I have Chrome, IE, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
I have the most recent updates on each of these systems, and use each of them at least once a week.
I cannot comment on Maxthon or any other browser, though.
Internet Explorer sucks all around, it's slow and utterly horrible. It can do just about anything reasonably, but it tries to kill you with absurd wait times and random app activations in the process. And it crashes periodically, and when it does so it fills up so much of your computer with error reports, regardless of if you send them or not, that your entire machine is crippled until you power down.
5/5
Safari is much faster than IE, but it lags and crashes often, and has trouble with some processes on the internet.
4/5
Opera is a little slower than Safari, but it's much more stable.
3/5
Firefox is much faster than any of the others, if you use it sparingly. It has this thing affectionately called a "leak" (or something) in which it store data from every web page you've ever visited in the past week or so. Unless you have an insanely large RAM and a great processor, or you barely use it, it quickly slows down your entire computer in it's attempt to speed itself up. But, despite this HUGE flaw (which would put it in second to last place alone, in my book) it has killer apps.
2/5
Chrome is slightly slower than a fresh Firefox, but it keeps it's speed constant, so when Firefox drastically slows down not only itself but your computer, Google keeps running strong. It's still new and still has some things to figure out, but it's got most of the real bugs fixed and now just has to smooth out the rough edges. About a month ago this would have fallen to second place, but a good update recently not only fixed the crashing issue, but it also completely sped it up.
1/5
To anyone saying "I used to have..." or "a long time ago I tried..." I urge you to try them all (except IE *shudders*) and make a good decision based on accurate knowledge instead of a biased decision from very limited experience.
For now, with accurate knowledge of the five most popular, my vote definitely has to go to Chrome. It's better than any of the others (I wish I could steal Firefox apps for Chrome; maybe in the future).