Whether you own an Apple, Microsoft or Linux product, you should be interested in knowing why it’s a good idea to have multiple browsers installed on your devices.
(Don’t know what a browser is or what it does? See our previous post – What????)
Before we talk about multiple browsers, let’s explain what constitutes the default browser. The default browser is the browser which comes with the Operating System of the device you are using and it’s the one associated with webpages (.htm and .html). In Apple, the default browser is Safari. On a Windows 10 machines, Microsoft Edge is the default while on Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, it’s Internet Explorer. (Remember, you should not be using Internet Explorer as it’s no longer secure enough. Read our post: The Time Has Passed.) On Linux Ubuntu, Firefox is the default browser.
Now that we understand the term default browser, let’s look at why you want multiple browsers available. This morning, I was working in Remote and one of our customers logged in because they could not open a link in an email. Their default browser just returned a 404 error – page not found. Yet, when I copied the link address (URL), and pasted it into a different browser, it opened perfectly.
Here’s a secret you might not know: website builders (like us) have to build their sites to work in different browsers. This can sometimes mean a lot of coding for the page. If a webpage creator isn’t willing to put the code in for certain browsers, their page may not work correctly when someone visits using that particular browser. It’s this very reason Microsoft will soon be rebuilding Microsoft Edge because, even though it’s been out for more than 4 years, many websites haven’t adopted the coding to work properly in Edge. (You can read Microsoft’s blog announcement about the change HERE.) We already have the trial version of the new Edge on our computers and we’re helping to provide feedback to Microsoft regarding what works and what doesn’t. (No, I don’t recommend that you install the trial version yet – too many things could go wrong!)
Another reason you might want to have multiple browsers is because of the extensions. For instance, the best extensions I’ve found for downloading YouTube videos is found in Firefox. I’d have Firefox on my machine for this reason alone.
Don’t be afraid to play with browsers other than your default one. For tablets and smartphones, visit the app stores. For computers, here are links to download the same browsers I have on my computers:
Just a little note about Safari for Windows: Apple discontinued this version of Safari a long time ago. However, you can still get it through our link above. The link is in Zip format, so you’ll need to extract the file before you can install it.
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