New Browser Comparisons IE8 Vs Firefox 3 Vs Chrome 

I’ve read several reports recently that most people surfing the Internet do not utilize extensions on their browsers. This surprised me a bit, because I rely on so many extensions that the thought of not using them is shuddering. Maybe it is because I spend so much time on the Internet with my work, and maybe it is because I’m basically lazy, but not having extensions to lessen my workload, and improve my overall performance, to me, is like buying a car with no extras (like a stereo, or tires). 

For this set of articles however, I was asked to look at the “stock” performance of these three browsers, like I was a “normal” Internet surfer. 

Tabs

To start this set of comparison articles, I’m going to focus first on the Tabbing functions of the browsers. 

All three of the browsers (IE8, Firefox, Chrome) are tab browsers now. This is not a surprise, because tabs are simply a requirement these days. The actions of the tabs are a bit different with Chrome. In IE 8 and Firefox, when you hold the CRTL key down and click on a link, a new tab is opened at the end of your tab list. In Chrome, a new tab is opened just after the tab you opened the link from. 

This opening sequence is kind of nice once you realize what is happening, because it helps group topic sequences together by default. 

When opening new tabs, IE begins to slow down. IE is fairly fast with one or two tabs open, but when you reach 5 or 10 tabs, the whole computer begins to see a large drain on resources. 

With tabs open to some web sites, Firefox begins to slow down as well, and can even begin to error out, or do some rather confusing things until the browser is closed and restarted. It will even crash at times. 

I have not gotten Chrome to slow down or crash with opening tabs yet, and don’t think I haven’t tried. 

Basic Speed

Since we are not looking at the use of extensions or add-ons with these three browsers, speed definitely goes to Chrome, a hands down winner in both loading time, and the use of temporary caching on your computer so that coming back to a web page only loads what is new, and not every file a second time. 

The draw backs to Chrome are usability. The interface is sparse, incredibly sparse, and it is difficult at first glance to see what to do, or where to do it. 

IE is much sparser than it use to be, and more user friendly. I would guess that most users are familiar with the interface today anyway, but looking at it with “new eyes” I would guess that a new user could figure out how to get to a web site, or a search engine after a short study. 

Firefox is much better than both of these for user interface, maintaining a more familer menu layout, and ease of use format, which anyone familiar with any computer program will become comfortable with after only a few seconds. 

Page Loading

IE still has problems loading many web pages in the “intended” manner of the creator. This is due to a continued lack of keeping with Internet standards. This is a long story, and most professional web designers today simply make a version for IE and a version for the rest of the known world. However, you may come across a web site or two which doesn’t seem to look right in your IE browser. Unless you compare the web site using another browser, you will probably never realize the oddities. 

Both Firefox and Chrome use the Internet Standards, and I have not had any problems with Flash or other multimedia content with either of them. 

Crashing

Perhaps it is because I hammer on browsers all day long, visiting an average of 60+ new web sites a day, that I notice Firefox crashing more than I’m use to. It could also be running Firefox on Vista, but really that doesn’t make much difference at the time of the crash. 

IE crashes just as often as I’m use to. After about an hour of hard surfing, I normally restart the browser before it crashes, expecting it to freeze up on me soon. Not the best review for them, but I personally don’t like loosing work, so a quick restart is better than trying to find something I just lost. 

So far, I haven’t gotten Chrome to crash. Again, its not because I haven’t tried. However, because of the sparse interface and lack of any real tools, I am still not excited about Chrome at this time. 

Bookmarking

This is an area Chrome falls flat on its face, so does IE. Firefox allows you to “Save All Open Tabs” into a Bookmark folder with the click of a button. Chrome has a Star up by the address bar that allows quick bookmarking, if you know what that star is, but otherwise, bookmarking doesn’t even look like an option. 

IE is the same old slow, clumsy bookmarking it has always been, and again, with its tendency to slow down the computer when more than five or six tabs are open at one time, I guess it doesn’t matter much.

Sometimes Windows updates are not updates on Vista. System Restore Points are handy items to know about for several reasons. If your computer is set to Automatically install updates from Windows (something I don’t recommend for any software, including Vista), then they can be even more handy.

However, if you are experimenting with a new software, which you are really hoping will work, but are not quite sure about, then System Restore Points can help you out here as well. 

Windows is supposed to automatically set a new restore point before doing a system update through the Windows Update Service whether you are doing a manual update, or the update is set to perform automatically. 

I prefer not to have automatic updates, and to set my own restore point before I start an update process, or before installing any New software. 

What it does

System Restore is for the System, this is important to keep in mind. The utility does not back up personal files or settings. It only backs up System settings, such as drivers, the registry, the menu, the desktop settings, and other System settings which are set at the time the Restore Point is created. So if you are installing a new sound driver, or changing some other driver software on your computer, you might want to set a Restore point before beginning the change or installation. 

What it doesn’t do

The System Restore Point is a picture or snapshot of your system; not your personal files and data. Favorites and Bookmarks, and notes, and MP3s are not system settings (though for many of use they are far more important). So for these objects and files it is better to have a File Backup of your important information files to an external drive. 

How to Make a System Restore Point

After this long lead in, Making and Using a System Restore Point is really easy.  

To create a system point manually, we can restore to later:

Right Click on the My Computer Icon or go to 

Start-> Right Click on My Computer

Click on the System Protection Tab

Choose the Drive you want to make a restore point for… On just about ever computer in the world, this is going to be the main C:\ Drive.

Click on the Create button.

Give your Restore Point a name; make it a good name, something you will recognize three weeks from now. Updates and driver installations may not show problems or make your computer unstable right away. Also, you will be able to tell the difference between unimportant automatically created restore points and restore points you made at critical times. 

How to Restore the System to an Earlier Point

Ok, the update made the system unstable, or the program made all kinds of crazy stuff happen and you want to restore the system to its former, happy self. 

Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools->System Restore

On this dialog you can find a quick link to the System Properties dialog as well for creating Restore Points. Since we are Restoring right now, we just click the Next button.

We are now presented with a list of Restore Points indicated by date. Choose the Restore Point you wish to set the system back to, and Click the Next button. 

A confirmation message will appear (when does a confirmation message not appear on Vista?), and we click Yes. 

This may take a bit, so don’t stress if the computer seems to freeze up for a few minutes. There is a lot going on with a System Restore. 

The computer will shut down and then turn back on automatically, allow this to happen and do not interrupt the process once a restore cycle has been started. Interrupting the process could damage the restore point storage, forcing you to choose an even earlier restore point, or having to re-install from scratch… which is never fun. 

Other Notes on Restore Points. 

The average restore point costs your computer 300 megs. These are big files, so show some respect in making them, and periodicaly check your list of restore points and delete previous “auto-created” points, or points you know you no longer need to keep your system resources free. 

Have more questions? Visit our Forum for fast, friendly Computer Support Advice.

Learning Keyboard shortcuts can make life much easier if you do a great deal of typing. Many users are not introduced to keyboard short cuts, because more of the books and training tools out there focus on Mouse commands.

Without a mouse, a great many options and commands are simply not practical, for example; getting to a program on the Start Menu that is three of four levels deep. However, there are keyboard commands for a many of your common needs, and using them can help speed up your computer tasks. In this article we are going to go through several of these.

The most common keyboard commands I use are Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-W, Ctrl-S, Alt-Tab, and Windows Key-L.

Ctrl-C: The Copy command. Highlighting anything in just about any program (browsers, MS Word, MS Excel), normally allows you to copy that item. You can highlight a word, choose a picture or even a file in a folder and press Ctrl-C to copy that item to the Clipboard.

Ctrl-V: The Paste command. Once the item is copied, to recover it from the clipboard into a Word Document, Excel Spread Sheet or into a folder, we use the Paste command.

Not every program allows Copy and Paste, but the ones that do usually respond to the same key combinations.

Ctrl-X:The Cut command. Cut is like Copy, only we don’t want the original. If you highlight a file in a folder, like we did with the Copy command, and then use Ctrl-X, the file disappears. It is not deleted however; it is moved to the Clipboard. If the computer shuts down at this point we loose the file. Using Ctrl-V (Paste) moves the file from the clipboard, into the active program or folder.

Ctrl-W: Close Current Window. This command works for open programs, and even file directories. Ctrl-W closes the current focused program. However, if that program has the ability to open several files in the same window, typically Ctrl-W closes the current file first, and if no files are open, it then closes the program. This is different than the way Alt-F4 works. Alt-F4 closes the focused program.

In Tabbed browsers, such as Firefox for instance, if you have several tabs open, Ctrl-W starts by closing the active visible Tab. Hit multiple times, Ctrl-W closes all open tabs, and finally the FireFox program. After that is closed, it works on the next open program.

Ctrl-S:Save File. This should be one that you train yourself simply to hit periodically while working on documents, spreadsheets and other data areas. Most programs these days have auto-save functions, but I never rely on those functions. It is really easy to pause for a moment after every few minutes and hit Ctrl-S. Hands never leave the keyboard and my data is safe even if the power suddenly goes out.

Alt-Tab: Cycle through open programs. If you need to jump back and forth between programs, such as a browser to a spreadsheet, or mail program; you can use the mouse to click on the Start bar, or you can press the key combination Alt-Tab. Alt-Tab cycles quickly through the programs you have running, allowing easy and fast switching between them, without having to take your hands off the keyboard.

WindowsKey-L: Lock down the computer. To keep your computer secure when you are heading for lunch or called away from your desk for a quick meeting, you can go through the log-out process, or just key the Windows Key with L. Not all keyboards have a Windows-Key, it is a key with the MS Windows Logo on it, and those keyboards that do have it, don’t seem to follow any specific placement for the key. However, if you do have one, this combination is one that you may want to get use to using. (Like the Ctrl-S combination).

Other Windows Key combinations are:

Windows: Display the Start menu
Windows + D: Minimize or restore all windows
Windows + E: Display Windows Explorer
Windows + F: Display Search for files
Windows + Ctrl + F: Display Search for computer
Windows + F1: Display Help and Support Center
Windows + R: Display Run dialog box
Windows + break: Display System Properties dialog box
Windows + shift + M: Undo minimize all windows
Windows + U: Open Utility Manager

Making your own HotKeys

Keyboard combinations do save a great deal of time, and also keep creative flow going. Making our own hot key combinations to start programs we use often can be just as rewarding, and very simple to setup.

To do this we work with Short Cut links. There are only two places (that I know of) where this process works with the Short Cut links. One, is any short cut link on your desktop, and the other is any short cut link in the Programs area of your Start Menu.

To setup a key combination to start a program, Right Click on the short cut, and then choose Properties (at the bottom of the floating menu). Then use the mouse to click once into the Shortcut Key: text field area. Now we are ready to press on the keyboard the combination we want to assign to this program.

You will want to choose a combination that is not already being used. For example you wouldn’t want to use Ctrl-C or something like that. Using Ctrl-Alt- and then a letter or number is usually fairly safe. If the key combination is already assigned, then the action will be taken, and the field won’t change.

If the Link is ever deleted, then the key combination will not work any longer. For this reason I prefer to set up Hot keys using the links on the Start Menu, rather than the ones on the Desktop.

There are many more keyboard combintation which you can use, and some fairly cool mouse tricks as well which can speed up your computer tasks, and make time at the computer much more enjoyable. If you need further help with key combinations or anything else for that matter, touch base with us in the Help Forum.