Best web browsers discussion

In my opinion FireFox is, for 99% of people, the best way to go. FireFox is standards compliant, safe, free, easy to use, customisable, and open source. As others have said, the extensions available are amazing, one more to add is IETab if you sometimes need to view sites in IE for testing purposes.

Chrome is a good alternative, however I don't see myself replacing FireFox any time soon, the one advantage it does have is its lightning fast javascript processing, so very useful for when youre on sites like Gmail. Also, because of this, and its low requirements, and low clutter, its good for notebooks. Safari I have limited experience of, and do not see a need for it when FF is available. Opera is the same, but perhaps could be used as a Chrome alternative on notebooks.

I use FF throughout but with No Script (it might take some getting used to but I'd not describe it as a PITA) and Adblock Plus on my works laptop running XP. On the home machines (2 x Linux - Ubuntu and SuSe and 1 x Mac) we use FF exclusively and for a bit of a laugh have the US Department of Homeland Insecurity Idiocy Level add-on.

If there was one FF add-on that I regret the demise of it was Fasterfox but it was always going to be the way of things once FF 3.0 hit the tracks.

IE is a pile of steaming carp IMO but I appreciate that others have had different experiences. Having got a very bad infection on one of my old machines that kept coming back it took me some time to work out that IE was like a sieve. It cost me a lot of time and some expense in losing an important report I had to pay to get replaced. I'd never look at it again and frankly it has only been developed - in terms of the extra bells and whistles - as a result of the march stolen on it by FF when it first broke into the market.

As a side issue, but very much related, the reason I switched to Linux (and other opensource products) in the first place was twofold. Firstly, the inherent leakiness of MS products and secondly, the ridiculously disproportionate resource-pull they seem to require. The cost-free side of things really didn't figure in the equation but certainly adds to the mix now some years down the line with having avoided the cost of upgrades to Vista and now W7; to Office 2003 and now the 2007 version plus things like Photoshop etc etc.

Opera is nice and I played with it for a while but found it a little glitchy and couldn't spare to time to persevere. I have to admit that some spare time could well see me try this out again.

Like the look and speed of Chrome but it is waaaay too overloaded with Google tracking nonsense for my liking and, as has been said above, changing settings was not easy and nor would changed settings be retained for some reason - although that may have been driver error.

FF it is but maybe Opera as well.

gwyne wrote: »

Firefox for me too, Add-ons are amazing, especially for web designers - Chrome is fast, but I've found one faster (using the same source and functions like Chrome) called SRWIron.

Hi

Just downloaded SRWIron. It's really fast.

GRB.

I usually use Firefox and have done for years now as I find it faster and less buggy than IE.

I do use chrome sometimes and that is fast but lacks plugins, and Safari is said to be the fastest browser at loading webpages but the layout is different to other browsers so usually Firefox for me.

simountain1 wrote: »

As a web designer Firefox gives a better guide as to what your page will look like in the real world.

In the "real world" over 70% of people use some version or other of IE so despite the many benefits of FireFox giving a guide to what your page looks like in the real world isn't one of them.

busenbust wrote: »

Why oh why oh why would anyone want to still use IE. Why? Why! Why I ask :rotfl:

I think I've answered that one above. Anybody who produces web pages absolutely has to check what they look like on IE.

I also have another use for it - I'm a lazy devil and let cookies stay on my machine so logging in on the various forums and other sites I visit is easier. If I buy something through Quidco I need to be sure there are no cookies already on my machine from the site I'm buying from or I'll lose the cashback. Normally there will be because I check out the sites before checking if there is cashback - in those circumstances it's a whole lot easier to fire up IE clear all cookies and launch Quidco. That way my FireFox cookies remain intact and I still collect my filthy lucre.