Comparison of web browsers

General information

Basic general information about the browsers: creator, company, license, price, etc. Browsers listed on a light purple background are discontinued.

Operating system support

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 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 Interactive televisions). Both the web browser and OS means most recent version, example: Windows 8 with Internet Explorer 10.

Browser features

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

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.

Accessibility features (continued)

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

The Acid tests are online test suites to determine aspects of standards compliance, to expose web page rendering flaws, and to rate the performance of browsers. Upon each test's release, they are designed so that no existing browser can pass without further development. In order for a browser to pass any Acid test, the latest public release of the browser (not an alpha, beta, release candidate, or other version under development or testing procedures) must meet the requirements shown below. In addition, the browser should be tested upon completion of installation, with no add-ons installed (some browsers make this easy by providing a "safe mode" option) and all the factory settings (no options have been changed from their defaults).

Acid1:

Acid2:

Acid3:

HTML5 support

The specifications for HTML5 are still under development, but many current browsers already support many of the new features in the draft specifications. An HTML5 test suite is also under development that, while it does not test all of the new features nor the functionality of those it does detect, rates browsers' support. New tests are expected to be added to the suite as time goes by.

As new tests are added, bogus ones removed, etc., new versions of html5test.com become available as preliminary beta or even alpha versions. These are great to test development versions (e.g. nightly builds) of web browsers, but their results should be taken with a grain of salt. Especially when considering that some browsers have experimental features built in which may be switched off by default.

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.

Mobile 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.

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.

JavaScript support

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.

See what parts of DOM your browser supports

Protocol support

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

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.

Internationalization

Most browsers are available in more than one language.

Security and vulnerabilities

This comparison of unpatched publicly known vulnerabilities in latest stable version browsers is based on vulnerabilities reports by Secunia. See browser security for more details about the importance of unpatched known flaws.