Each brings a unique twist, though. The new browser from Microsoft, Internet Explorer 9, adds hardware acceleration for graphics-intensive sites and arguably the best privacy tool to prevent tracking of your Web activities by marketing sites. Firefox offers a Panorama view of your tabs and a refreshed version of what's still the most powerful set of customizations, along with the ability to sync bookmarks, history, settings, and more. Google's Chrome, which may be the fastest growing browser in history in terms of market share, is also the most frequently updated. It's already at version 10 after just two and a half years. Chrome, too, offers syncing, but on top of this it adds some pretty powerful, useful features—its Instant feature starts displaying a page from your history before you even finish typing in the Omnibox, its combined address-search box. And the browser comes with built-in viewers for Flash and PDF content, saving you from having to install separate plug-ins.
Though Safari exist predominantly in Apple Mac territory, there's no reason Windows users can't enjoy the unique and—typical-of-Apple—beautifully designed extras if offers. Its "Reader" view cuts all the ads and unnecessary items off a page you just want to read the text on, and the Top Sites page offers a stunning 3D gallery view of your most frequently needed Web locations.
And then there's Opera. No browser has brought more innovation when compared with the size of its user base. Tabs, the search box, and zoom all started with Opera. Though it can claim only about 2 percent of Internet users, that still means tens of millions who know about the browser's Speed Dial for getting to you favorite sites quickly, Turbo for speeding up slow connections, and Unite, which actually turns your computer into a Web server. Also unique to Opera are its tab stacking, mouse gestures, and built-in Bittorrent client.
