A huge number of people simply use the browser that comes with their computer: Internet Explorer on Windows, Safari on the Mac, Firefox on Linux. If you're one of the few, proud Chromebook users, your only choice will be Google's Chrome, and if you're using an iPad or other iOS device, you won't be able to choose any browser other than Safari. But desktop and laptop users still have choice when it comes to their most-frequently-used app.

On what is still the most-widely used operating system, Microsoft Windows, you have a choice of five major players: The company's own Internet Explorer, Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox, or Opera Software's chock-full-of-features Opera browser. Platforms other than Windows can't use Internet Explorer. Three of the browsers are available on all three major platforms: Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.

And if you're adventurous, there are a few lesser-known options that bring their own special twists: RockMelt integrates social networking buttons and notifications, LunaScape incorporates the underlying page-rendering engines from all three of the major browsers. And Maxthon is a fast, highly customizable option that includes its own cloud storage and screen-capture tool.

So how do you choose? These days, the default OS browsers are all fast, have clean interfaces and helpful features like bookmarking. And they're all compatible with nearly any site you'd care to visit. The biggest differences are in support for the forward-looking HTML5 Web markup standard, hardware acceleration, and privacy tools.

In HTML5 support, Google's Chrome is the clear leader, at least according to the HTML5Test. Com measure of supported HTML5 features. At the back of the pack in this measure is Internet Explorer, though the upcoming IE10 significantly narrows the gap. The maximum score is 475, with points awarded for each HTML5 feature implemented and bonus points for extra features that aren't technically part of the standard. Here's how the current big browser names stack up:

One point of digression concerns HTML5 video, which is destined to replace the Adobe Flash plugin for video playing on the Web. Safari and Internet Explorer utilize the H.264 codec—long the most widespread format for HD video—while Chrome, Firefox, and Opera implement Google's newer (and somewhat unproven) WebM format.

Hardware acceleration, which uses your PC's graphics processor to speed up many browser actions, was introduced by Internet Explorer 9, and Microsoft's demo Web applications at IETestDrive.com graphically show the effects of this turbocharging technique. Subsequently, Firefox and Chrome have implemented hardware acceleration, but in Chrome, I've only seen a performance boost with particular graphics cards. Safari has hardware acceleration only in the Mac version of the browser, while with Opera we won't see any till version 12 ships.

Here are my latest results for one of Microsoft's hardware acceleration tests, Psychedelic Browsing, using a 3.4GHz quad-core desktop with an ATI Radeon HD4290 graphics card:

Privacy Choices
Every now and again, the topic of Internet privacy comes to the fore in the world of tech news. We've seen the FTC privacy plan, the Commerce Department's plan, a recent White House-proposed privacy bill, and most recently, the Google fiasco in which the search giant was bypassing Safari privacy protections. So what approach has each browser taken with regard to privacy?

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First was Internet Explorer, with its Tracking Protection. This allows users to subscribe to block lists, which simply won't give access to ad networks that try to exchange data about your browsing habits. Then Firefox came up with the Do Not Track header tag. This would be analogous to the phone-based Do Not Call lists—indicating your preference to the advertiser. But in testing, I found that IE9's method block interactions with third-party advertisers on sites I visited, while Firefox's didn't, even though I'd turned on its Do Not Track option. Chrome, Opera, and Safari have yet to implement any tracking protection.

Syncing has become another differentiator. This feature lets you synchronize your bookmarks, passwords, browsing history, and more on any computers or mobile devices you've install the browser on. Opera pioneered this (as it did many a browser feature, including tabs and built-in search) with its Opera Link, but Firefox and Chrome have gone on to equal it, with their ability to sync tabs and even browser add-ons. Safari started offering bookmark and "reading list" syncing, while Internet Explorer can only be synced via third party software.

You Can't Go Wrong
I hope that gives you some ideas of what to look for when choosing a browser, but seriously, it's hard to go wrong—you're spoiled for choice when it comes to Web browsing software these days. You'll find an unprecedented crop of fast, good-looking, compatible options at your disposal. And best of all, they're free for the trying; just head to the pertinent vendor's download site. For a deep dive into each product's performance and capabilities, though, click into the review links below.

FEATURED IN THIS ROUNDUP: