Proper throw syntax in JavaScript

Question

If I use:

throw new Error('You broke it');

I get an output in the chrome console that looks like this:

where it basically looks like it's doing

console.error(new Error('You broke it')) 

as opposed to

console.error('You broke it')

whereas if I use

throw 'You broke it';

I get this:

which looks more like what I would expect.

Why does Chrome do this, and which way is correct?

I've always been told to use the first method, but the console output looks sloppier, though when I wrap a try catch , around the second it passes only the string as opposed to an actual Error object.

Included Firefox for reference:

Answer 1

You can throw any object you want -- that includes strings. So in that sense, there's nothing incorrect with either of your examples. However, you'll usually want to throw an Error object, in part because that gives you helpful information such as err.stack , etc.