[kim_johnson]

With the release of the new version of Firefox I read some reviews off the net. Seems that there is such a thing as the 'browser wars' and endless debates...

At the moment I typically use Safari (default mac browser). When I had a PC I preferred Firefox over IE, however. I currently have Camino as backup... But read some wonderful things about Opera being a small program that is superquick to download, supersmall, and superfast (currently outperforming all of the other alternatives).

I thought my internet connection was bottlenecked with the internet speed rather than due to system resources. But, I swear Opera *IS* faster. Its the fastest browser I've ever seen. I'm impressed. Not as pretty as Safari or Firefox... The text rendering isn't as pretty as Safari (so I'd rather use that for reading online documents) and it is a little 'chunky' while it is loading. But perfect for message boards and the like when you are refreshing / navigating around and just want things to load fast. Superuseful.

Has tabbed browsing, a google search bar along the top, skins and widgets, and a wonderful feature called 'speed dial' where your bookmarks are stored visually.

http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/

[(JD)]

sounds good. I feel that firefox is miles better than IE, which is to begin with slow to load.

Not sure I'm up to trying another new one...just yet

[kim_johnson]

Yeah. I've never found a browser WORSE than IE :-)

[(JD)]

Wasn't it the first, and only at some point. Scientifically, that would tend to make you think it would be the best. I guess they forgot to read the data!

I used to use Safari too... but I switched to Firefox originally because I loved the addons and skins Been hooked since!

[kim_johnson]

Why would you think that because something is first it would be more likely to be the best a number of years down the track?

[(JD)]

Because it's had more time to find flaws, and needs, and make the changes and have time to make sure the fixes are the best way to handle an issue. I have assumed that there isn't a lot of sharing among the big guys, with what they've learned and how to counter problems.

Businesses are always touting, "been in business since 1949" or "longer than any other" because there is that sense that they've been around the block a few times more than the new guy.

[kim_johnson]

IE is standard with Windows Operating Systems and so piggybacks off the fact that Windows is the Operating System with the biggest market share. Windows also makes it jolly hard to remove IE off the Operating System and jolly hard to have another browser (e.g., Firefox) as your default.

So... Apathy is probably the attitude rather than willingness to dig out faults and issues and set them right.

I guess there has been a bit of a change since word has got around about Firefox and Opera and Netscape, and since Mac developed Safari for use on a PC as well (there have been improvements made to IE in response to that). But then since you can get these alternative programs for free it is unclear why you would expend a great deal of money and resources on improving on IE...

It is like... Improvements to Windows are mostly a response to alternatives (e.g., Leopard) and to people boycotting Windows (e.g., with Unix or Ubuntu). Most people don't realize that your operating system is one thing and your hardware quite another... And that your operating system is one thing and your internet browser quite another...

As for the 'oldest is best' idea, I'm not sure that it is generally true. There are specific occasions when we think experience matters. When we think that technical skill takes time to develop, I guess. Whether the IE development people have put that time to good use is quite another thing, however. It might be the case that when one has a monopoly on the market (as Windows had for a time) that there really isn't a drive to improve. Then the little guy sets up (Mac, for example) and really needs to work hard at having a 'better' product in order to be competative at all. Then when the former monopoly realizes that they are losing their market share there is a drive to improving their product. But... Not until then.

Vista (for example) is meant to boast 'features that mac users have had for ages'. Vista is buggy... But then so is Leopard in some respects. Apparently IE has improved a great deal since the start of the 'browser wars'. But still, they retain enough of the market share to be fairly complacent methinks (by way of biggybacking on Windows for the most part).

Sometimes things are discovered one place and (arguably) perfected another... That might be the case with this...

[Zorah]

GO LINUX !!!!

go copyleft not copyright, lololol (not political, really, truly, lol)

oops, baaad Zorah

[(JD)]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
Sometimes things are discovered one place and (arguably) perfected another... That might be the case with this...

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

Yes indeed! And the consumer usually fairs well because of this...

[silver_queen]

I definitely prefer Firefox. However I do have quite a few browsers installed on my computer, such as Internet Explorer, Opera, netscape navigator and Safari, because sometimes my firewall blocks them for no reason and I looked for other browsers until I worked out what the problem was, and sometimes they randomly don't work anyway. At the moment my Firefox keeps crashing, my Internet Explorer 7 is freezing on starting up more than usual, and Netscape Navigator doesn't always launch either. Good thing I've got Opera and Safari left, lol.

[kim_johnson]

What do you think of Opera? It has a few differnet skins... I used to prefer Firefox, but decided to give Safari a go since it came with my new computer... I think I'm fairly used to it now and I quite like the look of it etc. There is just one problem I have with it - there is a HTML based chat that I go to sometimes and the page is supposed to refresh every couple seconds. For some reason Safari won't refresh the page automatically. So I have to use another browser when I do that.

I'm really quite astounded at how much faster Opera is at loading pages, though. I thought that it was just that the wireless connection that I use is really slow and that there was nothing I could do to speed things up. I'm just amazed at how fast Opera is... I think it is a nice idea to have a couple backup browsers, though. Sometimes weird things happen with me, too. For example, when I open my browser it should divert automatically to a wireless login page. Sometimes it just seems to get kinda stuck and won't do the automatic divert. Open up another browser and... No problem...

[sunrise]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
_Sky said:
Wasn't it the first, and only at some point.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">No, IE was not the first. Netscape was the first (earliest versions were called Mosaic). Mosaic was developed by the NCSA (National Center on Supercomputing Applications) and was freely available to the general public. There were both Mac and PC versions. The folks at Microsoft did not realize the Internet was going to be so big. Netscape/Mosaic was all alone for a while, then MS developed IE. It took a long time to catch on and garner market share. It has been successful only because it is bundled with the the Windows OS, not because it was ever very good.

[kim_johnson]

Thanks for that Sunrise, I didn't know that either. What is netscape like? I haven't tried it (or really heard of it either). What is your favourite browser?