Who has the politest browser for Microsoft users?

(Results measured with the beta PB Index)

Last updated: January 12, 2010

So I have the lovely fun of testing my site on 4 browsers and had an opportunity to gauge each suitor for my site in terms of politeness to a Microsoft technologist.

I did two forms of analysis. One is friendliness when installing a new browser with a default browser already installed. This measures the ability to migrate your settings such as URL history, default search engine, etc.  Secondly, I evaluated various developer features (such as media streaming, source code display) to determine ease of use when testing web sites and applications.

So far it looks like Google Chrome is the politest non-MSFT browser.  They were each evaluated with the PBI (Polite Browser Index).  The index criteria will continue to grow in my evaluations, but here are the preliminary results.

PBI#		Internet Explorer 8(Default)	Chrome 2.0.172.43	Safari 4.0.3	Firefox 3.011 (now .013)
1	Does it ask you for your choice for default browser?	It is the default
2	Does it pay respect to your default search engine?	Bing was default
3	How well does it play Windows Media Player?	Fabulously with little tweaking (Set AutoStart=false and custom windows size)	*with tweak	*with tweaks	* weird buffering, page never stops loading
4	Does it remember your URL history?	Naturally but not fair to rate this when it is the default browser
5	How politely does it install its own updates?
6	How considerate is it with remembering memory is limited?
7	How elegantly does it display source?
8	How gently does it shephard your form values (e.g. use names and passwords)	already cached by default

I’d be curious to see this index in reverse, in terms of the Internet Explorer experience for someone using Safari or Chrome as a default browser. 

IE8 unmatched in terms of feature richness

Here are two IE8 features that I use most often that I can’t seem to find in other browsers.

Wishlist: “Translate this Human”

Although the politest non-MSFT browser when it comes to respecting your default browser settings, it definitely doesn’t quite match up to the features in IE8. My biggest “new feature” use in IE8 is the simple right click & translate with IE8.  I use this all the time when doing research on obscure German cites and coats of arms. For example, if I come across a search that only brings me back German results, like tonight when I was looking up more information on Hoherrodskopf. Let’s say I keep digging and digging into page after page until I get to a page that is completely German. Only in IE8 can I right click and have the page automatically translated for me. And continuing to click through, the right side of my screen keeps an updated live translation going at all times!

I use this feature A LOT and wish we had this in real life when traveling abroad. How cool would it be to right click on a person and say “Translate this Human?”

Are you commitment phobic?

Why commit to a clickthrough until you had a taste for the meal? With the a sneak preview feature, you can get a small morsel appetizer of the page description before committing to a clickthrough. Easy enough to get a sneak preview:  I simply hover over a link to get a bit more detail in a popup:

Detailed Findings & Analysis for Polite Browser Index

PBI1: Respecting your default browser.

All the browsers will ask before they override your default browser during the installation process. They will also politely inquire every time you launch unless you tell them to go away.

PBI2: Respect for Default Search Engine

Google honors Bing

Firefox goes straight for Google, but gives lots non MSFT choice (unless you count Yahoo)

And Bing is definitely not a contender for consideration. Although Bing is still in its early years, so understandable.

Safari sees a world of only two

PBI3: Playing Video

This is the one that’s definitely the biggest challenge. Apparently Macs do not honor the AutoStart=false option, which annoying causes any embedded WMV video to immediately start playing.  A work around is to switch this to an image link that in turn will pull down the video source.  Take a look at the before and after pictures. Not pretty.

BEFORE in Internet Explorer

AFTER in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox respectively

So neither browser will honor the object size that you set, unless you match that size with the embed tag size attributes. As you can see in the series of shots, unlike IE8, all other the browsers will use the ActiveX control size  listed in the EMBED tag as the default, not the size indicated in the OBJECT tag. This is by design.

If you modify the EMBED Tag to use the correct size, the Video will display in the correct aspect ratio.  Just remember to scroll down to change those settings if you are seeing undesirable control sizes.

   1: <object classid="clsid:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95" width="120" height="90" codebase="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/MediaPlayer/"> 

   2: <param name="Filename" value="http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/ch9/0/Microsoft%20Developer%20Evangelists.wmv"> 

   3: <param name="AutoStart" value="false"> 

   4: <param name="ShowControls" value="true"> 

   5: <param name="BufferingTime" value="200">

   6: <param name="ShowStatusBar" value="false">

   7: <param name="AutoSize" value="false"> 

   8: <param name="InvokeURLs" value="false"> 

   9: <embed src="http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/ch9/0/Microsoft%20Developer%20Evangelists.wmv" type="application/x-mplayer2" autostart="1" enabled="1" showstatusbar="1" showdisplay="1" showcontrols="1" pluginspage="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/MediaPlayer/" CODEBASE="http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=6,0,0,0" width="240" height="180"></embed> </object>

After making the adjustment, your video should size nicely.

Now what to do about that AutoStart?  So by default if you set the parameter for the OBJECT Tag to be false….

<param name="AutoSize" value="false">

…none of the browsers will honor it.  Just like the other issue, you will have to set yet another attribute to disable the autostart.  This is the attribute that you will change in the EMBED tag:

autostart="0"

The final code will look like this:

   1: <object classid="clsid:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95" width="120" height="90" codebase="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/MediaPlayer/"> 

   2: <param name="Filename" value="http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/ch9/0/Microsoft%20Developer%20Evangelists.wmv"> 

   3: <param name="AutoStart" value="false"> 

   4: <param name="ShowControls" value="true"> 

   5: <param name="BufferingTime" value="2">

   6: <param name="ShowStatusBar" value="false">

   7: <param name="AutoSize" value="false"> 

   8: <param name="InvokeURLs" value="false"> 

   9: <embed src="http://mschnlnine.vo.llnwd.net/d1/ch9/0/Microsoft%20Developer%20Evangelists.wmv" type="application/x-mplayer2" autostart="0" enabled="1" 

  10: showstatusbar="1" showdisplay="1" showcontrols="1" 

  11: pluginspage="http://www.microsoft.com/Windows/MediaPlayer/" 

  12: CODEBASE="http://activex.microsoft.com/activex/controls/mplayer/en/nsmp2inf.cab#Version=6,0,0,0" 

  13: width="240" height="180">

  14: </embed> 

  15: </object>

After these tweaks, Chrome worked great.  Safari also did well. Firefox was a little slow and was doing something strange with buffering, that made the page load for ages.

PBI4: URL History

Chrome remembers my URL history

And nicely drops down a list for me of autocomplete entries.

Safari  & Firefox draw a blank on where I have been

I don’t even get a drop down prompting me to autocomplete the Dot Com at the end of www.bing.

Likewise with Firefox

PBI5: Installing updates courteously

Firefox says “Talk to the Hand”

I just had to wait 3 minutes for Firefox to launch, as it was hung on installing updates. This was the screen I waited on.

PBI6: Respecting memory

So I opened up all 4 browsers, and cleared each browser’s cache respectively. Except for Safari, I couldn’t figure out where Apple buried that setting. I will address that later should Safari be an underdog in PBI6. Then I pointed each one to blog.slingalibi.com and popped open Task Manager to see what I saw (I’m probably going to get into a little trouble about this one so I will skip the editorial and just pop in my checkboxes up top with no comment):

PBI7: Whose source is most elegantly dressed?

I just wanted to do a basic text of a typical View Source experience. For each browser, I popped open my blog, hit a shortcut to view the source, and then hit another shortcut to find a piece of text (in this case: Twitter) and see how intuitive and polite the experience was for me.

Safari is definitely wearing casual khakis, shirt untucked

So I did a View Source on Safari, which was a wrist-bending CTRL+ALT+U or awkward mouse shift. This is what I see:

• black  & white (ok for Hitchcock, but not you, Safari)
• hard to search,
• no features besides zooming
• all it all I give a hearty… meh:

Internet Explorer is definitely wearing a nice suit with matching shoes & belt

So I open up IE and hit Alt V,C and this is what I see:

• Nice color coding, including green for comments
• Kind of liked the in-window search that Safari had, but the Find box isn’t a modal and was able to pop open the menus
• which didn’t have much besides zoom either
• all in all i give a nice hmm.

Firefox is wearing a tuxedo

Firefox has an easy CTRL+U to show off their source. And this is what I see

• CTRL+F to find text, just like IE, but it’s in-window- just like Safari
• Color coded result matching - Typing in letters into find immediately color coded the matching text in a green so bright I couldn’t help but miss the text!
• Gorgeous color coding for the actual code, in eye pleasing colors. The IE red hurts my eyes a bit.
• A bunch of bonus features like highlighting multiple matches
• All in all, hands down the most elegantly dressed & the best displayer of source

Chrome is wearing either a Halloween costume or maybe it’s supposed to be a hipster outfit, I can’t tell which. It’s either weird or weird. And just plain confusing.

So Chrome gave me a hard time finding the shortcut because their menu is buried under Developer. Who says you have to be a developer to look at source?  People steal images all the time from Ebay by digging into the source (oops, more on that later. Remind me).

But anyway, the short cut is an easy CTRL+U, and once I popped open the source this is what I see:

• First I was startled. For multiple reasons: 1. It was really fast. (that was the only good startle) 2. I didn’t know what happened. Turns out Chrome popped open a new tab. I thought for a second it replaced my normal code window and didn’t know how to go back. Then i realized it was a tab, and saw my original window besides it as a tab 3. The font is really small!!  4. I didn’t even know where to begin to Find the Find. Luckily CTRL+F Worked
• The color coding is there, but it’s so jumbled! No preservation of white space
• The color coding on the matching terms is nice (pink highlights), like Safari. And as an extra bonus, it gives you a second color for the out of focus matching terms (see the yellow highlights)
• The arrows to scroll through terms are ok
• I have no clue what those yellow bars in the scroll are about – I clicked on them, they didn’t do anything.
• All in all – it’s just weird and distracting for me.  (* And at this point I was still on the fence about it, until I went to close down the source window, and it shut down both source AND main window!  Without even asking me!! Now that’s definitely not polite).

PBI8: Who kindly escorts you into sites, remembering your form variables?

I tried each of the newly installed browsers by visiting a site that required login with a user name and password. I had never visited this site with either browser yet.

Chrome was extremely thoughtful

Not only did it remember the user name to a site that I have never visited with Chrome, it also autopopulated the password for me. Very impressive!

Firefox was very polite

Although it didn’t remember my password, it did remember my user name.