Which Brower(s)?

It has been over 2 years since I created the original Which Browser poll, so I thught it would be interesting to see if every is still using the same browser(s), or if you have switched. Also as there are now newer browsers available I thought it would be interesting to see if anyone is using them now.

Those from Norway might be pleased to learn that I'm now using Opera more as my main browser, with Firefox 3 being the second I use nearly as much. I would use Opera more, but it isn't 100% compatible with web standards. Some things don't work on sites and some bits of sites are sometimes missing, so for web development work Firefox is still the best option. But for speed and stability Opera is one of the best.

So what are you using now? This time you can pick more than one.

I continue to use Opera 9 about 99% of the time. Firefox 1.5 and IE5 are both there though if needed.

I also use Opera on my PowerBook and IBrowse on my Amiga, but I havn't used the Amiga for internet purposes much recently.

Firefox 3 for me. Stuck with IE at work, however.

I tried IE8 out of curiosity, but I always use Firefox 3 and have gone back to it.
I divorced IE many years ago (I think I stopped using it around IE 5.0, so back in the Win95 days)

I've also voted Mobile Browser too, as I use the borwser on my Samsung mobile quite a bit.

[edit] I should have read that list more extensively ..... I also use AWeb regularly, when I'm on my A3000 or my A1200 [/edit]

Firefox 3 at home and IE 6 at work

I still use Opera of course, also on my phone. They just don't make them better than that. :)

I never use my PS3's browser. Even if I'm at the PS3's main menu and want to look up something, I use the PC instead. The browser on the PS3 really is a piece of garbage.

I use firefox 3 because I love the customisation and I also use the Wii browser occasionally to view the BBC's Iplayer on the TV because the good old BBC have made it specially Wii compatible, unlike ITV which runs on the awful silverlight software which doesn't even work properly on the PC half the time and it doesn't work at all on the Wii.

Google Chrome. Fast and neat. Just the way I like'em!

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Originally Posted by thirtywinter

Google Chrome. Fast and neat. Just the way I like'em!

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And full of Google spyware! Collecting everything you do in the browser and storing in their huge archiving computers. This includes your cookies, passwords, email addresses and login information. If you think the FBI want to keep tabs on someone's progress, you haven't witnessed Google's attempts!

I'm fine with any tracking software they might have. I actually use Gmail for business purposes as well in conjunction with the Google G1 phone. Very handy.

That being said, you have peaked my curiosity. Do you have any links to back this up with?

Switched from Firefox 2 to 3 some days ago and basically use it most of the time.

All the cool kids are Firefoxed up nowadays :D

I use FF3 and IE7 (well I don't my mother does) which I've just upgraded to IE8. IE8 the most nothing upgrade ever. Whereas there was a big change graphically between 6 and 7, IE8 is the same as 7. I can't tell any difference. The only thing that's prbably different is the fact that M$ have released more M$ tying software and protocols so that you have to use M$ software or else!

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Originally Posted by woody.cool

All the cool kids are Firefoxed up nowadays :D

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Yey, I'm cool (but don't tell Buleste that...)

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Originally Posted by v85rawdeal

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Originally Posted by woody.cool

All the cool kids are Firefoxed up nowadays :D

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Yey, I'm cool (but don't tell Buleste that...)

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Going round setting wildlife alight doesn't count. You can't be Roastedsquirreled or Flambedbadgered either.;)

Stuck with IE7 at work.
The pc that is not connected to our network but is connected to the internet has Firefox3.

At home I use Safari on my Ipod Touch and OWB which is a webkit based browser, on my Amiga.

Safari... shudders! What a horrible browser. Well, I don't like it anyway. OK, it does render webpages correctly as it sticks to the same web standards as Firefox and Opera do. However I just can't get past the really horrible Apple full page anti aliasing they force the browser to use, even on the PC version.

At least in MacOSX, if you hack the anti aliasing setting to off, there will be no anti aliasing in Safari.

But I'd say it is better than the Cleartype that IE7 forces upon you if you don't get chance to switch it off when you load IE up on your non-roaming profile on a big network. (Luckily most of the computers in college also have Firefox).

I really should have a go at getting OWB going sometime.

Cleartype is an OS level setting on Vista. Therefore it can be turned off and will then not be a part of IE. Personally I like Cleartype. It improves text a lot on LCD monitors. However if you are using a CRT then it doesn't help, and should be switched off.

I was refering to how it comes on by default in IE7 on Windows XP, even if XP has it switch off.

Of course, if college hadn't got rid of roaming profiles, I could have switched it off the first time I loaded it up and kept it switch off, but instead I have to switch it off every time I get IE up.

I expect Cleartype can be set up to an extent that it would be quite nice, but as I don't use XP I have never been able to fiddle with it much. It really isn't good for my eyes most of the times I have seen it (with small fonts at least).

Cleartype wasn't originally developed for use in XP. It is developed by the typeface team at Microsoft ready for Vista, and the technology behind it is very interesting and very smart. However with the release of IE7 and XP SP3 they decided to reverse integrate it into XP.

You can also now download quite a useful cleartype tool for XP which allows proper setup of cleartype. It runs through a series of questions, making you pick type from a selection of examples to set the cleartype settings to your personal preferences. Once you have run through that utlity it does make a difference.

I would be interested in seeing that utility. Cleartype is really no good for one's eyes in its default setup.

The download for it can be found here.

There is an online version here.

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Originally Posted by Harrison

Cleartype wasn't originally developed for use in XP. It is developed by the typeface team at Microsoft ready for Vista, and the technology behind it is very interesting and very smart. However with the release of IE7 and XP SP3 they decided to reverse integrate it into XP.

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Are you sure about that? ClearType existed in XP pre-IE7.

Anyway, who's tried IE8 yet?

Yep, I have IE8 installed on my main Vista 64bit system. Still don't like it compared to Opera and FF.

The download itself is huge, and then it has to go through about a 10 minute installation, setup and system configuration process, then a reboot which includes more waiting during the shut down process with the "updates are being installed" screen being shown, then after the reboot further finishing of of the installation. Quite mad.

And at the end of it? You get a browser which doesn't appear to be all that different to IE7.

Compare this to Opera. A 5MB download, with an installer that finishes setting it up very quickly. You can be using Opera within 5 minutes of starting to download it!

And what is one of IE8's "big new feature"? Standards based browsing and compatibility. How mad is that. Since the demise of Netscape, IE has been the only browser that hasn't comformed and complied to web standards. And if this is so, why are we getting lots of reports that many sites won't work correctly with IE8?

OK, I am being a bit unfair. IE8 now has add-ons. An idea directly stolen from Firefox, but the ability to expand its functionality is a good addition.

But for me the best addition and new idea in IE8 is something called accelerators. The ability to highlight some text on a webpage and then use an accelerator to instantly call up some information from another site is a very good new innovation. And there seem to be quite a few accelerators already written for IE to link you to the information from many different online resources. So you could highly an address and use an accelerator to instantly call up a map of its location. Or you can highlight a name and get some information about it from Wikipedia. Quite a cool idea, and it means you can now utilise the power of the internet as a source of information, without needing to leave the webpage you are currently viewing.

I've not tested IE8's cross browser compatibility fully yet, but am going to try some CSS and XHTML tests on it next week to see if it really does adhear to current web standards now.

Well, personally, I only ever open IE when a new version comes along (well, gets forced upon me via Windows Update sometimes)

Anyway, I was a little excited about IE8 because of it's better 'standards' etc., but actually, I think it's crap.
Too similar to IE7, don't like the amount of time it takes to install (bloody ages!)
To me, it doesn't feel as nice as Firefox does.

Anyway, something strange about IE8 on my work PC .... it's placed all my favourites in the root of the C: drive, instead of it's usual location (C:\Documents and Settings\%username%\Favorites)
WHY?

Heh. I never even upgraded to IE7. What's the point? :)

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Originally Posted by Teho

Heh. I never even upgraded to IE7. What's the point? :)

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Because IE is integrated into the Windows shell, it acts as a Windows Update.
Updating IE also updates Windows Explorer (Windows Explorer uses the same DLL calls)

I was going to try out IE7 when it first came out, then realised it required Windows XP. School got IE7 so I just tried it there.

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Originally Posted by Stephen Coates

I was going to try out IE7 when it first came out, then realised it required Windows XP. School got IE7 so I just tried it there.

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:o What windows version are you running then? :o

At the recomendation of many people on this forum and after several years experience with its excellent reliability, Windows 2000.

There is also the limitation that you can't download IE7 or 8 unless you are using a legal real copy of Windows. ;)

But as mentioned, IE is part of the OS and Explorer uses it, and for that it is a good idea to keep it up to date. Also Windows Update normally works better with the latest version, as does the rest of the M$ network.

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Originally Posted by Harrison

There is also the limitation that you can't download IE7 or 8 unless you are using a legal real copy of Windows. ;)

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Not necessarily! It's very easy to patch IE setup to 'bypass' the checks for a legit version of Windows.
It's quite a bit harder to do the same for Media Player though.

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Originally Posted by Harrison

But as mentioned, IE is part of the OS and Explorer uses it, and for that it is a good idea to keep it up to date. Also Windows Update normally works better with the latest version, as does the rest of the M$ network.

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On some older browsers, parts of the Microsoft site won't even appear.
I've noticed on my old PC (an original Pentium) running Windows 95 and IE 5.5 (latest possible IE on Win95), some parts of the Microsoft web site refuse to even load .... you get forwarded to a page saying 'Thankyou for your interest ..... this site is designed for Microsoft Internet Explorer version 6.0 or late ..... download the lastest version here' and a link to the latest IE version.

As far as I'm concerned, the only reason not to update to latest IE is for specific testing with an older version (for instance, if IE7 or IE8 cause problems with your software) or if you're on Windows 2000 or earlier.

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Originally Posted by Harrison

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Originally Posted by thirtywinter

Google Chrome. Fast and neat. Just the way I like'em!

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And full of Google spyware! Collecting everything you do in the browser and storing in their huge archiving computers. This includes your cookies, passwords, email addresses and login information. If you think the FBI want to keep tabs on someone's progress, you haven't witnessed Google's attempts!

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That doesn't sound good at all. Do they actually archive ones passwords, email addresses and such? :o If yes, then I doubt that most people are aware of this.

I though google kept everything? Probably for advertising purposes. I believe that is what they do/did with GMail.

When I installed this copy of Windows 2000 a couple of years ago, the first thing I did was go into IE5 and use it to download Opera 9. As I use Opera 99.9% of the time, IE5 has barely been touched.

Hadn't realised that IE updates more than just the browser, but it does make sense that it also updates Windows Explorer now that you mention it. But then again, I don't use Windows Explorer either. ;)

I do keep Windows up to date otherwise, but not on automatic updates. I check the updates roughly once a month and get the critical ones, and scan the recommended ones for anything I could need. There's a lot there I haven't bothered with, and my system works perfectly fine as far as I can tell.

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Originally Posted by Teho

But then again, I don't use Windows Explorer either. ;)

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Do you actually have a Start Menu and/or desktop icons?
If you do, you're using Windows Explorer!

Windows Explorer is more than just the link in the Start Menu.

The Start button, the Desktop Icons, the Systray/notification area, the My Documents window .... even the common dialog box that appears when you go File -> Open in your favourite applications ..... it's all Windows Explorer!

Teho is referring to using Directory Opus instead of Windows Explorer, but as you say, using any part of Windows will mean you are still using Explorer to some extent. Although DOpus can take over a large majority of it if you wish.

Harrison`s right. I suppose I should have made it clearer that I use an explorer replacement. So while it is true that Windows Explorer still handles things like the desktop and the taskbar, by and large I don`t use it, no. :)

Cool, didn't realise there was a Windows version of Directory Opus.
I may have to give that a try (I'm right royaly fed up with Windows, so any way to make it better is a help)

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Originally Posted by Stephen Coates

At the recomendation of many people on this forum and after several years experience with its excellent reliability, Windows 2000.

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Agreed!
Windows 2000 is the BEST version of Windows ever .... in the sense that it's the most reliable, anyway.

The windows version of DOpus is great and well worth looking at. You can download a free 30 day trial of it to test what it offers. And you won't be disappointed. The way Vista navigation of directories works was being used in the Win version of DOpus years before Vista had it, and DOpus offers a lot of other advancements over the standard Windows Explorer that are well worth having. The search and batch file processing features are especially very good. I don't know what I would have done without the ability to use its batch renaming to rename large sets of files for web development projects.

And you are right about Win 2000. It was a great OS in its day and definitely one of the best developments from M$. I had it installed as my main OS very soon after its release and continued to use it as my main OS way after XP was released (only upgrading to XP once SP1 was out). Win 2000 was one of the best developments/jumps in OS design M$ have made to date, with many aspects of 2000 still obviously present in both XP and Vista. They are basically just updated versions of what 2000 started after all.

I still remember the first time we got hold of it on launch and tested it out on a spare PC at work to see what it was like, and being really blown away by how stable and good it was. Before this we had been wrestling with NT4 on our video edit stations, and Windows 98 on out workstations. Both a nightmare in different ways. It wasn't long before I had convinced my boss that I needed a faster PC and a copy of Win 2000 on it. At the time what I built was a state of the art Athlon 900MHz machine with a dual head Matrox G400 Max 32MB graphics card, 384MB ram, 60GB HDD and an Adaptec SCSI card with internal CD writer, external SCSI flatbed scanner, and when they came out, one of the first ever external Pioneer Authoring DVD Writers and a Pioneer DVD-RAM drive. At the time (2000/1) that was a great machine.

Times have moved on though. Windows 2000 is now starting to show its age. It is still fine to use as a business OS or as a server, but not if you want anything up to date. It doesn't support the lastest versions of IE, or DirectX, so you can be a bit stuck. Plus it is now out of date for design work as most Adobe and Discreet software has required at least XP as a minimum for a few years now, and some of the latest versions require Vista as a minimum.

Windows 2000 is still probably the most stable version of Windows to date. Although with SP2 or SP3 Windows XP seems to be just as stable, if not even more so. My test server and download servers both run XP SP3 and neither ever need to be rebooted (unless an update requires it) and both just keep on working. And saying that, my main PC running Vista 64bit is very stable too and nice to use.

As I have said many times. XP and Vista are very good OSs that run very smoothly and are both very stable if you are running them on powerful enough hardware. Windows 2000 wasn't nearly as resource hungy and used to run fine on a Pentium 2 400MHz machine with 512MB of ram, whereas XP really needs a 1.5GHz+ CPU and 1GB of ram to run as intended, and Vista really needs a 2GHz+ dual core CPU and 2GB+ of ram to run at its best. Although for Vista to run really well a quad core CPU and 4GB of ram is even better.

I do agree with you somewhat, Harrison.
However, I do disagree with you when you reckon XP is more stable than 2000

I never had any problems with 2000, but XP and Vista are prooving a nusience with they're issues and instability ..... even on a powerful machine like mine.

I never have any speed issues (even in Vista) but regularly Vista seems to 'malfunction' and completely **** up for no reasone :mad:

As for XP, I had my fair share of problems with XP in the past.
I still maintain that 2000 is a far better (Windows) OS than XP and Vista, it's just a shame it's so dated now.

I'm hoping Windows 7 will be an improvement over Vista. Despite my disappointment with recent Windows versions, I still have (some) faith in Microsoft, that they can once again, make a 'working' OS

One big problem I had with 2000 was the boot time. It could take 5 minutes just to reach the desktop, then longer to finish loading. The XP SP3 system I still have boots completely in under 1 minute including loading everything on the desktop), and for Vista 64bit my system fully loads in under 30 seconds.

One thing I discovered recently is how much faster both XP and Vista load without a network connection. My internet went down, and my Vista machine booted in about 20 seconds!

As for overall stability. It depends on how the OS is setup. I never try to install anything I'm not going to actually use regularly, and I reconfigure the services and startup programs after every program install to make sure no additional rubbish is running that could cause instability or crashes. Also hardware is important. Some is more stable than others.

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Originally Posted by Harrison

I reconfigure the services and startup programs after every program install to make sure no additional rubbish is running that could cause instability or crashes.

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Just as a matter of interest (and an aid to improving my Windows installation), what services and startup programs do you 'reconfigure'?

I assume you disable a load of unnecessary services?

Firefox 3 of course, the latest 3.6a1pre (Build 20090615044733) version from yesterday ;)
But I have all the other browsers installed just for the fun of testing something from time to time.

Only Firefox 3 for me on desktop. Using it since 0.7 version. Never looked back.

I use extensively my Windows Mobile browser which is IE only to login to WIFI hotspots proxy (i don't pay a dime) then Opera Mini.

Same here: Firefox all the way! I tried Opera for a while but i just couldn't get used to it...

FF here and Opera for reading news.
Looked at Chrome for a while but can't get used to it...

Firefox at work, Internet Explorer 6 at home (because I can't be bothered to install/configure anything else), IE8 on the laptop and Opera on my mobile phone/PDA.

I like Firefox the best.

Here's an update on my browser usage.

I still use Opera 9 on the PC, and have Opera 5 on my PowerBook 1400, which works well considering the borwsers and the machines age.

I got a PowerBook G3 (Lombard) recently and ran Opera 6, but then I started using Classilla, which is an updated version of Mozilla for MacOS (most of the updates so far are security updates). It seems to be doing a very good job of rendering web pages.


Has anyone here tried running OWB on a 68k Amiga?