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Comparison of web browsers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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A web browser is an application that allows you to access and view websites and other content on the internet. Different browsers have their own strengths, focusing on speed, privacy, or customizability, and can be used on various devices, including desktops, laptops, and mobile phones.

This is a comparison of both historical and current web browsers based on developer, engine, platform(s), releases, license, and cost.

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General information

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Basic general information about the browsers. Browsers listed on a light purple background are discontinued. Platforms with a yellow background have limited support.

This article contains dynamic lists that may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by editing the page to add missing items, with references to reliable sources.
More information Browser, Developer ...
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Usage share of web browsers November 2020
  1. [a]
    MPL-1.1, GPL-2.0, LGPL-2.1
  2. [b]
    Chromium, on which Google Chrome is based, is open source; the features Google adds to Chrome (such as H.264 and ACC decoding, built-in Adobe Flash, and an auto-updater system, among other things) are closed-source. See Chromium (web browser) § Differences from Google Chrome and Google Chrome's Terms of Service for more info.[12]
  3. [c]
    EdgeHTML until 2020.
  4. [d]
    Blink since 2020.
  5. [e]
    Chromium, on which Microsoft Edge is based, is open source; the features Microsoft adds to Edge are closed-source. See Chromium (web browser) for more info.
  6. [f]
    Gecko before v57.
  7. [g]
    Gecko with Servo, v57 & after.
  8. [h]
    Proprietary as of 3.0.
  9. [i]
    Browser.
  10. [j]
    WebKit.
  11. [k]
    No cost, with Pro at cost ($20).
  12. [l]
    Included with Windows.
  13. [m]
    No cost for non-commercial use.
  14. [n]
    There are five different products which all carry the name Netscape: Netscape versions 1 to 4, properly called Netscape Navigator, was a browser based on the original Netscape engine. Netscape 4 also was available as an Internet suite, properly called Netscape Communicator. Netscape 6 and 7 was a new Internet suite based on the Gecko engine and the Mozilla Application Suite user interface. Netscape 8, properly called Netscape Browser, was a distinct browser based on Firefox that could use either the Gecko (Firefox) or Trident (Internet Explorer) engine. Netscape resumed use of the Navigator name from Netscape Navigator 9.0 beta 1. See Netscape for more info.
  15. [o]
    Gecko.
  16. [p]
    Browser & Trident.
  17. [q]
    Presto from 2003 until 2013.
  18. [r]
    Blink since 2013, Opera 15.
  19. [s]
    Presto until 12.16.
  20. [t]
    Blink from 15.0.
  21. [u]
    Subscriptions available for $1/month, $0.25/week, or $0.05/day.
  22. [v]
    Included with macOS, iOS and iPadOS.
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Operating system support

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Browsers are compiled to run on certain operating systems, without emulation.

This list is not exhaustive, but rather reflects the most common OSes today (e.g. Netscape Navigator was also developed for OS/2 at a time when macOS 10 did not exist) but does not include the growing appliance segment (for example, the Opera web browser has gained a leading role for use in mobile phones, smartphones, the Nintendo DS and Wii, and Personal Digital Assistants, and is also used in some smart TVs). Both the web browser and OS means most recent version, example: Windows 11 with Internet Explorer 11.

More information Browser, Windows ...
  1. [a]
    Google Chrome is not available for PowerPC.
  2. [b]
    Dillo is included in some Linux distributions, i.e. Damn Small Linux and Feather Linux.
  3. [c]
    Included in Windows 10 and 11.
  4. [d]
    Microsoft Edge is included in Windows 10 and also supported on Windows 7 and later.
  5. [e]
    Most Linux distributions which include a graphical user interface include a version of Firefox or a rebranded version of Firefox such as GNU IceCat.
  6. [f]
    Binaries are not released.
  7. [g]
    Dropped 5.2.
  8. [h]
    Dropped 5.0. Internet Explorer for UNIX was available for Solaris and HP-UX.
  9. [i]
    Opera Mini and Coast are available for iOS.
  10. [j]
    Dropped 5.1.7.
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Browser features

Information about what common browser features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons).

More information Browser, Bookmark management ...
  1. [a]
    Not available on mobile.
  2. [b]
    Starting with version 4, Google Chrome can disable Cookies, Images, JavaScript, Plugins, Popups, and Geolocation individually.
  3. [c]
    Lacks search toolbar, but search URL autocompletion provided via addressbar.
  4. [d]
    There is no online update facility built into IE, but it gets updated by Windows Update when enabled. As of Version 10 automatic silent update is the default setting in Internet Explorer. In Microsoft Edge, the option to disable automatic updates via the about dialog is not included.
  5. [e]
    Available as a PIM plugin which is disabled by default, but it is part of default installation.
  6. [f]
    Notification only.
  7. [g]
    Firefox 3.5 adds the Privacy mode. Older versions of Firefox can use the Stealther extension.
  8. [h]
    Mozilla based browsers like Firefox, SeaMonkey and Flock can handle per-site settings for cookies, pop-ups, add-on installs and images. For more settings, an add-on is needed ~ for example, NoScript.
  9. [i]
    Internet Explorer 10 supports spell checking.
  10. [j]
    Internet Explorer 8 supports InPrivate Browsing.
  11. [k]
    Through the Privacy toolbar, K-Meleon Versions 1.5 and 1.6, can individually disable Cookies, Images, JavaScript, Popups, and Plugins (e.g. Flash and Java).
  12. [l]
    For the download manager kdenetwork needs to be installed.
  13. [m]
    Konqueror can handle per-site settings for cookies, pop-ups, JavaScript, Java and NPAPI modules (e.g. Flash).
  14. [n]
    Depending on user's choice of rendering engine.
  15. [o]
    Lynx is able to edit text with an external editor, which can provide spell checking.
  16. [p]
    OmniWeb supports per-domain settings of options including support for disabling scripting, ad blocking, java and cookies. These settings only work on top level domains.[86]
  17. [q]
    Opera versions before 15 had bookmarks. Newer Opera versions use a different concept called "Stash" instead.
  18. [r]
    Opera can auto-complete forms with your personal information and website usernames. Also there is extension AutoComplete Archived 25 July 2014 at the Wayback Machine which can complete forms with form history.
  19. [s]
    Developers distribute patch enabling this functionality.
  20. [t]
    This functionality is handled via third-party software by browser's design.
  21. [u]
    This browser allows choosing a custom cookie jar, making cookies from other sessions unavailable to new session.
  22. [v]
    In many integrated password saving tools there are often leaks that make them unsafe.[88]
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Accessibility features

Information about what common accessibility features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons). Browsers that do not support pop-ups have no need for pop-up blocking abilities, so that field is marked as N/A.

More information Browser, Tabbed browsing ...
  1. [a]
    A more complete list of Pop-Up blockers and addons / programs are in the following article List of pop-up blocking software.
  2. [b]
    Page zooming is different from text resizing, as it resizes not only characters, but also multimedia objects and web page layout.
  3. [c]
    "Mozilla Developer Network – Using tab-modal prompts". Developer.mozilla.org. 3 February 2011. Archived from the original on 19 October 2012. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
  4. [d]
    The option "Do not allow any site to show pop-ups" in Google Chrome, which is the default, actually allows sites to show pop-ups which are not considered harmful.
  5. [e]
    Feature was intentionally removed via regular patch update, due to poor impact on performance.
  6. [f]
    Although text browsers don't have dialog windows, their prompts behave as modal dialogs – block the input until answer is received.
  7. [g]
    Requires building with "NONBLOCK_JS_DIALOGS" compile flag enabled; may cause crashes: .
  8. [h]
    "Bug 59314 – JavaScript alerts should be content-modal, not window-modal". Bugzilla.mozilla.org. Retrieved 23 May 2012.
  9. [i]
    Epiphany supports AdBlock as an official extension, in the epiphany-extensions package.
  10. [j]
    IE6 had no tabbed browsing support.
  11. [k]
    IE6 included pop-up blocking with Windows XP Service Pack 2
  12. [l]
    Full-text history search is available through a Windows Search iFilter[95]
  13. [m]
    Most Gecko browsers have options to block chosen images and cookies. Extended Ad filter support can be added by installing an extension such as Adblock Plus.
  14. [n]
    Opera 9 introduced a content blocker for webpages (Archived 9 February 2006 at the Wayback Machine). Earlier releases support wildcard protocol/domain/path and filetype blocking using a filter.ini file. ("Opera browser: Blocking unwanted ads and other cr*p using URL filtering". Archived from the original on 12 January 2013. Retrieved 12 April 2017.) More advanced Ad filtering for Opera can also be done with external software.
  15. [o]
    Does not allow selective blocking of pop-ups. Safari can only block all pop-ups, or none.
  16. [p]
    Ad filter support can be added by installing extensions.Archived 1 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  17. [q]
    Page zooming supported in the iPhone version of Safari. Screen zooming is built into macOS.
  18. [r]
    Only Mac.
  19. [s]
    Full-text history search is available through Spotlight, a feature of the macOS operating system.
  20. [t]
    This functionality is handled by third-party software by browser's design.
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Accessibility features (continued)

Information about what common accessibility features are implemented natively (without third-party add-ons).

More information Browser, Access keys ...
  1. [a]
    Font smoothing or font rasterization is arguably an accessibility feature affecting how the fonts are rendered and font readability. Also referred as ClearType or TrueType
  2. [b]
    On Mac systems, gestures are available systemwide via multitouch sensing on trackpads and mice.
  3. [c]
    On macOS, text-to speech and speech recognition are available systemwide and is available from menu in native Cocoa browsers.
  4. [d]
    Google Chrome can be given these features using extensions like smooth gestures, speechify and voice control for google chrome.
  5. [e]
    TTS in Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge is available through the operating system Speech API. For TTS, SAPI takes text as input and uses the TTS engine to output that text as spoken audio. This is the same technology used by the Windows accessibility tool, Narrator. SAPI and an English TTS engine have been embedded in all Windows operating systems since the release of Windows XP.
  6. [f]
    Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge can be controlled by applications which use the operating system Speech API. A built-in application called Windows Speech Recognition ships with Windows Vista and later client versions.
  7. [g]
    ELinks 0.12 supports spatial navigation.
  8. [h]
    Available as of this commit.
  9. [i]
    Supports as of v1.7.0: https://github.com/QupZilla/qupzilla/issues/458
  10. [j]
    Available as a Mouse Gestures plugin which is disabled by default, but it is part of default installation.
  11. [k]
    Doug Turner, the Minimo lead developer, has introduced spatial navigation to some special Firefox builds "Adot's notblog* "firefox, cats, mars, and more": Spatial navigation rocks". Archived from the original on 22 April 2005. Retrieved 20 April 2005.. It may build as a default part of Firefox "Spatial Navigation in Mozilla". Archived from the original on 22 April 2005. Retrieved 20 April 2005..
  12. [l]
    Mouse gesture support can be added by installing extensions like All-in-One Gestures (Firefox-only) and Mouse Gestures .
  13. [m]
    Firefox works with a number of screen readers such as JAWS and Microsoft Speech API through extensions.[which?]
  14. [n]
    Web supports mouse gestures as an extension from the official extensions package.
  15. [o]
    Internet Explorer 8 supports caret browsing.
  16. [p]
    Mouse gesture support is available via plug-ins, i.e. Mouse Gestures for Internet Explorer or Easy Go Back.
  17. [q]
    Mouse gesture support is available system-wide in KDE
  18. [r]
    Text-to speech support depends on the kttsd application in the kdeaccessibility package.
  19. [s]
    "opera : a sort of caret navigation can be enabled by a button or a shortcut". Archived from the original on 1 November 2006.
  20. [t]
    Only Mac.
  21. [u]
    On macOS systems, caret navigation (called "Full Keyboard Access") can be enabled systemwide.
  22. [v]
    Mouse gesture support can be added by installing extensions like Mouse Gestures Suite (Seamonkey-only) .
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Web technology support

Information about what web standards, and technologies the browsers support, except for JavaScript. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the browsers or extensions that provide such functionality.

More information Browser, CSS2.1 ...
  1. [a]
    CSS 2, a W3C recommendation since 1998, is the current stable version of CSS, nevertheless, CSS 2.1 corrects a few errors in CSS2 (the most important being a new definition of the height/width of absolutely positioned elements, more influence for HTML's "style" attribute and a new calculation of the 'clip' property), and adds a few highly requested features which have already been widely implemented. CSS 2.1 is derived from and is intended to replace CSS 2. Conformance criteria are detailed at the W3C website. (CSS 3 is only in draft status at present.) For more detailed information please see comparison of layout engines (CSS).
  2. [b]
    Frames and frame sets are obsolete and non-conforming in HTML5. They should not be used by authors.
  3. [d]
    XHTML is based on HTML but is an application of XML, which means that XHTML must be stricter than equivalent HTML code. XHTML is meant to be read by an XML parser but for backward compatibility reasons can also be parsed as HTML; this table only notes the browsers that are able to parse XHTML as XML. For more detailed information please see comparison of layout engines (XHTML).
  4. [e]
    Available with the MathPlayer plugin.
  5. [f]
    Dillo displays frames as links that the user can click on.
  6. [g]
    Not in standard install, but provided by extension. Archived 14 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine Archived 13 May 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  7. [h]
    Microsoft claims Internet Explorer 8 has full CSS2.1 support,[99] however independent testing revealed several bugs.[100]
  8. [i]
    Depends on the layout engine which is chosen: Trident or Gecko or WebKit.
  9. [j]
    Depends on the layout engine which is chosen: Trident or Gecko.
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Plugins and syndicated content support

Information about what web standards, and technologies the browsers support. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the browsers or extensions that provide such functionality.

More information Browser, ActiveX ...
  1. [a]
    Internet Explorer (and Shells) is the only browser to natively support the Component Object Model (popularly known as ActiveX). Most other browsers use the NPAPI plugin architecture. ActiveX is more powerful than NPAPI in terms of the control it affords over the browser, but it is specific to Windows whereas NPAPI is cross-platform. There is a third-party plugin that adds partial ActiveX support, that is available for certain older versions of Mozilla Suite, Mozilla Firefox and Netscape Navigator. The default settings in earlier versions of Internet Explorer allowed the automatic download, installation, and running of new ActiveX controls with minimal user intervention – this made it possible to use ActiveX on web pages to install viruses, spyware, etc. onto a user's computer.
  2. [b]
    Java support is for built-in support by the browser without a plugin.
  3. [c]
    Internet Explorer 7 and later.
  4. [d]
    NPAPI and the Java-plugin were disabled by default in Chrome versions 42 and not supported in Chrome versions 45 and higher.
  5. [e]
    RSS and ATOM feed autodetection in Epiphany depends on the Newsfeed extension which is included with Epiphany-extensions.
  6. [f]
    Internet Explorer did for a time support NPAPI plugins. Plugins that functioned in the Netscape browser also functioned in Internet Explorer. This was due to a small ActiveX control implemented within a "plugin.ocx" file that acted as a shim between the ActiveX based browser and the NPAPI plugin. The IE browser would load the control and use it to host plugins specified within the page. However, Microsoft made the claim that the NPAPI plugins (or the IE implementation of the API) were a security issue and dropped support for them in version 5.5 SP2.[103][104][105]
  7. [g]
    Internet Explorer 8 supports syndicated content in hAtom / hSlice microformat by the name of a feature known as Web Slices. Internet Explorer 4.0—7 supported CDF.
  8. [h]
    RSS and ATOM feed autodetection in Konqueror depends on the aKregator package which is installed with kdepim.
  9. [i]
    Safari had Java only on macOS, up to Safari 11. No longer supported Safari for Windows needed a plugin.
  10. [j]
    Safari has Gears only on Mac OS X 10.4+. Windows is not supported.
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JavaScript support

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Information about what JavaScript technologies the browsers support. Note that although XPath is used by XSLT, it is only considered here if it can be accessed using JavaScript. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the browsers or extensions that provide such functionality, e.g., Babel.

More information Browser, JavaScript ...
  1. [a]
    It is possible to compile Amaya with JavaScript enabled, using the CVS version and SpiderMonkey. However, this is still experimental and only a small subset of DOM 1 is available.
  2. [b]
    XPath is a part of DOM 3, but is considered separately here. A large subset of DOM 3 is accessible by extensions but not by websites.
  3. [c]
    Determined by GNU LibreJS.
  4. [d]
    Internet Explorer 5 and above has its own event registration model and its own style sheets model, but these are incompatible with DOM 2.
  5. [e]
    Support for JavaScript has been removed in version 2.1pre29 (change log)
  6. [f]
    SVG, XPath, (partial) DOM 3 is available in only the WebKit nightlies so far.
  7. [g]
    Depends on the layout engine which is chosen: Trident or Gecko.

See what parts of DOM your browser supports

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Protocol support

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Information about what Internet protocols the browsers support (in addition to HTTP that all (modern) browser should and do fully support[a]). External links lead to information about support in future versions of the browsers or extensions that provide such functionality.

More than half of web traffic from Chrome to Google's servers is handled by QUIC protocol, not TCP (or HTTP/1). Chrome, Opera, and Firefox have support for QUIC, and HTTP/3, while Safari is testing it for a subset of users.

More information Browser, HTTP/2 ...
  1. [a]
    Mosaic reached only HTTP 0.9 compliance, and does not support secure communications in any way.
  2. [b]
    Many browsers have FTP support as read-only and have no upload capitilies. Read-only is marked as yes. For a comparison of clients that support upload opportunities see Comparison of FTP client software.
  3. [c]
    Many browsers have purposely avoided support for e-mail and newsgroups (Usenet), as these are reserved for their mail-client counterparts. For a comparison of such counterparts see comparison of email clients and Comparison of Usenet newsreaders.
  4. [d]
    Support for 256-bit ciphers (AES for example) for SSL/TLS is only available in Windows Vista and above[112][113]
  5. [e]
    Internet Explorer 7 has no support of gopher; gopher support is disabled in IE6.
  6. [f]
    NNTP support can be added by installing the add-on infoRSS.
  7. [g]
    IRC support can be added by installing ChatZilla.
  8. [h]
    For security reasons, IDN domains are displayed as punycode if they contain certain characters or if the top-level domain has not been whitelisted .
  9. [i]
    Possible using third party extensions like FoxTorrent[110]
  10. [j]
    Dillo has experimental SSL integration that is by standard turned off. "How do I enable the https (SSL) support plugin for dillo?". Archived from the original on 9 May 2008. Retrieved 12 April 2017. There is no certificate caching and no authentication performed.
  11. [k]
    Respects system-wide proxy settings.
  12. [l]
    Firefox support for the Gopher protocol was dropped in Firefox 4 (Gecko 1.9.3) per bug 388195.[109] This and newer versions have full Gopher support when the OverbiteFF extension is installed.
  13. [m]
    Microsoft has limited support to certain "non-navigable" content, such as in <img> tags and CSS rules, for security reasons, including concerns that JavaScript embedded in a data URI may not be interpretable by script filters such as those used by web-based email clients.[114]
  14. [n]
    Konqueror has full Gopher support when the kgopher KIO plugin is installed.
  15. [o]
    Depends on the layout engine which is chosen: Trident or Gecko.
  16. [p]
    Includes a proxy capability for gopher support.
  17. [q]
    Behavior towards malicious certificates can only be set up in compile time.
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Image format support

Information about what image formats the browsers support. External links lead to information about support in future versions of the browsers or extensions that provide such functionality.

More information Browser, JPEG ...
  1. [a]
    Although it was one of the first suggested WWW image formats, most browsers support TIFF by using a plugin installed by the user instead of decoding it natively.
  2. [b]
    SVG here refers to SVG 1.1 Full. There are also two simplified profiles known as SVG 1.1 Tiny and SVG 1.1 Basic, which are intended for user agents with limited capabilities.
  3. [c]
    Most browsers support PDF by installing an Adobe plugin which takes over the browser window. Listed here are browsers which also support inline PDFs within other hypertext documents (such as within HTML's <img /> tag). Note that PDF (in strictly speaking) is not an image format, but a scriptable rich text document format that can contain different types of multimedia content, including vector and bitmap graphics, audio, video, forms, intra- and inter-document hypertext links and a hierarchical contents listing. The format is also the native display format under macOS.
  4. [d]
    Internet Explorer supports PNG images but is unable to correctly display images with gamma correction or color correction.[citation needed] Versions of Internet Explorer prior to version 7 are unable to correctly display images with alpha channel (for transparency) without additional coding .
  5. [e]
    Support for the canvas element was added to Internet Explorer 9. Earlier versions of Internet Explorer can be made to emulate canvas using the excanvas script.
  6. [f]
    Internet Explorer support for XBM files was removed in Version 6.
  7. [g]
    Firefox and SeaMonkey partially support SVG 1.1 Full. Modules that are implemented or not implemented and details of their implementation: .
  8. [h]
    For Chromium prior to version 59 there is support via an extension.
  9. [i]
    Falkon supports as much SVG specification as WebKit does: .
  10. [j]
    Mozilla applications rebranded by the GNU project, such as GNU IceCat or Iceape do not support APNG.[citation needed]
  11. [k]
    In Gecko 1.9.2 (Firefox 3.6) XBM support was dropped.
  12. [l]
    Konqueror supports JPEG2000 if KDE's viewer is compiled with Jasper library.
  13. [m]
    Inline PDF viewing in Konqueror requires KPDF which is included in kdegraphics.
  14. [n]
    While lacking support for inline display of graphical elements, Lynx allows defining standalone image viewer and assigning programs to MIME types. Such program is called when user activates corresponding element, effectively allowing Lynx user to add support for arbitrary non-inlined file format.
  15. [o]
    Safari 3 is able to render SVG documents, but not fully.[125]
  16. [p]
    Depends on the layout engine which is chosen: Trident or Gecko.
  17. [q]
    32-bit version only.
  18. [r]
    Opera is currently supporting APNG on their Beta and Dev builds.
  19. [s]
    Opera supports SVG 1.1 Basic. Archived 4 June 2012(Timestamp length) at archive.today
  20. [t]
    Pale Moon supports JPEG-XR from the first quarter of 2017.
  21. [u]
    Safari support for HEIF pronounced in 2017 from version 11 on operating systems macOS Sierra and iOS 11.
  22. [v]
    With the addition of the new Cairo version in Gecko 1.9 it will be natively possible to save pages to PDFs but not read them. This feature is not included in Firefox 3.5, however it is possible with the new Cairo backend.
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Internationalization

Most browsers are available in more than one language.

More information Browser, Languages ...


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See also

References

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