Top 6 Considerations in Choosing Your Browser as a Student
Friday, April 2, 2010 by Kelly Sutton 
Chrome. Picture by flickr user nDevilTV and licensed under CC BY 2.0.
Today's post is a guest post from Sunny Singh, a student a Stoke Park School Sixth Form in the UK studying A-Levels. (Honestly, I'm not quite sure what that means but it sounds impressive, yeah?) His guest post is about choosing the right browser as a student. If you'd like to write a guest post yourself, shoot us an email!
A web browser is probably the most used tool in the world. Web browsers allow users to enable add ons that can make our browsing experience better or enable Life Hackers such as ourselves to find out how much time is spent on the Internet. To break down which is the best browser for you, let's think of how college love life is like. College love life is fast, it is usually done efficiently, has no strings whatsoever, is intended for the cutest girl, comes with many bonuses and is always the fun. In that perspective let’s look at the some relevant categories and browsers. For the people who have no idea about how many web browsers there are out for them, here’s a short list: Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Firefox, Avant, FlashPeak, Sleipnir, Flock, K-meleon and Maxthon.
6. Speed
The speed of internet browsers is crucial for every student in the world as it can make the difference of having an extra minute to check up on your Facebook wall posts or to update your Twitter with something that can impress the ladies. I am currently using Firefox as I think it is freakin’ fast and has hundreds of add-ons and security updates that keep me fully protected and away from pregnancies. Tests that had been carried out by the Lifehacker team revealed that Firefox was fairly fast and was doing its best to compete with the slightly faster Google Chrome. However, due to these results I will still use Firefox as I haven’t got enough memory for Chrome’s ultra bulky browser. I think I might switch up my browser to Opera’s newest browser as it is also supposed to be stupid fast.
5. Efficiency
The efficiency of operations may also be related to the memory usage and it could also mean the speed in which things are done such as updates. We’ve looked at which is technically the fastest, now lets look at which can be the best suited for us. The Opera browser is extremely stable, lightweight and fast. It could carry out normal tasks such as updating and loading new pages quite easily. Internet Explorer is also a very good browser to use for efficient browser but it's Internet Explorer. Extremely fast responses will mainly come from the Opera, Firefox and Chrome browsers while sites will probably function correctly in Internet Explorer. It's definitely a trade off.
4. Are there string attached?
All the browsers are free of charge and take up hardly any memory to install. However, there are could be a few pressuring moves made by browsers to download extra stuff to make you stay a customer to influence you to buy other products by the business. (Hint: Microsoft)
3. How does it look?
The most customizable browsers on the market are Chrome, Firefox, sleipnir, K-meleon and Avant. There are other customizable browsers that can allow the user to completely customize the browser. I recommend you stick to the main stream browsers like Firefox 3.6; it's got 35,000 personas/colorful skins for your browser. However, you may prefer a girl with a simple look, so Chrome and Safari may be for you.
2. Add-ons and extensions
There are numerous add-ons for the Firefox browser and they allow the user to fully customise their experience. There are extensions for every browser and they should be taken advantage of to make full use of the web browsing experience. Chrome’s extensions are amazing. The Maxthon browser is so unique and spectacular to use. Features such as mouse gestures, antifreeze and other high quality extensions that make web browsing amazing. Search out the ones for your browser.
1. The fun factor
The most fun browsers for me are the fastest and with extensions/add-ons that could change the way you access the Internet. That is why I have both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Firefox is extremely fast with a customizable experience. I use Internet Explorer for bookmarking and favorites in the simplest of manners. Google’s Chrome and Apple’s Safari are also amazing to use and easy to test
There you have it, the ultimate breakdown of web browsers and why you should pick the right one and how, and remember testing is the most important method of finding the best browser for yourself. Just like girls or guys, there won't be one that's perfect for everyone!
If you wanna spread some love, then leave a comment below!
Reader Comments (10)
Just to let you know, A Levels are roughly equivalent to AP courses.
Because I'm a web developer, I use Firefox for the extensions. But recently I've been impress by the speed of chrome. Thinking about switching if chrome makes some of the extensions that I use.
I currently use opera, because it is really stable and fast (I don't have fast internet). Before I tried the Maxthon Browser, it's nice, too, but really not so fast. I would go for th opera, you can also change the skin. I like it also, because there are not so much senseless add-ons
I just switched over to Chrome and have been loving the speed, I am interested in trying Komodo which is a security beefed up patch of Chrome. Chromes extensions/add-ons are growing daily to compete with FireFox.
Another browser I use in the past that was nifty was Flock, a FireFox clone that supports all the extensions and add-on of Firefox. The customization of themes is rather poor so you are stuck with a silver/grey and blue layout. The cool thing about Flock that I had always loved before I switch over to chrome was that you could upload pictures, tweet, blog, get notices, update status and approve things all from your browser side bar.
So if your a real social networking user you should give Flock a try.
For speed and all around Google-ness try out Google Chrome (my favorite extension for chrome is the Google voice, right clicking on any number online and it calls it for you....)
woooah, im loving the response from my first post ever, brilliant.
Hi Jay, im a learning web devloper as well and i kinda gave Chrome only one chance, but i think that when they release something less bulky and less memory intensive i might switch, however firefoxing it out until that day.
Hi Katarina, yes Opera is probably the fastest browser i have seen EVER! It just needs a bit more of a marketing push to completely take off, highly under rated.
Hi Jordan, yes the speed of Chrome is quite amazing but i think my desktop might need an upgrade to a quad core to probably fully enjoy the browser, yes Flock is amazing for social networking and i actually think that i might install it and chrome when i go off to university as it keeps work seprate from social life. HACK! and i live in the UK so i cant take advantage of the Google Voice stuff but i hope Google do something about it. Fingers crossed.
Sunny thats a good idea, maybe I should download Flock and keep the social, and business side of my life separate.
Anyways really enjoyed the post, do you have a blog by chance?
Hi jordan, no sorry i don't just yet, but i might create one as i get more experience in the blogging world and thanks for showing some love.
Well enjoyed this post, and look forward to more if you blog more.
Google Chrome is super good. I've been addicted in using it. Its user experience is terrific and the speed of opening a webpage is 1000 times faster than IE.
Good post - never really gave much thought to this :)