Browser Wars

[Xalor 0]

We've seen the death of Netscape Navigator, the rise of IE, and then the creation of Mozilla Firefox, and most recently the development of Google Chrome. Browsers have become so varied, its impossible to count how many spin-offs, versions, sources, and releases they have. There's Flock, Firefox, IE, Chrome, Chromium, Opera, and much more. Those are the only ones I've used an enjoyed. Seemingly enough with a wide variety, the browser market has become more or less of a twist. It changes day to day, as each company releases updates and patches with changes the browser completely. Chrome become a stable release, quickly, unlike GMail another Google Program that may plan on staying perpetual Beta forever. Comparisons of these browsers though are inevitable.I've personally used only a handful of the browsers out there, and don't remember much. My family is rather technology-hating than technology-friendly. I remember using Netscape Navigator as a child, and never seen Internet Explorer. I learned about FireFox at school and Chrome and Opera from browsing the Internet. In so far I have only found one nearly perfect browser to fit the community, but not the final standard, and that is FireFox. FireFox has the highest average test rating, but the preformance of FireFox doesn't win me over, but its extensions and addons. The themes and the addons make FireFox amazing, and the userbase of it. The Internet Explorer developer community isn't exactly friendly and many of them are corporations looking to make a quick buck.The second ranking for me goes to Chrome, because of its speed. Its sheer speed makes up for its flaws, and the omnibar, which lets you have one less mouse click or a couple of less keys, when you type, or move to a site. The only problem with this is the lack of addons or extensions where there is no external developer, a let down judging by the open source Android. What are you favorite browsers, post your experiences and dismays, and let the ranking begin!

[lonebyrd 0]

I use Firefox all the time. I hate IE. When they came out with IE 7 i thought it might be good but it was complete garbage. It interfered with some of my other running programs. I must admit I haven't used Opera or any of the others. I started with IE when I started using the internet but since finding FireFox that is all I use

[archpenguin 0]

For anybody with even the slightest web development skills, IE is simply a giant slap in the face every time you test your site. IE disregards all web standards, going in its own direction.Netscape Navigator is ... obsolete, to say the very least.What is Flock? I had to look it up. It looks decent, but it's built on Firefox. Why not just use Firefox?I like Opera. It's well-made, and it follows web standards nicely.I also like Chrome. I especially like it for web applications. It keeps apps as completely separate processes. This makes it very stable. It is also very streamlined.Firefox is still my favorite. It is very popular, has a wide range of extensibility, is compliant with standards, amongst other things.You missed some other browsers, though, like Safari. It's pretty fast, especially on a Mac.

[saitunes 0]

I use Camino, It is (to my understanding) mozilla but re-designed for the mac. http://caminobrowser.org/

Its like a cross between firefox and safari. it looks like it belongs on a mac, more so than the new firefox's standard theme.

It's not as customizable as firefox. but its still great.

[miladinoski 1]

I use Opera. The fastest browser out there that supports the standards like no-else (well, WebKit is there too). Almost everything that Firefox has included by default was copied from Opera and the most popular extensions for Firefox have the feratures that Opera has.

Mouse gestures

Fully keyboard support. Not dependant from the mouse itself

Speed dial

Mail (POP/IMAP/SMTP) and IRC

A great adblocker, you can use a custom pre-made urlfilter.ini

The toolbars are fully customizable. Totally not like Firefox.

Opera Link w/ which you can sync the bookmarks, speed dial etc. between computers with Opera or mobiles with Opera Mini

Full web standards support. A fantastic crowd of geeks use this browser. Opera 10 passes the Acid3 w/ 100/100! And I just wonder. Where art thou Firefox behind?

Notes feature

I personally, can't live without all these features. That's why my first choice of browser was, and'll always be Opera.

Edited January 28, 2009 by miladinoski (see edit history)

[abhigyan 0]

Firefox at any time and after that it is Microsoft IE I think firefox has every good thing that I want I mean the presentation, security, speed any thing and I would not like to talk about chrom because it is still in beta ?. Rest I have not tried yet?.so can?t say anything.

[Xalor 0]

I'll give it to you though, Opera is good, if not amazing, its fast and easy to use. The only thing I didn't like about it was the lack of extensions, some things you want, and it doesn't always offer, and I use the userscripts, and greasemonkey a lot, so it didn't stick to me that well. Firefox is just because of the community. Chrome though has the speed. I just can't say that enough. For my old, and current host, there servers don't like FF very much so I use Chrome to render the pages. Chrome though has horrible rendering forms. Its not standards compliant, since I guess it has a different internal style sheet. IE 7 did look sweet when it came out, until I discovered themes on FF.

[Teina 0]

I have two browsers installed on my comp. Safari, and Firefox.I know that logically, I should be using Firefox. But hey, I've gotten used to Safari, even if it doesn't work with 100% of the internet.(I guess I just really like the look of it). Occasionally I have windows open in Firefox and Safari though, just because I'm strange?

[Xalor 0]

I don't mind Safari, but its not that great anyway. I don't really enjoy using it when have XP on, since it seems so block-like and stand still. I have windows under Chrome and FF open, since Chrome is what I use to check up on my site, since it loads slow sometimes in FF, and Chrome doesn't have that problem

[Tramposch 1]

I HATE all browsers except for Firefox.Im just going to leave it at that.

[truefusion 3]

I use Opera, currently running the latest snapshot of version 10 (i tend to live on the "bleeding edge"). Firefox is my secondary browser for temporary sessions. I make use of certain features of Opera that some people don't normally use. This usually involves Site Preferences. I look at the source code of websites that i normally visit that have undesirable layout structure, and i apply a custom CSS file to the site. I removed ads, created drop down menus, etc. Since DragonFly was introduced, i can now modify a page "on the fly" (pun intended) before making the actual changes to file, and it provides insight on how Opera styles elements by default. Can't wait for Opera 10 stable.I'm also waiting for Qt 4.5. Webkit was introduced in Qt 4.4, but 4.5 will support browser plug-ins. With Qt4 i can make my own browser. I've already started, though, but its current purpose is only for taking screenshots of entire web pages.

[stopthewarm 0]

Well for me it's firefox. I used to used Internet explorer before but then i didn't know about Firefox. Then i started using it. I love it now. Well the best thing about it is its easy to use tabs. I just love them.. Then there is ofcourse the add ons that are so helpful. I have quite a few. Like is use Stylish to get my google black and save energy. Then i use flash downloaders. They easy graphic user interface is the best thing i like about firefox. Its so easy and same time sophisticated .

[networker 0]

The best of all in my opinion is firefox.I've limited the amout of addons so right now it runs really smoothly.Opera and Safari are good but I find they really skewer html displaysometimes.Nobody had mentioned it on this thread,but I'veseen it sometimes.

[xpress 0]

Opera is my favourite browser. Firefox is my next choice. Opera has some nice inbuilt features (some of them are available as addons in Firefox) which I'm addicted to. It has features like mouse gestures, speed dialing, site preferences, content blocking etc...and also shortcuts for many common actions(for example Ctrl+click to save image). And the main one is its speed. This is the fastest browser in my opinion. I use firefox sometimes due to its Addons which are very helpful in solving programming quizzes and tests....

[harrison858 0]

I like IE. For some reason FireFox looks like it has too much crap at the top (pardon my french), and its kinda hard to navigate in my opinion. I favor IE its very customizable.