What is the best browser?

For most companies in 2026, the best browser is Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge: both are fast, get frequent security updates and can be managed centrally, with the same settings on every computer. Firefox is the right choice if you want a browser that’s independent of Google and Microsoft, and Safari remains the natural choice on Mac, iPhone and iPad.

When we wrote this article in 2012, the answer was also Google Chrome, but the question looked different: Internet Explorer was still the default browser in many companies. Below you’ll find what matters today when you choose a browser and, at the end, our 2012 test.

Which browsers are used in 2026?

According to StatCounter, in 2026 Chrome has roughly two-thirds of the global market (across all device types), followed at a distance by Safari, Edge and Firefox.

Internet Explorer no longer appears in these statistics: Microsoft retired it in June 2022. Its place was taken by Microsoft Edge, which has used the same engine as Chrome (Chromium) since 2020. That’s why the differences in speed and page rendering between modern browsers are much smaller than they were in 2012.

How do you choose a browser for your company?

• Security and updates. The browser is the main gateway to the internet, so it must update automatically. Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari all get regular security fixes.
• Central management. Chrome and Edge can be configured through Windows policies (Group Policy) or through Microsoft Intune: the start page, allowed extensions, password saving, updates. In a company with many computers, this matters more than a few milliseconds of speed.
• Compatibility with the company’s applications. Old applications that require Internet Explorer can run in Edge, in Internet Explorer mode (IE mode), which Microsoft has committed to supporting through at least 2029. Now is the right time to plan their replacement.
• Separate profiles for work and personal use, so that personal passwords, history and extensions don’t end up in the work account.
• Approved extensions. Malicious extensions can read everything that happens in the browser. Allow only the extensions the company actually needs.
• Passwords. Don’t save work passwords in your personal browser; use a password manager managed by the company. See also the basic rules for secure passwords.

What has changed since 2012?

In November 2011, according to StatCounter, as quoted by Reuters, Chrome (25.7%) overtook Firefox (25.2%) for the first time, while Internet Explorer fell from 48.2% to 40.6% in one year. The statistics were based on data from more than three million websites, with over 15 billion page views a month. We said at the time that if the decline continued, it would be the end of the road for Microsoft’s browser. And so it was.

In Romania, also in November 2011, Chrome overtook Internet Explorer, and in February 2012 IE had a share of just over 25%: only one user in four was still browsing the internet with Internet Explorer.

Since then:

• Chrome has become the dominant browser, on computers and on phones;
• Microsoft replaced Internet Explorer with Edge, launched in 2015;
• the tests used in 2012 (SunSpider, Peacekeeper) have been abandoned; today, browsers are compared with tests such as Speedometer, from BrowserBench.org;
• Safari no longer exists for Windows; it remains the default browser on Apple devices.

Our 2012 test: Chrome 19, Firefox 12 and Internet Explorer 9

We hadn’t seen a serious test of the current versions of the three browsers of the moment – Internet Explorer 9, Google Chrome 19 and Firefox 12 – on any blog or website for a long time. That’s what we wrote in May 2012, when we set out to answer these questions: which is the best browser, which browser should I use, which is the fastest and which renders content best?

The tests were run on a computer with 2 GB of RAM, 32-bit Windows 7 and a 2.8 GHz Pentium 4 processor.

Test	Google Chrome 19	Firefox 12	Internet Explorer 9
SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark (ms, 3 runs; lower is better)	290.6 / 290 / 291.1	243.3 / 247.2 / 248.4	238.2 / 235.6 / 236.6
ACID3, standards compliance (points out of 100)	100	100	100
Peacekeeper, speed (points; higher is better)	3,454	1,572	1,534
HTML5, support for the standard (points; higher is better)	402	330	138

The tests were purely informative and checked several aspects of each browser. Results could vary depending on the computer (memory, processor), but the proportions stayed roughly the same.

Our conclusion at the time: the answer was Google Chrome, the fastest in the Peacekeeper test and the best on HTML5 standards, also known for having the fewest security problems. Firefox didn’t do badly either: it had good scores, supported extensions that made it highly customizable and was an excellent browser for more demanding users. Internet Explorer 9 came last, because it hadn’t received major improvements in a long time, while Chrome and Firefox were updated every two months.

Personal opinions from 2012: the surprise of the test was Opera, with modest results in the synthetic tests but very good everyday browsing. Safari on Windows disappointed us: it was slow to start, loaded pages slowly and wasn’t very customizable. Internet Explorer used a lot of resources, and its popularity rested mainly on the fact that it was built into Windows. According to the Romanian statistics of the time, only 19.76% of Internet Explorer users had the latest version, and 44% were still using version 6.

Where do you download browsers?

• Google Chrome, from Google’s website;
• Mozilla Firefox, from Mozilla’s website;
• Microsoft Edge, already installed on Windows 10 and Windows 11;
• Opera, from Opera’s website;
• Safari comes preinstalled on Mac, iPhone and iPad;
• Internet Explorer can no longer be downloaded and should no longer be used.

Want the browsers in your company to be updated and configured the same way on every computer? That’s part of IT maintenance. For an assessment of the computers and applications you use, ask for a free IT audit.