely used web browsers, attaining a peak of about 95% usage share during 2002 and 2003.Its usage share has since declined with the launch of Safari (2003), Firefox (2004), and Google Chrome (2008), each of which now has significant market share. Estimates for Internet Explorer's overall market share range from 27.4% to 54.13%, as of October 2012 (browser market share is notoriously difficult to calculate). Microsoft spent over US$100 million per year on Internet Explorer in the late 1990s, with over 1000 people working on it by 1999.

Since its first release, Microsoft has added features and technologies such as basic table display (in version 1.5); XMLHttpRequest (in version 5), which aids creation of dynamic web pages; and Internationalized Domain Names (in version 7), which allow Web sites to have native-language addresses with non-Latin characters. The browser has also received scrutiny throughout its development for use of third-party technology (such as the source code of Spyglass Mosaic, used without royalty in early versions) and security and privacy vulnerabilities, and both the United States and the European Union have alleged that integration of Internet Explorer with Windows has been to the detriment of other browsers.

The latest stable release is Internet Explorer 10, with a new interface allowing for use as both a desktop application, and as a Windows 8 application.

Versions of Internet Explorer for other operating systems have also been produced, including an Xbox 360 version called Internet Explorer for Xbox and an embedded OEM version called Pocket Internet Explorer, later rebranded Internet Explorer Mobile, which is currently based on Internet Explorer 9 and made for Windows Phone, Windows CE, and previously, based on Internet Explorer 7 for Windows Mobile. It remains in development alongside the desktop versions. Internet Explorer for Mac and Internet Explorer for UNIX (Solaris and HP-UX) have been discontinued.

2.Mozilla Firefox:

Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser developed for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux (including Android) coordinated by Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards.

As of October 2012, Firefox has approximately 20% to 24% of worldwide usage share of web browsers, making it the third most used web browser, according to different sources.According to Mozilla, Firefox counts over 450 million users around the world.The browser has had particular success in Indonesia, Germany, Poland and Estonia, where it is the most popular browser with 65%, 47% and 35% of the market share, respectively.

3.Opera:

Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 300 million users worldwide.[non-primary source needed] The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feeds. Opera is offered free of charge for personal computers and mobile phones.

Opera Mini, which is the most popular mobile web browser as of May 2011, has been chosen as the default integrated web browser in several mobile handsets by their respective manufacturers.

Features include tabbed browsing, page zooming, mouse gestures, and an integrated download manager. Its security features include built-in phishing and malware protection and the ability to delete private data such as HTTP cookies. Opera has been noted for originating many features later adopted by other web browsers.

Opera runs on a variety of personal computer operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and FreeBSD. Opera editions are available for devices using the Maemo, Bada, BlackBerry, Symbian, Windows Mobile, Android, and iOS operating systems, and Java ME. Approximately 120 million mobile phones have been shipped with Opera. Opera is the only commercial web browser available for the Nintendo DS and Wii gaming systems. Some television set-top boxes as well as TV-set use Opera to render HTML-based interactive content. Adobe Systems has licensed Opera technology for use in the Adobe Creative Suite.

Up to version 12.02, released on August 30, 2012, Opera was the only one of the major web browsers that still actively supported Windows 2000 in new releases.

4. Apple Safari:

Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the native browser for iOS. A version of Safari for the Microsoft Windows operating system was first released on June 11, 2007, and supported Windows XP Service Pack 2/3, Windows Vista, and Windows 7, but it is no longer promoted or updated. Safari 5.1.7 is the last version available for Windows PC.

According to Net Applications, Safari accounted for 62.17 percent of mobile web browsing traffic and 5.43 percent of desktop traffic in October 2011, giving a combined market share of 8.72 percent.

5. Google Chrome:

Google Chrome is a freeware web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and as a stable public release on December 11, 2008. As of February 2013, according to StatCounter, Google Chrome has a 37% worldwide usage share of web browsers making it the most widely used web browser in the world.Net Applications, however, indicates that Chrome is only third when it comes to the size of its user base, behind Internet Explorer and Firefox.

In September 2008, Google released a large portion of Chrome's source code as an open source project called Chromium, on which Chrome releases are still based.