Internet Explorer 11 vs Safari 8
Difference between Internet Explorer 11 and Safari 8 is an interesting as well as a current topic to discuss as Internet Explorer 11 is the latest browser by Microsoft that is targeted for Windows operating systems while Safari 8 is the latest browser by Apple targeted for OS X and iOS operating systems. While the platform difference being the most significant difference between Internet Explorer and Safari, another difference is in the performance. Many tests we discuss in the next sections show that Safari has a better overall performance than Internet Explorer. Moreover, there are some innovative, sophisticated features in Safari such as social media integration.
Features of Internet Explorer 11
Internet Explorer is a web browser developed by Microsoft and is bundled with its Windows operating system. It has a very old history where the first version was released in 1995 with Windows 95. Currently, the latest release is Internet Explorer 11 which was released a couple of months ago in September 2014. While Internet Explorer is targeted only for Windows operating system, Microsoft does not provide setups for Linux and Unix operating systems. The product is available in about 95 different languages. The product is proprietary to Microsoft and hence is not open source. Internet Explorer supports many standards including HTML 4, HTML 5, CSS, XML and DOM. In the past like in 2003 Internet Explorer was the world’s most widely used web browser where the percentage was even over 80%. Buy today with the advent of many browsers such as Chrome now it has dropped to the third place of about just 10% usage according statistics from W3counter.
The user interface on Internet Explorer is much simpler and cleaner and tallies with the interface of the Windows operating system. It not only acts as a browser but also provides the user interface to FTP giving the user with operations similar to Windows Explorer. Also, Internet Explorer provides certain features in the Windows operating system such as Windows update. Currently features such as tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, private browsing, synchronization and download manager are available even though it was a bit late to introduce them when compared to Chrome. The settings on Internet Explorer are fully configurable via group policy and this is a unique feature. Add-ons such as Flash Player, Microsoft silver light which are also known as ActiveX can be installed to give more capabilities to the browser. Though Internet Explorer is a web browser with all up to date features, the greatest issue is the performance. For example according to Six Revision’s performance tests, in all aspects the performance of Internet Explorer is worse than other browsers.
Features of Safari 8
Safari is the web browser developed by Apple to be delivered with their operating systems Mac OS X and iOS. The first version was released in 2008 which is about 11 years back while the most recent version Safari 8 comes with the latest OS X operating system Yosemite. Safari is a proprietary software under Apple, but certain parts are open source. According to W3Counter Safari has the 4th place in the browser popularity with a percentage of about 4%. According to the Apple website, based on benchmark tests such as JetStream, speedometer and Jbench Safari 8 is even ahead of Chrome and Firefox in factors such as JavaScript performance and web application responsiveness.
Safari provides facility to do private browsing while security features such as 3rd party cookie blocking and protection from harmful sites is present. Each website instance runs on a separate process providing better-sandboxed security and stability. Powered by Apple’s cloud service iCloud now Safari lets you synchronize your passwords, bookmarks, history, tabs, and Reading List across various Apple devices. Another notable new feature in Safari is the convenience to share information. The new share button allows sharing of links with various sources such as Mail, Facebook, Twitter and Airdrop. Safari integrates its smart search box with the operating system spotlight feature which gives suggestions from various sources such as Wikipedia, Maps, news sites, iTunes, and movie listings. The tab view in the new version is much innovative, lets the user see a snapshot of all tabs at once while it is possible to create stacked tab s based on pages from the same site. The browser also contains a tab called shared links that shows the links shared by your friends in Facebook and twitter. Like in any other browser Safari as well provides various extensions that extend the capability of the browser.
What is the difference between Internet Explorer 11 and Safari 8?
• Internet Explorer is the web browser by Microsoft while Safari is the web browser by Apple.
• Internet Explorer is the default browser on Windows operating systems while Safari is the default browser on Apple iOS and OS X.
• Internet Explorer has a long history than Safari where Internet Explorer was first released in 1995 while Safari was released in 2003.
• Currently according to W3Counter Internet Explorer is more popular than safari where Internet Explorer usage is 10% while the usage of Safari is 4%.
• According to various benchmarks tests such as what is mentioned in Six Revision’s Performance Comparisons of Web Browser s, Safari has a better overall performance than Internet Explorer.
• Internet Explorer is integrated with Windows specific features such as Metro Interface and Windows Desktop while Safari is integrated with Mac specific features such as spotlight.
• Internet Explorer uses Microsoft Live account to synchronize user data and settings while Safari uses iCloud service for that.
• Safari has a new sharing feature where it allows easy sharing of links to services such as Mail, Facebook and twitter while such feature is not directly found on Internet Explorer.
• Safari has a tab called shared links that shows various links shared by friends on Facebook, Twitter and other social media, but Internet Explorer does not have this type of feature.
Summary:
Internet Explorer 11 vs Safari 8
Internet Explorer is the default browser for Windows while Safari is the default browser for Mac OS X and iOS. Both operating systems are not open source and are available only across the operating system they are designed for where they are not supported on operating systems such as Linux. Safari has better performance than Internet Explorer according to many benchmarks. A significant feature in Internet Explorer is the ability to switch to Metro Mode, that is a full-screen mode targeted for touch devices. Safari also has innovative features such as shared links, integration with spotlights and ease of sharing.