Web Browser Error Rates Revealed by New Study

A new study has found that Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser is more error-prone than every one of its major competitors. But there is some good news for Microsoft and avid IE users.

The study was carried out by software development company Sauce Labs, which offers developers an automated testing system designed to save time and hassle.

Its recent browser study was no small operation: Sauce Labs used 55 million tests to determine an accurate error rate for the world's most popular web browsers and applications.

Mozilla's Firefox the Browser to Beat

Finishing first in the study was Mozilla's Firefox with an error rate of just 0.12 per cent. That's just a hair better than Google's Chrome browser and the Opera browser, both of which finished with error rates under 0.15 per cent.

Apple's Safari browser finished with an overall error rate of 0.15 per cent. That left Microsoft's Internet Explorer 10 browser in dead last with an error rate of 0.25 per cent -- more than double Firefox's error rate. (Source: cnet.com)

Web Browsers Becoming More Reliable

The good news: Sauce Labs says all of these error rates are very low, meaning crashes should be extremely rare. According to Sauce Labs analyst Luren Nguyen, the findings suggest "that browsers are getting more reliable as more versions come out."

And while Microsoft's Internet Explorer 10 finished at the bottom of the heap, it is considerably more stable than its predecessors. Tests showed that Internet Explorer 6 had an error rate of over 0.3 per cent, while Internet Explorer versions 7 and 8 weren't far behind.

While the study's findings will be disappointing for Microsoft, Nguyen says the firm is headed in the right direction.

"Microsoft has really been pushing their new version of Internet Explorer as the most modern and high-performing version of IE," Nguyen said. "The data we have on browser error rates suggests that their claims may have quite a bit of merit," she said. (Source: pcadvisor.co.uk)