Poll: Internet Explorer 6 vs. 7 Beta-1 vs. Opera vs. FireFox

[HiAmplidude 10+ year member]

Curious what you like/dislike about any/all of the above. Vote for your favorite.

My personal highlights

IE 6

Pros

Compatable with everything out there including some stuff that the non Microsoft products lack. UPS.com login, MS Outlook Web Access full functionality, balloon content, etc.

Cons

Most popular, therefore most hacked and tricked, requires registry hack to open up capability of downloading more than 2 sessions at a time.

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IE 7 Beta (same as above but:

Pros

Adds nifty tabbed windows and very enhanced anti-spyware/malware/phishing

Cons

Refresh button location sucks, quite slow due to checking every page for security, slow to close when more than one tabbed page is open (reasons unknown), doesn't work with browser version-checked sites like UPS.com login, doesn't save previously open tabbed windows when closed.

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Opera 8.51 (latest)

Pros

Excellent use of tabbed windows, pretty fast opening pages, very fast closing, saves previously viewed tabbed windows for next session when closed. Excellent pop-up blocker, good password manager.

Cons

Doesn't work with all content out there (mentioned in pros for IE), garbled text and image "x" visible while downloading content of a page.

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Firefox

Pros

Fast, tons of tweaks available, tons of add-ons available (like hide-your-IP, etc.)

Cons

Doesn't work with all content out there (mentioned in pros for IE), garbled text and image "x" visible while downloading content of a page.

Click to read more...

 

[btnhfan 5,000+ posts]

Mozilla

 

[Gauntlet 5,000+ posts]

None of the above, I use Maxthon.

 

[93 saturn sl2 10+ year member]

Firefox all the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[danteBirosel 5,000+ posts]

Operaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[HiAmplidude 10+ year member]

I'm using Opera at the moment, for my alternative browser, but I have to keep IE around for some critical functionality for work and other business/functionality. FireFox is good too but was a little too "clunky" for my liking, when I used it last.

 

[Ayrton 10+ year member]

I love Firefox, but it has it's isues....

 

[wilzyx 5,000+ posts]

ya i use firefox, but whenever i go to myspace and someone has a video playing or something it freezes for like 10 seconds, but i love the tabbed browsing and stuff

 

[Raven 10+ year member]

I use Opera, I can use it on any OS I like, and it's a bit cleaner all around than Firefox. IE is, naturally, out of the question.

The new IE isn't exactly a step in any good direction. The long and short of it is they just gave it a new shell. "Browsers" like Neoplanet and Maxthon (which are not real browsers, just new faces for IE) are what we call IE shells, they've done the same thing for years. The shoddy performance with tabbed browsing is because it loads a new instance of IE for every tab you have up.

ya i use firefox, but whenever i go to myspace and someone has a video playing or something it freezes for like 10 seconds, but i love the tabbed browsing and stuff

That's a bug with the Java Runtime Environment, IIRC. Try downloading a new/different version at http://www.java.com. Opera doesn't have that problem, btw. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/naughty.gif.94359f346c0f1259df8038d60b41863e.gif

 

[Gauntlet 5,000+ posts]

The new IE isn't exactly a step in any good direction. The long and short of it is they just gave it a new shell. "Browsers" like Neoplanet and Maxthon (which are not real browsers, just new faces for IE) are what we call IE shells, they've done the same thing for years. The shoddy performance with tabbed browsing is because it loads a new instance of IE for every tab you have up.

I never understand why people call Maxthon "fake" just because it's based on the IE engine. It does everything I want, uses very little memory even with 15 or 20 tabs open, tabbed browsing is a breeze, you never have to copy and paste links, no pop-ups, I haven't had any problems with spyware or anything for the 2+ years I've been using it, no need for any thid party programs or extensions, incredibly customizable, no problems visiting any websites, etc. etc. The only time I'll use a different browser is when I want to edit CSS sheets, then I use Firefox. Other than that, Maxthon is a perfect everyday browser for me.

But if it's not a real browser, does that mean I'm not really browsing the internet? Al Gore needs to investigate this.

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

I use, and enjoy for the most part, Firefox.

Problems I have are some pages load slow, some sites flat out don't work (Kicker's website, for example), some formats are a little screwy (like SS's Rl-p T/S params), little stuff like that....

But I'm not a huge internet/computer junky......it works better than IE for me, and that's all I want/need.

 

[bigwheel15 10+ year member]

I lean more towards firefox, however opera is pretty nice as well.

 

[Subz 10+ year member]

Firefox all the way, and will never go back to IE (unless I want to use Yahoo mail with edit features or need to view certian sites. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crazy.gif.c13912c32de98515d3142759a824dae7.gif )

 

[Raven 10+ year member]

I never understand why people call Maxthon "fake" just because it's based on the IE engine. It does everything I want, uses very little memory even with 15 or 20 tabs open, tabbed browsing is a breeze, you never have to copy and paste links, no pop-ups, I haven't had any problems with spyware or anything for the 2+ years I've been using it, no need for any thid party programs or extensions, incredibly customizable, no problems visiting any websites, etc. etc. The only time I'll use a different browser is when I want to edit CSS sheets, then I use Firefox. Other than that, Maxthon is a perfect everyday browser for me.
But if it's not a real browser, does that mean I'm not really browsing the internet? Al Gore needs to investigate this.

IE is a real browser. Maxthon is a program that uses IE and add functionality. Maxthon is to IE what a turbocharger is to an engine. Is it a real browser? No. Does it enhance a real browser? Yes. Can you really browse the internet with it? Yes.

Oh, and you might want to check the memory usage again. While Maxthon may not use a lot of memory itself, IE will take 17 megs for every instance. My copy of Opera will use a grand total of 4 megs, and Firefox uses about 8, last I knew. In fact, at one time I tried out Neoplanet, and both it and IE were using more memory than Half Life 2 did. Being MS Windows it's not like you need to worry about wasting RAM, but that's kind of ridiculous. Got a screenshot of your processes dialog box?

 

[AllStar1500bd 5,000+ posts]

Firefox all the way for me. I just dislike how most sites with embedded videos (ex big-boys, ebaumsworld, etc...) don't work. Also, flash pages have problems, and when I'm in my dorm room on the LAN using firefox, i find firefox intermetitantly stopping and I'll have to close the browser and restart firefox. Doesn't happen when I'm at home though. I thought the newest build of firefox would clear up the embedded video mess, but it hasn't.