Browsers - pros, cons, etc....

[Fjorab_Teke]

Well, I am finding there is no such thing (yet) as the perfect browser. What browser(s) do you all like, hate, or feel somewhat neutral about, and why?

Here are some pros and cons of the ones I am currently using. You'll know which ones I'm most familiar with.

Internet Explorer - standard for Window$, notoriously insecure, never know when something has been truly fixed (or made worse), the main target of hackers and scammers and scum of various kinds. Aside from no "bookmarks toolbar" that I can find (which I love in Firefox and Chrome), it seems to have the most goodies available.

Firefox - nice and cozy, but a little TOO protective while still unfortunately being a secondary target for nasties. Has some goodies available but most are useless or outright rejected now (Neopets toolbar, for example), does have some nice features like fair customization options and a wide range of browsing compatibility.

Opera - it's good, but it doesn't really have much to draw me in. It's not nice enough for me to use as a main browser or very stable, but overall it's fairly utilitarian. I need to play with it more though. I wish it had some more goodies available.

Google Chrome - ooh fast and sleek and shiny - wait, where are all the customization options and autofill?

I've tried Safari and didn't like it, same with more experience on old Netscape. I've never bothered with them again.

[AngharadTy]

IE is only notorious because people keep saying it is. It's not insecure. Contrary to what some would have you believe, when there's a problem, not only does it get fixed fast, but Microsoft will also put out a public bulletin if necessary. Perhaps not always, but more often than Firefox. Most people don't know about the issues Firefox has had (and in some cases, still has, as far as I know--though there was an update a couple days ago, so maybe that fixed the weakness that they knew about for months).

There's no browser that's 100% secure. Surf smart, y'know? Don't go to websites you don't trust. Or if you do, make sure you have a backup (there's a free AVG for Windows). Or if you use the 64-bit Vista, use the 64-bit IE for that--it runs in its own sandbox, so that's actually as safe as you can get. But if you're smart, you use a firewall, you have virus protection/checking, you can use any browser you feel comfortable with. (I don't like the "feel" of Firefox. I also think the tabs are ugly and I hate the orange-ness of the icon.)

Fjorab, what do you mean about a "bookmarks toolbar"? I have quick links in my IE toolbar (my email, NC, Subeta, LJ...) and Derek has folders in his toolbar. Either right-click on the toolbar and select the favorites toolbar, or go to View > Toolbars and turn on... either the links bar or the favorites bar, depending on your version. If that's what you mean, anyway. I think alt-c brings up a favorites tab, too. Depending on your version.

Obviously I'm a fan of IE. It's sturdy, it has features I like. Rearranging my tabs makes me happy. (IE had that before Firefox. It matters a great deal to me--I even have a li'l application, Taskix, to let me rearrange the programs in my Windows taskbar. I used to go nuts and close IE, Word, Notepad, etc., and reopen them in the order I like.)

The only thing I have problems with in IE is Subeta. Two issues--mousing over items/usernames when the page isn't fully loaded will break the page. This has been an issue for months and months; it's only an issue with Subeta (similar effects on other webpages don't cause the page to freeze up) and I don't foresee a fix in the future, because it seems Keith really hates IE. The other thing is the wardrobe--that loads much faster in Firefox. But the trades problem did get fixed, so that's good. One thing IE has over the other browsers for Subeta is that the shop search field doesn't spring up with "Babit BroBabit Brown Toupeewn Toupee" when you try to search for "Babit Brown Toupee"--it's trying to be too smart, telling me what I want, filling in the field because I hit "enter" to search for what I typed/pasted in, causing me to waste precious seconds in Wiz quests.

As fond as I am of IE, I've been mainly using Google Chrome lately. I kind of want to experience it because it's new and shiny. And its pop-up squelcher is very effective; it catches things that escape Firefox and IE. But I can't find a way to set NC as an exception, so I've been missing PMs. They're "gonna" add more customization eventually. I have had issues with it--mostly autofill (it'll fill from my gmail address book but not yahoo--snrk) and cache problems (it loads too much from cache). I am kind of tired of the blue bar at the top, too, heh. But I love not failing to load a webpage because I unwisely moved my mouse over my username on Subeta. That irks me no end.

[Gibblywibbly]

At the moment, I use Opera. I was all stubborn and used IE forever and was all YOU CAN'T MAKE ME CHANGE, I DON'T WANT TO. Then I tried Opera, and gosh darnit all, it's just so dang fast. The only way they could make it faster is if the page loaded before I even clicked it.

The only problem I've really got with it is certain websites don't bother to program for it. I don't know if it's HARD to program for Opera or something, but I'll click and it will tell me to use IE or Firefox, and darnit, I don't wanna. I hate being told what browser to use.

[Wingsrising]

I like Firefox because it has Adblock. Full stop.

(Although now I'm using Foxmarks and that's really, really cool, too... keeps the bookmarks on my work computer and my laptop synchronized.)

I'm interested in trying out Chrome, but there's no equivalent of Adblock for it yet.

[daisybell]

I don't know if there's an adblocking function for IE, but I know that the ads really annoy me when I use IE. I don't use IE much for that reason, and unfamiliarity means I'm not comfortable with it because I don't know how to customize it, though I don't know how much Microsoft will let you. I guess familiarity is why I still use Seamonkey as my main browser, though I probably use Firefox just as much (I always have both open, it's just a habit of mine to view certain websites in FF and others in Seamonkey).

I haven't tried Google Chrome, but if I can't customize it then I doubt I'd like it very much.

I too hate being told what browser to use. What if I don't have that browser; if I'm on a public computer; I'm running the wrong operating system or I just don't get on with it, why should that stop me from using your site? One person's pet browser is not everyone's. IE-only sites are the most annoying, because although the majority of people are running Windows, the people who aren't are stuck (apart from emulators and suchlike, I guess). Next most annoying are people who assume that no one uses anything but IE and fail to check if their site works in other browsers. Mr Site, I'm looking at you. One of their shop designs is broken in Firefox and Seamonkey and the prices and item photographs don't line up, which is a rather fundamental flaw in a web shop. [people who sell their handmade things themselves online often use Mr Site because it's easy, and many of them know no better. But the professional web designers should know better]. And lastly in the annoying stakes, the browser snobs who simply won't accept that any browser except their favourite could possibly be worth using.

[Cranberry]

I am in love with Chrome for a few reasons.

1. It's FAST. It's faster than IE and Firefox on this computer.

2. It has a really neat "paste and go" function in the URL bar, so you don't have to paste a URL in and then hit enter -- it's just right-click to paste, and off you go. You can also make it so that when you type, say, "amazon" or "imdb" or "ebay" in the bar and hit tab, you can search that site from your bar.

3. It also has a "copy image url" funtion when you right-click an image, so you don't have to view properties and copy the URL from there.

4. It has its own task manager! You just right-click on the toolbar and select "task manager," and it'll show you each tab you have open and how much memory it's using. If one freezes or otherwise acts up, you can shut just that one down.

5. It warns you if you're on a site that could have dangerous stuff on it. It has warned my friend away from several bad neo petpages, and it's warned me about ads on blogs that could have harmful stuff in them. It seems to catch more than Firefox.

6. You can open stuff in an "incognito window," and any sites you look at in that window won't show up in your history and won't be able to save any cookies to your computer.

7. You can do a lot of neat stuff with tabs... right-click a tab to close all tabs but it, or all tabs to the left/right of it... you can drag tabs into whatever order you like, or drag them out to turn them into new windows (or back in to make them tabs again). You can also reopen the last tab you closed... actually, up to the last ten you closed.

8. If you find a comment box on a website too small, you can just grab the corners and stretch it out to whatever size you want.

I still use FF for Neo because I love Adblock, but I use chrome for everything else. It's replaced IE as my general browser of choice. There are a couple of small things I dislike (there's no simple "view image properties" option, bookmarks are a little annoying to organize -- although it does import them fine from IE or FF, which is great -- and a f5 hard refresh doesn't seem to work), but the positives far outweigh the negatives.

[Spivsy]

I use opera, because I just like it is all.

[Wingsrising]

I am in love with Chrome for a few reasons.

3. It also has a "copy image url" funtion when you right-click an image, so you don't have to view properties and copy the URL from there.

I can't argue with the rest of it, but Firefox does this too.

[Spivsy]

so does opera =p

[Madge]

Just FYI everybody, there's a program called Privoxy that when you turn it on will block ads in Chrome.

I use Firefox for most of my browsing and Chrome for my side account on neopets (that I use to chat etc), both are good.

However, most Chrome features you can put onto firefox with extensions.

I don't want to say anything else really, except my boss says that Safari is the most standards-compliant browser out at the moment.

[mellaka]

I use FF3 (Neo main) and Opera (Subeta, Wajas, NC and Neo side) mainly, with IE for a second Neo side account.

I think my favorite things about FF are that it lets you use commands like "undo" on message boards and also saves your post if it happens to time out, if you want to refresh to see if there are any new posts or if you get that annoying Neo-apostrophe error. I also like the way it does "find."

The main FF cons for me are that it glitches with Neo's Plushie Tycoon in a specific way not worth explaining, and unless there's an extension - I never looked - it doesn't support having your mouse cursor automatically move to OK buttons in dialog boxes.

Opera seems like the fastest overall to me. I also like its paste-and-go function for URLs. I don't like that you can't move intentional popups (like the ones you get when you click on a Neo item in your inventory) outside the browser window.

IE is the fastest for Neo for me, but the last CG scare finally convinced me to swtich to FF on my main account for good. Whether that's justifed or not, I don't know, but I've gotten used to FF now.

I was using Chrome just for KeyQuest on Neo for a while, but it's gotten better in FF so I haven't been switching browsers to play lately. I didn't use it enough to form an opinion really.

Also, I use a hosts file on my computer, so I basically don't see most ads. (Actual Neo ads and Subeta forum ads do show.)

[Huggles]

I use Firefox because it has consistently been the faster on this computer. And the sole reason I switched from IE was because of the Adblock and Neopets. I currently have FF, IE, and Safari installed, and will probably get chrome eventually. Gotta collect em all! Also, another gripe with both IE and Opera was that I couldn't get them to take up as little space on my screen as FF. With tabs, FF takes up about an inch of space at the top of my display, while not in fullscreen mode. The other two take up about an inch and a half, which annoys me to no end.

[Wingsrising]

Ah, that's a good point. I mostly use FF, but I still have IE 6 (for one of my Neopets accounts and for stuff that doesn't display in FF) and I also have Opera and Mozilla for my lab accounts.

[TCStarwind]

I switched over to Opera from IE a few months ago, for the simple fact that it has this thing it calls a "Speed Dial" page. It has nine boxes for nine different sites, so I put in the sites I go to most often, which means I don't have to rely on the address bar and hope that all my frequently visited sites are at the top. But I've noticed that several things in Subeta aren't compatible with it, so I'm considering switching to FF for that.

[AngharadTy]

My Chrome's "home" page shows me my most often-visited sites automatically. So I open a new tab, and there are little pictures of subeta, NC, my LJ, etc. It is nice not to have to think about which things I visit most often... imdb is there, too! I never would have thought to add that myself.

IE6 is not nearly as good as later updates. IE6 is actually kind of lame. Get IE7 at least if you're doing browser comparisons. And my IE and my FF (and Chrome too) take up the same amount of space at the top of the screen... In IE, I keep the menu bar (File, Edit, etc.) turned off unless I hit alt. You can turn the individual bars on or off as you please. There is an adblock for IE--by someone other than the FF adblock guy, who is one of those "Firefox is the only browser ever and IE sucks by default" guys. Honestly. It's a browser. Not a religion.

Anyway, I don't use that particular adblock. (Just wanted to list it as an option.) I don't care about adblocking, myself, because the sites I don't go to either don't use ads or don't use image ads (just google's text ones). But if I played Neopets, I might care more! IE7pro has an adblocker--I do use IE7pro because of the search addition (though I think Chrome's default search is the best of any browser--Google knows how to handle searches, heh!) but I haven't fiddled with the adblock part of it. However, IE7pro is a fantastic addition, basically the only thing I've ever wanted to add to IE7. I know you can customize what it blocks, although I don't know whether it's as easy as it is with Firefox (you might have to open the preferences window), but if anyone's shy and wants me to attempt it myself, I'll fiddle with it after dinner.