Stop Microsoft

Miscellaneous => The Lounge => Topic started by: JanusChrist on 21 March 2005, 05:56

Title: What's your main web browser?
Post by: JanusChrist on 21 March 2005, 05:56
Mozilla Firefox here.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: solemnwarning on 21 March 2005, 06:07
firefox
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: muzzy on 21 March 2005, 06:10
internet explorer :)
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Annorax on 21 March 2005, 06:24
Quote from: muzzy
internet explorer :)


TROOOOLLLL!!!11111111eleventyone! [/sarcasm]

Seriously.... why do you use IE over Firefox?
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: muzzy on 21 March 2005, 06:31
Well, I have firefox too, but I tend to only use it on sites which absolutely won't work without javascript. It's kind of my "plan B" browser. My IE is configured to work without activex/activescripting, so 99% of IE security holes never apply to me. The rare ones that do, I patch. IE has worked perfectly for me, and for a while I thought it was misbehaving until I started debugging it and realized the glitches I was having were because of my own browser helper objects leaking. Oops! :D

I've found that in every way that matters to me, IE has been superior for a long time. Only recently (like, late last year) the firefox has become actually usable. I'll still stick with IE, though, I see no reason to switch over. Oh, and I'd have to reimplement all my plugins for firefox, and I hear they need to be rewritten every now and then as different firefox versions have plugin compatibility issues. Yay.

I also have various versions of netscape and opera installed, back from the times I did some webdesign. I only use them for testing purposes, though.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Laukev7 on 21 March 2005, 06:38
Firefox. Although I find it very buggy; it tends to crash on my very often and slow down a lot. The only explanation to this is that I may have installed a buggy extension; it used to work rather well when I used its beta versions.

I find myself switching to Opera often as a result. I would use it more often, as it's a very good browser, but I can't use it with certain services such as StumbleUpon or Jybe.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: bedouin on 21 March 2005, 07:09
Safari.  I like Firefox, but on Mac it's just not close enough to acting/feeling like a native OS X app for my taste.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: WMD on 21 March 2005, 07:51
Laukev...are you using Tabbrowser Extensions?

I use Mozilla.  I don't know what the fuss about Firefox is; I never found it nearly as good.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Stilly on 21 March 2005, 09:02
safari

although i have to use mozilla to get to my gmail account
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Kintaro on 21 March 2005, 09:25
Firefox myself - with firefox the plugin issues arnt a problem. When you upgrade it automatically updates your extensions.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: cahult on 21 March 2005, 13:56
Firefox for everything surfingwise, Mozilla suite because Firefox didn
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: bedouin on 21 March 2005, 17:22
Quote from: Stilly
safari

although i have to use mozilla to get to my gmail account


Why?  I access GMail all the time with Safari.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: MrX on 21 March 2005, 17:53
Quote from: muzzy
Well, I have firefox too, but I tend to only use it on sites which absolutely won't work without javascript. It's kind of my "plan B" browser. My IE is configured to work without activex/activescripting, so 99% of IE security holes never apply to me. The rare ones that do, I patch. IE has worked perfectly for me, and for a while I thought it was misbehaving until I started debugging it and realized the glitches I was having were because of my own browser helper objects leaking. Oops! :D

I've found that in every way that matters to me, IE has been superior for a long time. Only recently (like, late last year) the firefox has become actually usable. I'll still stick with IE, though, I see no reason to switch over. Oh, and I'd have to reimplement all my plugins for firefox, and I hear they need to be rewritten every now and then as different firefox versions have plugin compatibility issues. Yay.

I also have various versions of netscape and opera installed, back from the times I did some webdesign. I only use them for testing purposes, though.



Opera web browser has been superior to IE for a long time, and was out before the Firefox wave. So don't think I have ran out of ammo in my arsenal, muzzy.

Mr X
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Calum on 21 March 2005, 19:52
well, firefox is supposed to be "testing" is it not? regardless, since phoenix 0.1 i have found it to be very stable, although it *definitely* depends on the build you get. some windows binaries were quite horrible around 0.5-0.6 (and then i stopped using windows for the 'net so i don't know) and i have never yet had a good rpm (third party of course) of firefox, but the mozilla.org (static i think) binaries are rock solid.

also, i find they use netscape type plugins 100% ok, i mean i only use the java, helix player, and flash player plugins, and they've always been dead right. oh yes and plugger too, which is very good at piping things through other stuff within the browser window (not that it gets used a lot).

i did used to advocate opera since it's better than netscape, and was better than mozilla (featurewise) when i was using it, but now firefox + prefbar really *almost* contains all the features i ever used with opera anyway, plus it's free and open source (no ad banner too)
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Aloone_Jonez on 21 March 2005, 21:51
I used to use MSIE until I discovered FireFox and I've never looked back. Despite taking all of 3 seconds longer to start it renders a lot faster than MSIE and dosen't crash as often too, and I'd be lost without the tabbed browsing feature - I hate using MSIE at work.

Not only that it's not spyware like MSIE and when you ask it to clear the cache it does it with out leaving any shit behind. I've had to download some 3rd party software to get rid of this shit. Then I deleted the software an upgraded to firefox, only to find it left some shit in the regestry too so I spent 2 hours deleting it. :mad:  :thumbdwn:  :fu: M$IE!

I agree with JanusChrist:(http://toastytech.com/evil/duh.gif)
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: adiment on 21 March 2005, 22:33
I used IE, until I discovered this site almost 2 years ago. I use firefox...Has alot of nice plugins like mouse gestures, gmail notifier, and I even stopped stopped IE for ftp with the fireftp plugin.


anybody know if this is a joke or what?
http://www.antifirefox.com
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: MrX on 21 March 2005, 22:54
Aloone_Jonez:

concerned about start times? then get your friken but using Opera 8 beta 2. its the fastest loading webbrowser out of all of any. even older opera versions. and its freaky fast.

Mr X
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Refalm on 21 March 2005, 22:55
I'm sorry to say I'm using Opera.

Oh common, those Google text ads aren't that bad ;)
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: JanusChrist on 22 March 2005, 01:19
Quote from: laukev7
Firefox. Although I find it very buggy; it tends to crash on my very often and slow down a lot.


Thats funny in that that's my opinion of IE to the letter.

The first Firefox 1.0 patch was released about a week ago (changes release number to 1.0.1)
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Orethrius on 22 March 2005, 13:54
Quote from: e7ement
anybody know if this is a joke or what?
http://www.antifirefox.com (http://www.antifirefox.com)

Read a little more into the site.  Can you say "publicity stunt"?  I'm not surprised BD would pull something like that, really.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: skyman8081 on 22 March 2005, 16:52
Because, heaven forbid, somebody doesn't like firefox!

I'll get the torches, you get the pitchforks and we'll show them what they need to think! ;)

This post is uses SARCASM(r) technology, in order to correctly view it, you must have a compatible SENSE OF HUMOR(r) installed and working.  Have a nice day.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Laukev7 on 22 March 2005, 19:38
Quote from: WMD
Laukev...are you using Tabbrowser Extensions?

I use a lot of extensions. I would provide a list, but I can't be arsed to type all them, there are too damn many.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: WMD on 22 March 2005, 20:43
Well, if you have that one, remove it.  It sucks.  A similar one called Tabbrowser Preferences exists.  The aformentioned is known to slow Firefox down terribly.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Aloone_Jonez on 22 March 2005, 22:43
Quote from: Orethrius
Read a little more into the site.  Can you say "publicity stunt"?  I'm not surprised BD would pull something like that, really.


All of the links take you to ta forum:http://www.browserdiscussions.com/index.php

The opinion on the forum it mostly anti-IE and pro-FireFox, so it's just a way to provoke people into joining a forum.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Calum on 22 March 2005, 23:22
not necessarily, the site might well be anti-firefox, but it might attract a huge number of pro-firefox posters
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Aloone_Jonez on 23 March 2005, 00:55
http://www.browserdiscussions.com/showthread.php?tid=77

Quote
The Staff at http://www.antifirefox.com have decided to change the direction of the site to improve discussion quality and site traffic. The old 'IE vs. FF' theme is going to be scrapped for an all inclusive 'Browser Discussion' theme. The ultimate goal of the change is to create browser awareness (not just for two specific browsers), and to provide a strong community able to help out each other or visitors with answers to any questions that may be asked.

We do not know how long until the changes are completed and apologize of any inconvenience the changes may cause.

Mr.Safety


They must've changed their mind!  :)
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Aloone_Jonez on 23 March 2005, 01:28
Someone in another forum (http://www.electronics-lab.com/forum/index.php?topic=2944.new#new) I post in has had problems with IE so I recommended FireFox.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: jtpenrod on 24 March 2005, 11:46
Mostly Firefox, with Moze a close second. I used to use Galeon a lot until Phoenix came out. I also had Opera for awhile (Mandrake 8.1) since, at that time, it seemed to do printing hard copy the best. Now, that's not a factor anymore, and so I don't have Opera anymore.

Although Dillo is also quite useful for implementing things like on-line dictionaries and program help.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Aloone_Jonez on 29 March 2005, 00:17
Quote from: MrX
Aloone_Jonez:

concerned about start times? then get your friken but using Opera 8 beta 2. its the fastest loading webbrowser out of all of any. even older opera versions. and its freaky fast.

Mr X


I haven't had any problems with the start speed and if it's a problem you can use a pre-fetch function (at the expense of some memory) to make it load faster. I have tried opera too and while it has some nice features and the zoom function is very good, I do find it a bit slow, and this goes for both rendering and start speed, but I haven't tried the beta I currently have 7.54u2.

The person in this other forum found FireFox slower than IE on his shitty 333MHz machine, but I've found it faster than IE on all of the hardware I've used it on.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Kintaro on 30 March 2005, 16:45
Firefox blows loads of speedy load all over IE on older boxes, I used to run a 200MMX for one purpose, to play Wolf3D, it had Win95. I installed IE 6.0 on it (which I hear is impossible, but it seemed to work okay for me), which was really really slow at loading, it took around 3-4 minutes, which is nearly as slow as Mr X's wit. Firefox loaded on it in just under a minute, which actually suprised me, I thought they would be about the same. However Installing IE 6 downloaded like 110mb of shit, firefox was less then 10mb I think, cant remember.

Firefox is pretty good on an older machine, once its running, problem is it does use a lot of ram, that I dislike about it, however its fine on my laptop. I would also wish that they would change there makefiles or the SRPM specfile (probably the later) so I can build it for athlon.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Aloone_Jonez on 3 April 2005, 22:56
Quote from: muzzy
Well, I have firefox too, but I tend to only use it on sites which absolutely won't work without javascript. It's kind of my "plan B" browser. My IE is configured to work without activex/activescripting, so 99% of IE security holes never apply to me. The rare ones that do, I patch. IE has worked perfectly for me, and for a while I thought it was misbehaving until I started debugging it and realized the glitches I was having were because of my own browser helper objects leaking. Oops! :D

I've found that in every way that matters to me, IE has been superior for a long time.


So hang on, you say "Internet Explorer it superior" yet you admit that you've disabled ActiveX and JavaScript under IE  for security reasons and yet you use FireFox for pages with JavaScript. :confused:

Quote from: muzzy
Only recently (like, late last year) the firefox has become actually usable. I'll still stick with IE, though, I see no reason to switch over. Oh, and I'd have to reimplement all my plugins for firefox, and I hear they need to be rewritten every now and then as different firefox versions have plugin compatibility issues. Yay.


FireFox was still beta back then it's a lot better now, this just proves how much further FireFox has come in a just over a year than Microsoft Internet Explorer has in over 10 years!

That's understandable but Internet Explorer 7 will probebly break your existing plugins anyway.


Quote from: muzzy
I also have various versions of netscape and opera installed, back from the times I did some webdesign. I only use them for testing purposes, though.


I can't see any reason to use netscape, opera has some good features (I like the zooming) but it's a bit slow.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: themacuser on 4 April 2005, 09:16
I use FireFox and Safai. Mainly Safari, firefox just isn't Mac-like yet.

I also use Links from Terminal (in case you can't figure it out, I do use Mac OS X), it's great because Microsoft People can't work out that I'm secretly browsing the web...
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: sjor on 5 April 2005, 20:13
Quote from: bedouin
but on Mac it's just not close enough to acting/feeling like a native OS X app for my taste.

u could get camino.

i mainly use firefox
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: muzzy on 6 April 2005, 20:02
Quote from: Aloone_Jonez
So hang on, you say "Internet Explorer it superior" yet you admit that you've disabled ActiveX and JavaScript under IE  for security reasons and yet you use FireFox for pages with JavaScript. :confused:


Yes. ActiveX and javascript and such are features I don't need, the plain IE without annoying features is my preferred browser. However, since IE isn't safe with javascript and activex turned on, I use firefox for untrusted sites that need them. For trusted sites (microsoft, banking, etc) I've turned scripting on. Firefox is pretty much just a backup solution. Typically, if a site doesn't work without javascript/flash it's not worth checking anyway. If I absolutely have to, I have the backup plan.

Quote from: Aloone_Jonez
FireFox was still beta back then it's a lot better now, this just proves how much further FireFox has come in a just over a year than Microsoft Internet Explorer has in over 10 years!


I assume you realize that your comparison isn't based on any factual evidence, or any hard numbers. You're just throwing stuff out of your hat, expecting people to be amazed. Anyway, mozilla's rendering engine has been getting pretty good lately, but how long did it take? Let's see what's going to happen as microsoft finally continues development of IE...

Quote from: Aloone_Jonez
That's understandable but Internet Explorer 7 will probebly break your existing plugins anyway.


Well well, we'll see. Most probably it will still keep the same interfaces around and support the same stuff, so everything will work fine.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Aloone_Jonez on 6 April 2005, 20:19
Thanks of the quick reply! :thumbup:
Edit: Just in case anyone thinks I am, I'm not being sarcastic, I sent muzzy a PM reminding him about this thread and re replied very quickly.  :)

Quote from: muzzy
I assume you realize that your comparison isn't based on any factual evidence, or any hard numbers. You're just throwing stuff out of your hat, expecting people to be amazed. Anyway, mozilla's rendering engine has been getting pretty good lately, but how long did it take? Let's see what's going to happen as microsoft finally continues development of IE...


Granted it was my opinion, not fact, but wouldn't it have been quicker just to say that?

Why do you think Internet Explorer is superior to FireFox?


Quote from: muzzy
Well well, we'll see. Most probably it will still keep the same interfaces around and support the same stuff, so everything will work fine.


Well if their past record on Microsoft office and Windows is anything to go by I can't see everything working that smoothly.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: TB on 6 April 2005, 21:17
I'm a 100% Firefox browser now. I made the switch to Mozilla over 2 years ago and there's been no looking back whatsoever. Tabbed browsing + awesome security options = Mozilla owning IE. It's as simple as that.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: JanusChrist on 6 April 2005, 21:50
Quote from: themacuser
I use FireFox and Safai. Mainly Safari, firefox just isn't Mac-like yet.
 


Ya know, you can get Themes for Firefox. Mozilla also has a browser built just for Mac called Camino.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: muzzy on 7 April 2005, 00:41
Quote from: Aloone_Jonez
Why do you think Internet Explorer is superior to FireFox?


So, you want to know what I value in a web browser? First, I could ask why would it not be superior? There are only few UI issues that make firefox better, and those can be worked around with plugins. Perhaps, as a programmer, I see IE differently than you do.

One big bonus is being native to the system, which means I can do things that are impossible with Firefox. For example, can you have Firefox in a toolbar? Well, you can have mshtml rendered page there. Go ahead, right click taskbar and go toolbars->new, and type "http://microsuck.com/forums" as the directory. While this specific feature isn't critically important, it's just one of the many things that result from the design. In windows world, objects are more useful than applications.

Also, I like the rendering engine better. While it's true that mozilla renders CSS better, having done some little webdesign it blows mind how ambiguous some of the explanations are. CSS isn't very well specified, and trying to implement it will lead to implementation differences between different browsers. Obviously, such differences will be blamed on microsoft for no real reason, just because MS interprets things differently from others.

For things that matter, IE6 functions great, and I see no reason to use an alternative browser except for situations where braindead webdesigners have designed that the site will require flash and javascript to function at all, and for some reason I'm forced to use the site.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Aloone_Jonez on 7 April 2005, 01:05
From what you've said you find the integration with the Windows desktop useful. This is one of the main things most people dislike about Internet Explorer. What do you think of  Konqueror's integration with the KDE desktop?

I prefer FireFox because of it's user interface.

Security - I can use web pages with Java without the worry of being connected to a premium rate number or get infected with spyware.

Speed - FireFox renders quicker than Internet Explorer.

Plugins enable me to add numerous extra features.

And it's still improving, FireFox gets better with ever release, Internet Explorer hasn't improved that much in many years.

As far as I'm concerned IE just lacks features, I use Opera every now and then for it's numerous features but for some reason I prefer FireFox.

Have you tried the latest versions of FireFox and Opera?
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: muzzy on 7 April 2005, 01:19
I assume firefox 1.0 is new enough, that's what I have currently. (yeah yeah, I should upgrade that, I know it has critical issues. hmph)

Anyway, I hate java applets. Java is mainly useful in the server side IMO, in form of servlets. Java on clientside is mostly useless, due to early versions being such crap and everyone having different versions. Also, I find the whole idea of applets horrifying, since they're mainly suitable for implementing single intelligent widgets, while people are using them as replacements for stupid widgets and full applications and whatnot. Nnngghhh. Painful.

Why would people dislike integration with the desktop? It's not like you have to use it. What comes to Konqueror and KDE, I don't have experience on that. I haven't used a KDE desktop in a long while and I've never had one on my own box. When I was running linux at work, I had fvwm2 desktop because that's all I needed. Anyway, you can't take the windows approach in *nix world without going for a lot of heavy technology. We'll see who laughs last, when windows is suddenly the performance king as linux kids try to implement COM/DCOM-like behaviour with ORBs, while still having to support zillion different RPC mechanisms since "linux is about choice" ;D
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: WMD on 7 April 2005, 01:52
Quote
Why would people dislike integration with the desktop?

Heh, reminds me of an old prank.  A web site would say "I have your hard drive.  Click to see it." with a link to "file://c:/".  Unsuspecting (aka, stupid) users would click this and not notice, and proceed to freak out.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: muzzy on 7 April 2005, 02:55
Quote from: WMD
Heh, reminds me of an old prank.  A web site would say "I have your hard drive.  Click to see it." with a link to "file://c:/".  Unsuspecting (aka, stupid) users would click this and not notice, and proceed to freak out.


IMO this is a security vulnerability. Such things shouldn't be accessible, even through links, from the webpages. Unrestricted scope is such a messy thing, and very few developers pay attention to reducing it properly. Other examples include FTP servers where you can trick the server to do SMB queries (and to send out NTLM hashes, for a more concrete take on the attack, yay). Filesystem isn't a security mechanism, no namespace should be trusted with full access unless it's designed to be a minimum-scope one.

Oh, I sooo have to work my way into some standards committee to take care of these issues ;)
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: JanusChrist on 7 April 2005, 20:46
Quote from: muzzy

Why would people dislike integration with the desktop? It's not like you have to use it.


Becuz not everyone wants Internet Explorer and Outlook Express and NetMeeting, etc.,etc. to BE ON THEIR COMPUTER!! For what possible reason whould I even need a web brower to run Windows XP Disk Defragmenter (it won't work if you cripple the IE registry)? It's not like Microsoft couldn't build Windows without IE and OE integrated, we all know it's more than possible and would make a better OS in my opinion.

The security holes alone make IE 6.0 a poor choice for a web browser. This might change to some degree with IE 7.0 but I doubt it.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: Refalm on 7 April 2005, 22:36
Quote from: muzzy
Why would people dislike integration with the desktop? It's not like you have to use it.

I dislike integration with the desktop because of choice. I tend to shake off everything I don't use.
If I someoen doens't use Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, Windows Messenger, Outlook Express and all that other vaporware, then why keep them on the harddisk?

For all you know, they could form a security risk just sitting there.
With Linux, you can install or uninstall anything you like.

I don't know about you, but some people just like freedom.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: muzzy on 8 April 2005, 03:41
If developers depend on some library, you can't remove it. It's simple as that, and not any different in linux. You're free to get rid of the stuff you don't like, as long as you accept that things that depended on them won't work anymore.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: JanusChrist on 8 April 2005, 05:11
Quote from: muzzy
You're free to get rid of the stuff you don't like, as long as you accept that things that depended on them won't work anymore.


Which in the case of trying to remove IE from Windows is too damn much. Please tell me why on god's green earth a web browser would be required for a disk defragmenter to work.
Title: Re: What's your main web browser?
Post by: muzzy on 8 April 2005, 10:40
Well, first of all, I don't have XP and thus cannot check how the defrag is implemented there, but there are various reasons why it might do that. First of all, MSHTML is also a development platform, not just html renderer. Writing UIs is tough job, but every monkey can do webpages. As of such, html is good for user interfaces.

Second, the defragmenter isn't written by Microsoft, it's by a third party who sells a better defragmenter (Diskeeper), and apparently sold a crappy version of the defragmenter to microsoft. Yay. So, it's not entirely microsoft's fault if the defrag stops working when you remove something which you expect wouldn't affect things. It's a design choice by Executive Software.