Best Browser?

[Kiazak]

So there has been polls on the net and all saying different things, so I thought I'd come here and ask!

In your opinion, which is the best browser for surfing the net?
Many of my mates say Google Chrome but it annoys me when it says it cannot find the URL and in most cases that is actually to Google.co.uk (irony?)

 

[Meds]

Here at work I currently use IE8 on one monitor and Google Chrome on the other, I will upgrade to IE9 when I can be bothered/remember to! At home I have just the one monitor so Chrome wins

 

[Kiazak]

Firefox completely out of the running then? Most polls have that at the #1 which is why I ask.

What do you like about Chorme that sets it better then the others

 

[Meds]

I have never used FireFox so can't really comment!

I've used Chrome for years now and when it first appeared it was a lot easier to use, cleaner interface and faster than IE was. IE has improved a lot though and there isn't much difference between them now, but as I've used Chrome for the past few years I have no reason to change.

 

[Kiazak]

Fair enough. I do like Firefox for the addons like Ad Blocker and such, can you get them for Chrome?

 

[vanthus]

I think the best browser is the one that meets your needs,I prefer firefox,she who must be obeyed uses internet explorer.

 

[Kiazak]

I like the themes aswell, adds a very personal touch to your browser, and Ad Blocker for things like YouTube and 4oD is brilliant, skips right to the vid!!

 

[Rakk]

I use Chrome at home, though I do miss the pop-up/ad blockers from Firefox.
Use Firefox at work, cos it can rather nicely ignore the work proxy so I can therefore look at various gaming sites that our proxy normally blocks

 

[Kiazak]

+rep for that Rakk!! lol, I use Chrome at work because I use the incognito mode so I can surf all types of sites and the history is deleted along with passwords and user names. It helps that my boss is so computer illiterate.

I set his background to the blue screen of death yesterday and this morning when he turned his computer on he started screaming at it promising me he didnt do anything and that he's sorry... haha, fun times!

 

[Rakk]

+rep for that Rakk!! lol, I use Chrome at work because I use the incognito mode so I can surf all types of sites and the history is deleted along with passwords and user names. It helps that my boss is so computer illiterate.

Well, I don't go looking at anything really dodgy, for a start if any of our department really want to look at anything dodgy we just go and ask our sys admin (yes, on numerous occassions, people are huddled round his desk), since he completely bypasses the proxy anyways, and he's normally the one who would happily go to those sites!

I set his background to the blue screen of death yesterday and this morning when he turned his computer on he started screaming at it promising me he didnt do anything and that he's sorry... haha, fun times!

Now that's just mean ...... but funny

 

[DeadEyeDuk]

BSODing someone's background is so old school it never goes out of fashion!

I use Firefox at home (never tried Chrome etc). IE at work, because our reservations and check-in system is designed to work with the lowest common denomiator, namely IE

From what I have seen, IE9 is much improved and taken a lot on board from the chasing pack, which just proves that Microsoft can improve things IF someone comes along and does something better. (Maybe Blizzard will have that competition some day too!)

DED

 

[Kaitel]

Firefox floats my internet boat, decent performance if not the best, but so many addons and themes plus always being improved by the community. Havent tried Firefox 4 yet, still waiting for the Nasa Night Launch theme to be updated to it but will be. IE 9 is meant to be fast if speed is your only concern for 32bit, BUT IE9 for 64 bit has been shown to be rubbish compared to everything else as apparently "IE 9 64-bit is using an older, slower JavaScript engine, while IE 9 32-bit was using the newer, more efficient Chakra JIT"
Here's a link to some benchmarks but they dont tell the whole story of usefulness and looks. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/ie9-vs-chrome-10-vs-firefox-4-rc-vs-opera-1101-vs-safari-5-the-big-browser-benchmark/11890

 

[Koukalaka]

I use Chrome, I like the interface, I have no care for adblock or whatever because I like to support streaming services since I am getting the content for free anyway, viewing a small advert isn't small to ask. I used FF before, and I just never really liked it, it felt boxy and even though it is technically the fastest browser I don't care too much for the small performance boost and would rather have a browser that I find pretty .

 

[Kaitel]

Actually from the above benchmarks Chrome is fastest, not that a few milliseconds here and there makes much difference, I guess its which ever browser you like the look of and meets your needs, it's good that we're spoiled for choice and the competition keeps them all on their toes.

 

[pengipete]

I don't know about "best" - that's a very broad and subjective term - but I use Firefox with Internet Explorer just being used for a few odd sites that won't work with anything else. I started using Firefox for speed and security and am so used to it now that I can't be bothered getting to grips with anything else. I use a few add-ons - AdBlocker, IETab and TabMixPlus (my favourite add-on). If such add-ons were easily and freely available for IE then I might consider trying it but as it stands, it doesn't suit me at all..

Incidentally, the reason FF was - or appeared to be - so much faster than IE was that FF loads the text first then continues to load graphics in the background - IE did it the other way around so you often had to wait ages for all images to load before being able to read the page. If you measured the time taken to fully load any given page, there's no difference between them.

I tried Chrome but it didn't offer anything I hadn't already got in Firefox plus I'm wary of giving Google any more access to my personal data and browsing history that absolutely necessary.

Firefox 4 is interesting - extremely fast at loading pages but it's had a pretty radical overhaul of the interface which will take some getting used to. I suspect there'll be a lot of people tweaking it to look more like FF3 - at least for a while. IE9 is as annoying as IE8 - constantly popping up messages asking if you want to enable or disable feature or change settings - it's as bad as Vista's UAC. It probably gets better if you use it a lot but after ten minutes of constant interruptions to my browing I'd had enough and went back to Firefox.

 

[DeadEyeDuk]

I love TabMixPlus Pete! The IT Manager at work put me on to it and its great, really makes a stupidly small, but still rather important difference.

As you say, if other browsers did things like this as well, might look elsewhere, but when you get used to something, its easier NOT to change

 

[Pete]

In work i use IE9 and Firefox. I use Sharepoint and also develop website for IE (basically if it works in IE it will work in every other browser) rather than develop for say firefox then apply IE hacks.
and at home IE9 as well

does anybody else miss the history dropdown button in Firefox 4 ? used to be next to the back button (think it was also in IE8)

 

[DeadEyeDuk]

My history is always set to "Store 0 days", so never noticed the button ><

 

[pengipete]

does anybody else miss the history dropdown button in Firefox 4 ? used to be next to the back button (think it was also in IE8)

Either add a history button (right-click on toolbars, select "Customise" then drag the "History" icon onto the toolobar - wherever you want it to appear) or - easier way - just right click on the Forward/Back buttons and you get the pop-up list. That method also works in earlier versions of Firefox - which is probably why they've removed the button - it was somewhat redundant.

 

[Randomthom]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/internet-explorer-9-chrome-10-opera-11,2897.html

The conclusion & tests from this article would suggest that IE9 is probably the best browser although this includes a pre-4.0 firefox so things might have shifted a little.

I have chrome, IE9 & firefox installed, trying to make my mind up at the moment. IE9 is very impressive, chrome is a very good tidy browser, Firefox is more customisable. We owe a lot to Opera for all of it's innovations, many of the elements we see as standard in a browser came in Opera 1st, it's a shame it can't keep up performance-wise. Safari is... for those who bought a mac and don't know any better!