How to Compare Google Chrome to Mozilla Firefox
While Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser is the dominant one, according to NetTrends, the No. 2 and No. 3 browsers are Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, respectively. Both Firefox and Chrome are open source browsers, meaning that the source code that the browser is compiled from is freely available. Microsoft does not permit the source code for Internet Explorer to be circulated and modified by outside programmers. Firefox is currently in version 4, and Google Chrome is currently in version 12. Both have similar features, and if you're looking for an alternative to Internet Explorer, doing a side-by-side comparison can be illustrative.
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Instructions
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Download Mozilla Firefox from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/new/ for the operating system you're using.
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Double-click on the installer file to install the browser. Follow the instructions until the program is installed.
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Download Google Chrome from http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/make/download.html?brand=CHKZ
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Double-click on the installer file to install the browser. Follow the instructions until the program is installed.
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Launch both browsers side by side, and compare features. Chrome has a very minimalist user interface -- there is nothing above the tabs; the URL bar is also an integrated with your default search engine. Mozilla has a more traditional browser interface, with more extensive options for customizing the appearance, like layering images underneath the browser's buttons and footer information area at the bottom of the browser window. Both browsers have customized extensions available, like stock ticker updates and email account notifiers.
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Navigate to the following website with both browsers: http://acid3.acidtests.org/. This is the current test for Web standards compliance. Web standards define how browsers render text and other content on a web page. Browser vendors try to meet current Web standards to make sure that a given Web page is displayed the same way across all browsers. When checking Firefox or Chrome on the Acid3 test, you want to see a score that comes up as 100/100, or as close to this as you can get. As the Acid test gets updated regularly, it's worth it to check browsers against it regularly.
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Test both browser's JavaScript performance by going to http://www.webkit.org/perf/sunspider/sunspider.html and clicking on the Start SunSpider link. This tests how quickly the JavasScript engine renders pages. This is important for interactive websites, like Google Docs.
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