Firefox vs. Opera vs. MS IE

[mec]

I have been using Firefox for awhile now and I love all of the features. However, I find that it hangs up on me a bit. I am not sure if it is some of the extensions that I use, or what. It is far superior to Microsoft IE, so I don't want to go back.

 

Any suggestions on what might be causing the hang-ups? What luck has everyone else had with Firefox? What about Opera? I have heard it kicks IE's ass as well, but it costs money. Is it worth it, or should I stick with Firefox.

[Cobra_Commander]

and which captain was better: jean-luc picard or kirk?

[mec]

kirk of course, he always got the woman in the end.

[whirlwind]

speaking or firefox, there is a movie called firefox that an ex made me sit through, it was lame as hell till angilina J. showed her tits acouple of times, that got my attention right quick

[JoshK]

Let's see...it crashes sometimes, but it is better than IE. haha...ok guy, sounds great.

 

A web browser is a web browser. I tried firefox, it worked fine and it gave me nothing extra I needed so I freed up the disk space.

[glassgowkiss]

firefox rules, way better then ie. at least i don't have to download "critical error patch" every other friggin day. macroshaft products suck ass.

[cj001f]

I tried firefox, it worked fine and it gave me nothing extra I needed so I freed up the disk space.

Tabbed browsing?

In browser searches from multiple sources?

Security?

That's nothing?

[Alex]

....

Security?

That's nothing?

 

you're kidding right?

 

the only way to secure your machine is unplug it from the network, then turn it off and go climbing.

[cj001f]

the only way to secure your machine is unplug it from the network, then turn it off and go climbing.

On an absolute scale, yes. on a relative scale, no.

[Peter_Puget]

Opera doesn't support things like document.selection and the document.execCommand and document.designMode interfaces in javascript.

 

DOM

[mec]

huh? does that mean I can't drink coffee and use Opera at the same time?

[iain]

If you have any interest in the advancement of the WWW, you will use Firefox. It is an excellent product and supports W3C standards better than almost any other product. IE is a disgrace. The new IE may not even support CSS2 as Microsoft believes it to be a "broken standard". Hilarious hearing those words from that company.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

If you have any interest in the advancement of the WWW, you will use Firefox. It is an excellent product and supports W3C standards better than almost any other product. IE is a disgrace. The new IE may not even support CSS2 as Microsoft believes it to be a "broken standard". Hilarious hearing those words from that company.

 

Since I have used Firefox, I have never had a problem with Spyware/Adware.

 

IE sucks ass.

[Ireneo_Funes]

Picard was better.

[JoshK]

A "disgrace"?? Haha...ok. Yes, it is a crime against humanity. I love anti-MS rhetoric. Man, if people applied the same standard of what sucks to open source or other companies' software 95% of it would be deemed to be a disgrace...mismatched UIs, various oddities that could confuse your typical user, plenty of things that don't work with windows standards (for those of us that actually like our apps to look and behave the same rather than everything have some different stupid "skin"). I also find most non-MS software to have just as many bugs on average. Some programs more, some less, but certainly not an overall improvement. It is just the simple fact that people will bitch about every little thing an MS product does wrong. But when I think about it how often in my day-to-day work to I hit a bug with Windows or MS Office? I can't say I can even thing of one. I guess being a student I am a "typical computer user" of these applications and they sure work fine for me.

 

As for patches, I would rather take patches which automatically install than be told that recompiling is actually a valid solution to getting updates for my operating system or manually installing patches. The MS windows update system, i am sorry to tell you, is a major bonus for your average computer user. It is the only way people are going to patch their computer software. A typical user is not going to frequently check for patches, figure out what they actually need, determine if the patch is for whatever version they currently have installed and then patch it. I actually like the thing popping up once a week or whatever and telling me to install shit. I click yes, it downloads for five minutes, it does some installation in the background, then I possibly have to reboot, which takes me all of 30 seconds. Big freaking deal.

 

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of applications out there that fit my needs better than the corresponding MS application (take Picasa2 for managing photos, that program rules) and lots of other more specialized pieces of software (there is tons of great stuff out there). In that case, i'll gladly use the non-MS solution, but to just wholesale write it all of as crap is just typical anti-big-guy bashing.

 

Here is some non-MS software that I use and really like for my purposes, if you haven't seen them, they may be worth checking out:

 

1.) Picasa2. You can download it from google. Very very cool digital imagine library program. This is the first photo library program I actually find I will use. The UI is very slick.

 

2.) Mozilla Thunderbird. Our school's email is an IMAP server, which outlook (and every other email program) has really lousy support for. Thunderbird is far and away the best email client for IMAP i have found. It works great.

 

3.) Trillian. I use this instant messaging client cause it combines AIM + MSN and has lots of great features.

 

P.S. I must go out of my way to point out the worst piece of commercial software out there. CRAPPY AOL INSTANT MESSENGER. The AIM client is the worst piece of software I have possibly ever used. It's UI sucks beyond any describably level.

[Alex]

I must go out of my way to point out the worst piece of commercial software out there. CRAPPY AOL INSTANT MESSENGER. The AIM client is the worst piece of software I have possibly ever used. It's UI sucks beyond any describably level.

 

There is a thing that is worse than AIM, the AOL client. I had AOL dialup for a short time and it was by far the worst piece of software I have ever used.

 

Some other terrible software: EasyCDCreator, and other such programs bundled with CD burners. I've found good reliable DVD burning software incredibly difficult to come by.

 

As to the current topic, I've tried Opera and while I found it nice for some things, when it came down to a "richer" client that works for things other than just casual web browsing, like a host for advanced client-side controls, IE is still the only choice. It goes without saying that in a corporate environment where your user identity is "flowed" under the covers against domain or Active Directory authentication, IE offers alot more than some other browsers. I am not sure what Opera or Firefox's support for domain/AD/LDAP is?

 

As for apps that I like, for basic text editing I've been using Textpad http://www.textpad.com/ for some time now, and really like it. Its license is very reasonable (25$). Some people swear by UltraEdit. For a really nice source code experience, I've found Source Insight is a really nice product, too. While people may bitch about it, I find MS Word and Excel to be pretty darn reliable and usable products for office documents and rich text editing. Finally, I really like just about anything Intuit comes out with: Quicken, TurboTax, those are well designed and very usable applications!

[Ricardo_Montalban]

our company is encouraging us to switch to foxfire for this reason...

Corporate IT came out with an announcement regarding a vulnerability with the Netscape browser. The head of corporate IT recommends Firefox over Netscape and Explorer, as it seems not only to have fewer vulernabilities, but it does not support Browser Helper Objects (the main vector for spyware and adware), and it does not support ActiveX, which I understand can create problems as well. For those reasons, it may be a good idea for everyone to switch their browser on their home computers as well.

 

Firefox is pretty easy to install, and will automatically load any bookmarks, certificates, history, etc. from either Netscape or Explorer. I’m asking everyone who is using Netscape at the office (such as myself) to switch to Firefox. We are not required to stop using Explorer at the office at this time, just a recommendation.

 

...and picard can kick kirks @$$!!

[mattp]

... when it came down to a "richer" client that works for things other than just casual web browsing, like a host for advanced client-side controls, IE is still the only choice. It goes without saying that in a corporate environment where your user identity is "flowed" under the covers against domain or Active Directory authentication,....

 

English translation? I'm think of switching to Firefox. What would I be missing that I actually care about?

[slothrop]

You'll only be missing out on certain features of Microsoft's websites, or other non-standards-compliant websites. So basically nothing, in my experience. You won't be able to use windowsupdate.com to update your operating system, but that's no big deal, since Automatic Updates does it for you.

[Dr_Flash_Amazing]

Security, schmecurity; viruses schmiruses.

 

 

Viva!

[thelawgoddess]

i used firefox almost exclusively for several months at home and work. i was pretty impressed ... until firefox started crashing on me. and it wasn't just every now and then like ie has in the past. it was 4-5 times/day! it didn't take long for me to switch back. sometimes i still use firefox but i'm not as gung-ho about it anymore. i really only miss the tabbing function ...

[mattp]

I'm having serious issues with Outlook and IE both right now, so I don't think it will likely be worse with Firefox - at least in the short term.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

i used firefox almost exclusively for several months at home and work. i was pretty impressed ... until firefox started crashing on me. and it wasn't just every now and then like ie has in the past. it was 4-5 times/day! it didn't take long for me to switch back. sometimes i still use firefox but i'm not as gung-ho about it anymore. i really only miss the tabbing function ...

 

have you tried upgrading since then?

[mec]

You'll only be missing out on certain features of Microsoft's websites, or other non-standards-compliant websites. So basically nothing, in my experience. You won't be able to use windowsupdate.com to update your operating system, but that's no big deal, since Automatic Updates does it for you.

 

What really sucks is that all of my work Intranet is setup using ActiveX, which Firefox said hell no to, due to security issues. So, I use Firefox for everything but Intranet schtuff...

[iain]

I also find most non-MS software to have just as many bugs on average. Some programs more, some less, but certainly not an overall improvement. It is just the simple fact that people will bitch about every little thing an MS product does wrong.

 

Not to get into some lameass geek-war but I bet half those "bugs" you attribute to your application are actually Windows making it's presence known.

 

It is totally accurate to say MS products are almost universally sub-standard. Word crawls on a lot of mid-range hardware. It's a word processor. Holes in Explorer routinely allow executable code as if the exploiter is sitting at the keyboard. Versions of MS Office have "called home" with users' personal information. They just don't give a rat's ass about your security, or the performance of their products. They are not trustworthy, and they are stagnant when it comes to innovation. They play a constant game of catch-up.

 

I also don't appreciate seeing the network logs rack up a bunch of entries whenever I fire up MS Word. WTF.