What browser do you prefer? According to w3schools.com, which tracks browser usage of people interested in Web technologies and hence more likely to try alternative tools, as of April this year, 38.3 per cent of us preferred Google's Chrome, 35.8 per cent went with Mozilla's Firefox, and 18.3 per cent were still using Microsoft's Internet Explorer (Apple's Safari and Opera were trailing way behind). Over the last year IE and Firefox have seen their shares decrease and only Chrome has gained share.

A change in the way browser usage is calculated led to a decline in web browser market share for Google Chrome, which experienced its second market share slip this year after growing steadily throughout 2011.

One of to features of Amazon's recently announced Kindle Fire tablet drawing attention is its WebKit-based 'Silk' Web browser. What makes Silk different from most browsers is its 'split browser' approach: Putting together complicated Web pages in Amazon's Cloud infrastructure before downloading the end result to the browser.

Many cynical users assume Web browsers do little more than dutifully render HTML. The content is the most important part, they say, so it makes little difference which browser you use.

Apps are all about choice. And nowhere is choice more appealing than in the world of Web browsing. In the early days of smartphones, users had no choice but to use the browser that came installed with the operating system, but now we have multiple choices: This week saw the release of Mozilla's Firefox 4 for Mobile, and Opera's Mini 6 and Mobile 11. Both browsers look to expand on the bundled mobile browsers' functionality by adding easy-to-use features and social network sharing.

If you're a regular PCWorld reader, you may have noticed the Browser Blowout story we posted last week. In it, I looked at various aspects of the major Web browsers, including features, interface, security, and performance.

Opera has long been an underrated, feature-rich browser worthy of greater attention and a larger market share. It runs on Microsoft Windows, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, mobile phones, Nintendo gaming systems, and other now historical operating systems. Like all of the leading browsers, it supports Java and JavaScript, and its impressive, growing feature set pushes beyond today's standards such as tabbed browsing to include the likes of voice-controlled browsing, e-mail, and instant messaging. Opera has many unique security features too, and the granularity of its security controls easily beats that of most rivals, the exception being Microsoft's Internet Explorer.