Firefox is the most stable web browser and Internet Explorer (IE) the most error- and crash-prone, according to mobile testing company Sauce Labs.
It made the claims after testing the various popular browsers.
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Sauce Labs has based its research on the number of times the various browsers have crashed during its automated test jobs. It claims that it has run more than 55 million tests against the various web browsers - which includes Safari, Opera, IE, Chrome and Firefox.
However, while Microsoft scored poorly on average across browser versions currently in use, it has made headway in reducing the overall number of errors in the latest versions of IE, especially compared to IE6 and IE7.
For the latest browser versions, Apple's Safari browser proved the most crash- and error-prone, with an error rate of 0.12 per cent, followed by Opera with 0.08 per cent and IE10 with 0.05 per cent. The rate for Chrome weighed in at below 0.02 per cent, while the latest version of Firefox had an error-rate at close to zero.
"When we look at error rates by browser version, IE 6 & IE 7 are the clear winners (well - losers), with error rates of 0.31 per cent and 0.29 per cent respectively. Coming in behind IE 6 and IE7 is Chrome 5 followed by Firefox 3.5," wrote Lauren Nguyen, the company's marketing manager, in a blog.
"Only one later version of Chrome appears in the graph, Chrome 19. Most versions of Chrome have error rates low enough that they didn't show up on the graph. Neither do later versions of Firefox."
