Q. I'm hearing more and more about Google Chrome. What are the pros and cons compared to Internet Explorer? Thank you!
—Donna in Knoxville, TN, listening on WNOX  100.3 FM

A. The browser world used to be simple. Basically, everyone used Internet Explorer (IE). If you wanted to be different, you could use Netscape. Or you could try Opera, if you knew it existed. And that was about it.

Now we have IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari. And those are just the major ones. Which do you choose?

I'm going to focus on the top three market-share contenders. That would be IE8, Firefox and Chrome, respectively. Opera is excellent, but still a niche program. And Safari works better on the Mac than on PCs. I'll briefly discuss each browser's defining features, security and basic competence.

According to Net Applications, which surveys browser usage, IE was No. 1 in February. It had 62 percent of the market. Firefox was second with 24 percent. Chrome, Safari and Opera trailed, with 6, 4 and 2 percent, respectively.