OK… here’s your chance to vote: Which browser are you preferring for general missions use and why? How do you use some special feature… one that perhaps nobody else has thought about? For example, I recently tried out FireFox again and, for a fleeting moment, I thought I’d like the tags. So… vogue. Somehow I managed to shake off the temptation though… and now I’m back to Internet Explorer. I know, I know — somebody’s going to say that FireFox is more secure, right? (I thought that too ’til last week, Firefox picked up a drive-by-download that, in my own testing, Internet Explorer easily ignored.) Perhaps you’re *way* out there on the edge — and you like Opera better? Or something else? (There’s got to be a MAC version someone likes: Safari???) Just click comment on the web version of this item and sound off. (Thanks for helping me think this through, Greg — our I.T. guy at Team Expansion.)
In this order, I prefer:
1) Firefox with the Google toolbar. It’s a must have for those that have a lot of bookmarks and pages requiring attention.
2) Opera … the ability to sync bookmarks over the web is a plus. The phone version is great as well.
3) SeaMonkey … come bundled with mail, a web page editor, and Internet Relay Chat.
Lloyd, KC5FM
http://kc5fm.blogspot.com
I’m a Firefox guy all the way and have been for years. I must admit it’s partly because I resist anything Microsoft, but mostly because Firefox is lightweight and accepts countless add-ons. Also, you can install Firefox portable on your USB drive, plug it into any computer when you’re traveling and carry your settings. Very cool.
I have used Firefox for years. It is multi-platform, so I can run it on my Windows, Linux, and Mac systems. I has had better features and with the extensions you can do a lot of necessary things, like keep my bookmarks synced on all platforms.
While it has had an occasional security problem (who hasn’t), it is nowhere near as vulnerable as IE. This was illustrated by last week critical vulnerability that required a special patch for IE.
I have also used Opera — again it runs on all three platforms.
The bigest way to keep secure on the internet and avoid all the spyware, malware, etc. is to run one of the above on eith Linux or Mac OS X.
Without having done any close side-by-side comparisons, I find myself preferring Safari, but occasionally use Firefox. Both are great. I’ve got some plug-ins for Firefox that now and then are just what’s needed. Also, just so I don’t get in a rut of single solution thinking, I occasionally also make use of Omniweb, Opera and iCab (the latter which has some *very* cool tools, but seems a bit slow on my 5.5 year old PowerBook).
Having done a little bit of Web site development, I would seriously discourage people from using Internet Explorer except for the occasional form that seems to require it. Example problem: I discovered the hard way that some very common versions of IE do not correctly handle layers –I wound up having to re-do an entire Web site because of this. So make Firefox or some other modern browser your default and use IE only if absolutely necessary.
Hearty Christmas greetings to fellow Brigada readers.
I use Mozilla Firefox and the add-on ‘NoScript’, which if set to ‘Block scripts globally’ prevents all java/flash scripts from running on webpages unless you tell NoScript to allow them. It also lets you give permission to a website to run a script but prevent other scripts from other sites from running – something which helps prevent malware from automatically running while you’re trying to browse a website.
I don’t think that Firefox can be beat if you have the NoScript add on.
Firefox is the way to go on PC and Mac platforms.
Safari is good if you have a Mac (but lags behind ie/ff in terms of updates).
Sorry Greg, but it’s best to avoid ie!
Just a brief editorial comment about the lead item for “The Great Browser Bash”: “MAC” in uppercase characters means “Media Access Control address.” (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC_address.) When you are referring to Apple Macintosh computers, the proper spelling is “Mac”. That’s my good editing deed for the day. ;-)
I am a Firefox guy. I do not like IE mainly because it is too slow. I also like all the Add Ons and extensions for Firefox.
Thanks,
Mark
Yep. Firefox all the way…have used it for years now. They were innovative with tabbed browsing and while IE has that now, it’s still rather slow to load pages.
On the Mac, I use Firefox almost exclusively. In a pinch, I switch to Safari. The only time I use IE is when accessing a site that will only work with IE (VERY irritating).