Which browser? (1 Viewer)

[DV8]

I've been using Netscape but recently it has been fucking up and not loading images/links on websites so I went back to IE, but after hearing bout all the security flaws i'm thinking of switching to something else and was just wondering wat you guys use/recommend.

 

[sunny]

FAQ

Poll


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[DV8]

awww but that was last year sunny... i'm just wondering if people's opinions have changed (afterall IE was voted the most popular back then...).

 

[jm1234567890]

firefox of course

i've changed from opera

EDIT: mainly cause of adblock plug-in and incompatibility with WebCT

 

[anti]

firefox is by far the best browser i've ever used (i've never tried opera tho).

it has everything i want without requiring a whole package to be downloaded (ie. mozilla) and is secure (unlike ie) and free. i do use thunderbird but i really like my mail on the go (since i check it from work, uni and home)

 

[nick1048]

I just use IE. buggy as hell, just not willing to change just yet.

 

[Rafy]

Firefox.

Make the switch

 

[RCMasterAA]

Avant Browser
Firefox doesn't have the options I want.

 

[neuro_logik]

Firefox! Ad blocking and it uses tabs rather than opening multiple windows ... ohh and more secure than IE.

 

[ogmzergrush]

I use IE for pretty much everything. So far security hasn't been an issue, and if something was going to happen I'd assume it would have by now (Seeing as I've been using it for around six years). SP2 has added the ability to block ads and other such nasties, not that closing an ad has ever been a terribly arduous task prior to now, and yeah, that pretty much says it. I'm not a big fan of tabbed browsing, so the lack of support for that doesn't really bother me

That said, this week I'm feeling cool and alternative, so I've installed firefox in anticipation of my upcoming negotiations with the pentagon. I've used it a couple of times, but mostly it's just sitting there neglected due to a distinct lack of need.

 

[r0wlzii]

Firefox hands down. IE has improved a small amount after Service Pack 2, but still not enough to conjure me back to it.

For shizzle.

 

[saladsurgery]

http://www.spreadfirefox.com/

 

[ggu3stt]

Don't use Internet Explorer. I'm not anti-MS but IE currently does not support the web standard among other things.

 

[AsyLum]

Firefoxz0r.

Opera was ok, but was bloated and ugly and unsightly.

 

[jm1234567890]

Avant Browser
Firefox doesn't have the options I want.

What kind of options?

 

[jm1234567890]

Firefoxz0r.

Opera was ok, but was bloated and ugly and unsightly.

I acctually think opera isn't bloated enough... you have to remember it is both a web browser and a mail client.

It is missing alot of useful features, escpecially in the mail client.

 

[ogmzergrush]

Don't use Internet Explorer. I'm not anti-MS but IE currently does not support the web standard among other things.

"...Internet Explorer keeps an archive of all of the websites you have visited. This archive is completely invisible and cannot be deleted by any normal means. If you thought you could get rid of it by clearing your history or deleting your cache, you are wrong. It is kept in a folder which is segregated from the main filesystem, but it is there!..."

It goes on to explain how to find the encrypted files that contain this cache, and points out that you can't actually see what's in them because they're encrypted. So basically, we'll take this person's word on it?

Out of my absolute terror at the thought that anyone really could read a list of all the sites that I've visited from this encrypted file, I just attempted to delete them, and what do you know, it worked. This seems to me to be a pretty unfounded claim. Even if they really do contain a cache of everywhere I've been, they were remarkably simple to delete, problem solved.

The article also neglects to mention what IE uses these sinister caches for. A quick google to appease my curious mind assured me that these in fact were responsible for controlling the urls for the autocomplete bar and for determining highlighted links in web pages. Doesn't really sound as bad now if you ask me, certainly sounds much less sinister than an evil history cache, existing specifically to compromise your privacy.

"This shouldn't make you feel more secure because "Microsoft is on the ball" or some such crud. This should make you scared, because it means that the people who wrote Internet Explorer did not have security as their main concern, or didn't notice obvious security holes while they were programming them. To get a list of Internet Explorer's currently unpatched security holes, visit PivX Solutions. Remember that when you browse the Web with IE, someone might use one of these major vulnerabilities to compromise your system at any time."

Yes, I for one am very afraid that Microsoft maintain their products. Because after all, nobody else does, right? Why, we all know that IE is the only browser which has ever had security issues which need to be fixed. Unfortunately I received a 404 from the PivX site, but I did manage to turn this up: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html is a wonderful example of how IE isn't the only browser which has had security issues.

Furthermore, despite these "scary vulnerabilities" I've used IE for approximately six years, throughout it's incarnations, and have yet to suffer ANY serious security hassles as a result of this. I'm sure there are loads of people using IE who have had security hassles, and I won't question that, but this certainly does not mean that all IE users are extremely likely (or even guaranteed) to be exploited like this 'essay' suggests.

"Internet Explorer Barrages You with Ads
Ah, yes, pop-up advertisements. The scourge of the Internet. I suppose even the people who put them on their websites hate them; they exist for the sole purpose of gaining your attention. But guess what? If you didn't run Internet Explorer, you wouldn't be seeing any pop-up ads at all."

HI SP2, how you doin'?
As to why IE doesn't (previously) have an ad blocker?

"They own the Web browser market, so everyone uses Internet Explorer whether they like it or not."

I see, a browser than isn't really a browser owns the web browser market, and people don't have a choice in which browser they use. This article is getting more and more credible.

"HTTP is the protocol for the World Wide Web. It provides requirements that all Web browsers must meet; if browsers developed their own protocol instead, communication between computers would break down and the Internet would collapse into anarchy."

But nobody else is, right, because microsoft are the only evil people at play here. So the internet won't collapse into anarchy (lovely wording, very dramatic), if MS are left to do their own thing?

"If in the future Internet Explorer starts identifying its Content-Types incorrectly, this will cause a huge dilemma with webmasters."

Read as: So basically, even though they don't follow standards, it's not a big deal, although it might be, one day, possibly?

If it's that big a deal that they don't follow standards, I guess people can continue using whatever browsers they want, and we'll see where it goes. If people are as serious about the standards as the person who wrote this seems to be, I'm sure that IE will suffer as a result. Then again, I suspect the average browser has better things to worry about than standards, don't you? I for one am certainly not concerned about the workplace agreements negotiated by garbage collectors in the Australian workforce, and from where I stand that's about as relevant to me as I'd expect standards to be to a normal person who just wants to use a browser.

Judging by the scroll bar here, this has turned out a bit of a rant, my apologies to those of you who have bleeding eyes as a result of someone defending Microsoft, I felt it had to be done

 

[jm1234567890]

IE's 94% market share is due to it being inculded in windows. If users were given a choice in what brower to use when installing windows i'm sure the the % would be different.

In addition, IE is a system utility, not an application. Since it is illegal to bundle applications into an operating system.

Therefore, there is limited funtionality microsoft can add.

in the end, IE is a nice simple clean browser for people who don't need mouse gestures or ad blocking or tabbed browsing.

 

[sunny]

Read as: So basically, even though they don't follow standards, it's not a big deal, although it might be, one day, possibly?

Actually, its already been a big deal, which is why browsers are starting to following standards, including IE. There were days when developing a website for every browser meant writing different and separate code for IE and Netscape. At that time, Netscape was the outcast, introducing weird things like "font tags". People didn't put the effort into making websites work in Netscape and stuck with IE. As time went on, IE introduced other things that weren't part of the HTML standard, and even though other browsers caught up with the standards IE didn't.

I don't blame IE, I blame crappy webmasters that don't know how to use doctypes.

 

[Li0n]

*hugs omgzergrush*
ROFL!