Best Browser

Ye' old general discussion board. Basically, for everything that isn't covered elsewhere. Come here to shoot the breeze, shoot your mouth off, or whatever suits your fancy.
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Moderator: General Moderators

What Browswer is best?

Internet Explorer
3
7%
Mozilla Firefox
35
83%
Mozilla Suite
0
No votes
Netscape
0
No votes
Opera
1
2%
Safari
3
7%
Camino
0
No votes
Konqueror
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 42

mickd
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Post by mickd »

FF for me.
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Burrito
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Post by Burrito »

The Ninja Space Goat wrote:Speak up IE lovers... who are you?
Me
foobar
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Post by foobar »

Burrito wrote:
The Ninja Space Goat wrote:Speak up IE lovers... who are you?
Me
Diediediedie! :evil:

But seriously, how can you like IE? Countless security holes, no adblock that I know of, ActiveX exploits, no proper deletion of history (don't ask), you name it. I know FF isn't perfect, but it sure as hell is better than IE.
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shiznatix
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Post by shiznatix »

ya ya all those things are maybe bad, firefox is not without its own large list of security thingies. but the thing i hate most about IE is the lack of tabbed browsing. having 1 window with all your websites open is so easy when you are doing development.

1 tab for cpanel
1 tab for some site section your working on
1 tab for google to find quick answers to stupid questions
1 tab for devnet incase google fails

live saving i tell j00
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Burrito
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Post by Burrito »

don't get me wrong, I understand the upsides of FF completely (the tabbed browsing, better security, the awesome plugins, etc etc).

but here are my reasons for sticking with IE:

1) 97% of internet visitors to my site are using IE and 100% of people at work are using IE (for my intranet apps). Sure I could use FF and make sure that everything works 100% in FF then swap over to IE and check to make it's the same there too....but there's really not much of a balance at 97 - 3 and 100 - 0. So it's far less time consuming for me to write for IE then check for FF after the fact.

2) I've been burned twice now in FF by losing my profile and having to start from scratch to rebuild it...that has never happend in IE

3) I don't like the 20 seconds it takes FF to load on my machine for the first time....IE is instantaneous

4) I am aware of the security issues with IE, but I'm also not a complete moron and keep my system up to date with everything. The security argument only holds water for those idiots who don't know when or how to update their pcs.

I'm not worried about "deleting" all of my history...and should I ever feel compelled to do so, I *do* know how.

I don't want this to turn into a huge flame fest about IE vs FF. I think they both have their places and user bases....right now my druthers are with IE and it will stay that way until at least 3 of the above 4 items I listed change...most notably number 1.

I also don't think the argument of "supporting the giant" holds much water either unless you're using *nix as your workstation. I know a lot of you are, but I know a lot of you aren't. Bill already has my money by virtue of using windows and I'm not going to change that because the games I play require 'doze. So to draw a comparison...it'd be like me buying a loaf of bread and then be given another loaf. But I dont' want to eat the first loaf (even if it tastes better to me) because I'm supporting the person who made it...which I already did because I already bought it....hmm...but what if there are mice in the bread? 8O

My only beef with IE is the lack of tabbed browsing which I think is guiness-style brilliant...but IE 7 will satisfy me there.
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shiznatix
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Post by shiznatix »

Burrito wrote:which I think is guiness-style brilliant...but IE 7 will satisfy me there.
aye yes, Brilliant! BRILLIANT! ahhhhhh comparing tabbed browsing to guiness makes me thirsty...

I do hope they do make IE 7 really good though, if they do then why not switch back? well, I do love adblock plugin for firefox...

maybe IE will make it possible to code plugins for it? that would be freakin amazing.
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AKA Panama Jack
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Post by AKA Panama Jack »

Burrito wrote:1) 97% of internet visitors to my site are using IE and 100% of people at work are using IE (for my intranet apps). Sure I could use FF and make sure that everything works 100% in FF then swap over to IE and check to make it's the same there too....but there's really not much of a balance at 97 - 3 and 100 - 0. So it's far less time consuming for me to write for IE then check for FF after the fact.
For the most part if you don't use any IE specific HTML, JAVA or QUIRKS when creating your web pages (stay the HELL away from any Frontpage Extension garbage) then your pages should display just fine on any other browser mentioned. I view all of my web programming through Opera with a final check on IE and 99.99% of the time it displays the same in IE as it does in Opera.

It is far less time consuming to write web standard HTML and JAVA so you don't have to worry about it displaying properly in a particular browser. Sure there are some minor differences between the various browsers for javascript and CSS but most of those differences are esoteric (IE is the one that really lags in this area).
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Burrito
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Post by Burrito »

AKA Panama Jack wrote:For the most part if you don't use any IE specific HTML, JAVA or QUIRKS when creating your web pages (stay the HELL away from any Frontpage Extension garbage) then your pages should display just fine on any other browser mentioned. I view all of my web programming through Opera with a final check on IE and 99.99% of the time it displays the same in IE as it does in Opera.
All of my sites are very DHTML heavy so using JS and CSS extensively is a must. That's why I say I'd rather spend my time working for IE first then go back and checking to make sure they work in other browsers.
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n00b Saibot
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Post by n00b Saibot »

I see Burrito has stood up for me (& IE) quite nicely. Good Job :wink:
foobar
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Post by foobar »

Burrito wrote:
AKA Panama Jack wrote:For the most part if you don't use any IE specific HTML, JAVA or QUIRKS when creating your web pages (stay the HELL away from any Frontpage Extension garbage) then your pages should display just fine on any other browser mentioned. I view all of my web programming through Opera with a final check on IE and 99.99% of the time it displays the same in IE as it does in Opera.
All of my sites are very DHTML heavy so using JS and CSS extensively is a must. That's why I say I'd rather spend my time working for IE first then go back and checking to make sure they work in other browsers.
Interesting approach. I usually do it the other way around. I've been doing this AJAX chat application with as little php + html as possible, so it's very heavy on JS. CSS is also employed throughout for better themeability. I found that if it works in FF (currently v1.0.7), it usually works in IE7 and sometimes even IE6 as well (if I'm lucky). Usually, however, it doesn't work in IE5.5 or IE6. The browser with the worst CSS support or the three is Opera. Especially if you use the :before and :after pseudo-classes. You can end up with disfunctional form fields.
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AKA Panama Jack
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Post by AKA Panama Jack »

foobar wrote:The browser with the worst CSS support or the three is Opera. Especially if you use the :before and :after pseudo-classes. You can end up with disfunctional form fields.
That's odd as I have never had any CSS problems with Opera though I have had to fix as number of things to get both Javascript and CSS to work properly with Firefox.
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Post by Roja »

AKA Panama Jack wrote:
foobar wrote:The browser with the worst CSS support or the three is Opera. Especially if you use the :before and :after pseudo-classes. You can end up with disfunctional form fields.
That's odd as I have never had any CSS problems with Opera though I have had to fix as number of things to get both Javascript and CSS to work properly with Firefox.
As odd as it will seem, I'm going to switch 'sides' a bit, and back PJ on this, but with a small caveat.

I'd say that Opera has the best implementation of CSS in general. The methods that they have added support for work well, consistently, and are well-documented.

Firefox sort of takes the opposite approach. It implements more of the standard sooner (the pseudo classes are a great example), but in doing so, its often poorly documented, inconsistent (FF-on-Linux != FF-on-Windows), and has more than a few bugs (do a search in bugzilla).

However, going back to my original point, there is a reason I still favor FF: Transparent development processes. If I hit a truly crippling bug, I can open a ticket, have others vote for that bug, track the progress, discuss the details, and more. Thats something neither IE or Opera offers, and Firefox doesn't just do it - it does it well.

They are generally fast with fixes, and the problems they do have are in areas that don't "bite" me often, while Opera's bit me virtually every day until O9. (No xmlhttprequest = doom). With O9, the equation has changed substantially. I think when O9 final comes out, it will definitely hold the crown in many ways for a while.
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