occasion of the survey published yesterday in search of your favorite web browser , there have been some comments a little unhappy with how you raised it. Nothing is perfect, of course, the mistake is on the agenda and … Let’s address the issue, which has more crumb than meets the eye.

a survey whose purpose is to see the preferences for that web browsers are concerned, a poll published by a site called MuyLinux, things are not the “standard” because neither Internet Explorer nor Safari , two of the most popular Web browsers, are present. This leaves us with a trio split the vote almost entirely Firefox, Chrome / Chromium and Opera .

Then, taking the above into account and always in my point of view, yet they try to be as objective as possible:

Firefox and Co.

Firefox is free software , which no doubt. The reasons for the movement of Debian Iceweasel are referred to its security policy regarding the Mozilla more than anything, and there is one difference I can find the end user in terms of performance or features.

is, Debian would use Firefox as default web browser if not for the reason mentioned. So, Firefox and Iceweasel are as free as the other one except the graphics your brand . However, the FSF still consider neither the one nor the other free enough. The reason: recommend installing proprietary software for a complete navigation (and fall into the same bag the other browsers except your GNU Linux IceCat).

So it does not seem quite fair not to include GNU Iceweasel or Firefox IceCat as part of when the same except small changes that do not affect the user in almost anything (although it would be interesting to know the number of users that support one or the other. Maybe another day). A different case is that of …

Chrome / Chromium

Google web browser and its free base are a different matter to be discussed: Google Chrome, the same kernel as used by most Linux distributions, Open Source is added small private (this is one of those cases where the difference between Open Source and Free Software is evident). In contrast, Chromium is free software that however brings some tracking methods that result in forks as SRWare Iron.

proprietary which clearly differentiate Chrome Chromium, which make most of GNU / Linux distributions include the second in their repositories, even as default web browser (Lubuntu).

interesting to separate the two browsers in the survey is to assess how many users are thus providing distribution , and how their own initiative downloaded executable page of Google in search most “complete.”

Opera

As for Opera, is a full web browser, fast, high quality. But is not free . That, oddly enough, many users take this into account, however good it is. It’s as if they offer an iPhone or Android handset at the same level, many people would get the second single by principles, strange as it may seem to another. And Android not the acme of the freedom, but is Open Source and is based on Linux . That’s enough.

But, being free, Opera has an “advantage” has no other proprietary software always been good with Linux , almost on a par with other systems. That there are people who appreciate it, like quality, and the result of that sum is … users.

other browsers … Well, maybe I could have included SeaMonkey , but more or less believe that the selection is quite correct. And as usual, one of the most interesting things is to review the comments, because there is always something that was not known (Areida looks good; ¿Nano + Wget? XD).

hoping to have cleared things up a bit and remembering something that happened to me: Google Chrome yesterday turned 3 years . To mark that date Google released a developer very cool animation showing the evolution of web, its core technologies and the most popular browsers . We miss it because it’s worth, is like a little trip back in time you have published in MuyComputer.