Browsers

[Kowal]

So, recently Mozilla Firefox has been absolutely fucking trash every time I try to browse the intarwebnet.  It was good to me in the past, but clearly our relationship is over, and I'm now looking for a new browser.

What do you cats suggest?

The only requirement I have is the ability to browse with tabbed windows.

[Kasuras]

Have you considered Opera?

I'm still using Firefox myself, and I'm not having any problems.. What exactly is yours?

[Magi]

I use Safari at work, and it seems to be an okay alternative to the 'ol fox.

Tabbed browsing for the win!

[jpmeyer]

The only reason that I use Firefox is because of a few translation/dictionary extensions that it has that Opera doesn't.  Otherwise, I'd use Opera in a heartbeat.

[Kowal]

The largest problem I've been having with Firefox is a consistant locking up every time I browse 10-12 windows at a time.

It's also having severe issues loading certain embedded files, that I don't have a problem with if I alternate to IE.

It looks like I should be trying out Opera, given that.

[SpencerForHire]

I've gotten about, 160 tabs in Firefox with no issues.. (don't ask)

[Kowal]

pr0n??

[Komatteru]

Lynx.

[Roxas]

The largest problem I've been having with Firefox is a consistant locking up every time I browse 10-12 windows at a time.

It's also having severe issues loading certain embedded files, that I don't have a problem with if I alternate to IE.

It looks like I should be trying out Opera, given that.

You can download an IE Tab extensions for Firefox to get around this problem. 

Also, IE7 has tabbed browsing now, so if that's the only reason you use Firefox, might as well just go switch to it.  Like JP, I use Firefox for various extensions not available in other browsers, but if you don't need those, there's really nothing wrong with IE7.

[Anusien]

Nah, IE7 is bad mojo.  If you want to stick with Firefox, Adblock and NoScript are techy for security.  I also like ImageZoom.
Opera is probably what you want; it's now Free as In Beer (I think).
The problem with IE7 is the slow release cycle for patches, and the fact that the vast majority of all security bugs are aimed at it, making it much more likely to contaminate you with spyware.
Plus, unless MSoft changed things dramatically, IE is directly tied into the kernel, which means that if Firefox gets hacked, you might crash, but IE getting compromised can take down your whole system.

[Roxas]

Nah, IE7 is bad mojo.  If you want to stick with Firefox, Adblock and NoScript are techy for security.  I also like ImageZoom.
Opera is probably what you want; it's now Free as In Beer (I think).
The problem with IE7 is the slow release cycle for patches, and the fact that the vast majority of all security bugs are aimed at it, making it much more likely to contaminate you with spyware.
Plus, unless MSoft changed things dramatically, IE is directly tied into the kernel, which means that if Firefox gets hacked, you might crash, but IE getting compromised can take down your whole system.

The security issues aren't really that important for home users who browse prudently, don't download unsafe attachments/plugins, and regularly run checks for adware and spyware. 

[Klep]

The security issues aren't really that important for home users who browse prudently, don't download unsafe attachments/plugins, and regularly run checks for adware and spyware. 

The problem is that the security issues that threaten IE are far more significant than the ones that threaten Firefox because of the way IE is tied into the operating system.  If you have a problem with Firefox, then I recommend Opera or Lynx (text only ftw!) or really anything that doesn't have that kind of OS interaction.  IE is one of the last browsers I would ever recommend.

[Machinus]

I've never had a problem with IE and I've been using it for a long time. If you're on a secure network there's really no reason to worry about it.

[Klep]

I've never had a problem with IE and I've been using it for a long time. If you're on a secure network there's really no reason to worry about it.

This is perfectly possible.  The point I was making is that the potential harm incurred from a vulnerability in IE is so much more devastating than the potential harm incurred from a vulnerability in a browser not tied into the OS that considering the feature sets of alternative browsers, it is just not worth the risk to use it over something else.

[Komatteru]

Rikai-chan (理解ちゃん) and Moji (文字) are the only reasons I use Firefox.  Tabbed browsing is cute, but if weren't for the Japanese extensions, I wouldn't really have a big use for Firefox.

I did install it on my parents computer and make them use it.  I did this because they are not always savvy enough to avoid random popups and somehow manage to get stuff installed on there they shouldn't.

[Roxas]

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/FirefoxMyths.html

You should all read that if you haven't already.  Some of it is exagerrated and other parts are simply irrelevant, but it's a good read nonetheless.  Again, I still use FF, but only because of a couple specific features I mentioned above.  If the importance of one's browser selection to a computer's security was as big an issue as many of you are suggesting, which is to a large extent untrue, then Opera would be my browser of choice. 

It's also worth noting that Firefox is quite a memory hog compared to other browsers.  This might not be a big issue for most fairly recent computers, but can be a major one for anything older than two or three years, has relatiively little RAM, and/or frequently has a large number of running processes.  Both IE and Opera are more memory efficient than Firefox.

[Anusien]

I actually am thinking of switching to Opera now that it's Free as in Beer.  The high memory footprint of Firefox is a pain in the ass to me.

[Jacob Orlove]

I just switched to Opera. No real complaints, although it took a few minutes to get rid of some of the terrible default settings.

Edit: and I'm back to Firefox.

[Vegeta2711]

I just switched to Opera. No real complaints, although it took a few minutes to get rid of some of the terrible default settings.

Edit: and I'm back to Firefox.

Some good sir. What went wrong?

[Jacob Orlove]

It might be related to my wireless, which cuts out occasionally for anything from 1-2 seconds to maybe 20 seconds, but half the time I tried to load a page, it would just sit there. Also, if I had some text entered in a page and I hit refresh or back or anything, the text wouldn't be there anymore, which was an unpleasant surprise.

[Anusien]

Depends on the page; I get a mix of losing text or not in both FF and Opera.  It think it's that most PHP pages clear it, and most non PHP pages don't.  SCG never saves anything I type regardless of browswer.

I had some rendering problems, but they cleared up and I'm not sure how.  I still like how much faster Opera is, so I'm staying for a while.

[Jacob Orlove]

I went back and tested this, and apparently both will save text if you go back and then hit forward, but only firefox saves it if I refresh (all on TMD, so no idea how other sites would work). If Opera really is faster, I'll give it a second chance, though.

[Bram]

OBVIOUSLY all you people should install Contiki OS. It even has an insane web browser:

[Jacob Orlove]

Okay, now Opera is working fine, and it definitely is faster than Firefox.

[Anusien]

Now to find useful widgets.

[Anusien]

The biggest loss from switching to Firefox beta is the loss of Spellcheck.  Any way to get Spellchecking in Opera?