One, Reading Mode, strips webpages of cluttermostly ads, videos, and content pitchesso you can focus on text.

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But with new competitors in the fray and longtime entries revving up new technologies, the stakes have never been higher.

Fast forward 20 years, and IEs proprietary technologies for enabling interactive, application-like websites have given way to W3C standards-based features for delivering the online experience.

Thats for desktop use; if you add in mobile, Chrome is still king at over 60 percent.

Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Opera all have features not found in Googles browser.

Thats not to say that Chrome isnt an excellent piece of software, but you should know there are worthy alternatives.

This article examines the top five browsers in the U.S.

Unfortunately, that rules out Brave and Vivaldi both first-class and unique choicesbut you can read about them in my article covering the best alternative web browsers.

But in this day of the ever-present smartphone, the linkage between your desktop browser and your phone has become increasingly important.

Indeed, some browsers now let you send a webpage from one device to another, and all let you sync bookmarks between them.

The maximum possible score is 555, with points awarded for each standard supported.

The new Chromium-based Microsoft Edge has taken over the lead from Chrome on this test with a score of 535 compared with Chromes 528.

Just a few years ago, a score in the 300s was considered excellent, and Internet Explorer (still used by millions) is stuck at 312.

I tested on my Asus Z240IC 4K touch-screen all-in-one PC with a 2.8GHz Core i7-6700T processor running Windows 10.

For Safari I used a 3.1GHz Core i7-4770S iMac (I realize the hardware is not completely comparable, but its sufficient for a rough comparison).

Take benchmark results with a grain of salt, however, since purely synthetic tests dont measure every component of actual browsing conditions.

Since Chrome and Opera dont report their storage use in the Settings Apps Features page, I used the size of their folders.

Chrome by default signs you into Google services like Gmail and YouTube, which some consider presumptuous.

Firefox also has a good privacy story, with a private mode that not only discards a sessions history and cookies but also hides your activities from third-party tracking sites during the private session.

In addition, Firefox and Safari include fingerprint protectionpreventing trackers from identifying you based on your hardware and software setup.

Firefox also has built-in Content Blocking to fend off known trackers and cryptocurrency-mining ploys.

Mac For Opera And Chromium