Which browser and why?

IE9 is almost completely standards compliant even with css3...of course it screws up more than just about any other browsers at this point. If you have to use IE, Use 9. And yes it is still less secure than other browsers.

Chrome tends to piss me off more often than not...it was not standards compliant at first and being new no one was sure why yet. It's much better now but I"ve found it be really buggy. It's syncing problems keep me from using it as a primary as well as the lack of debugging tools.

I really love Firefox 4 but it did take me awhile to get used to it. I wouldn't use Firefox on a Mac except for testing...however Safari is blocked by some sites (such as constant contact, may not be anymore though...it's been a year since I last checked) so YMMV. Looking forward to the new webkit.

At this point Opera is the farthest behind in standards. I've never been a fan but I don't specificaly support Opera unless a client asks for it. It almost never comes up.

I prefer Chrome. It's fast and easy to use.

Oh, my gosh, you guys, I am writing up this reply from IE9!! and this is not the only community in which I've read that IE is the worst of all browsers!! That's why I have Firefox and Chrome. I used to have Safari and Opera, but I think two extra browsers are more than enough, instead of 4.

I am writing this up from IE, but I think Chrome is the best. It's just I've been using IE since I first got access to the internet in 1999 and that is a bad habit that's hard to break. Oh, well...

Get several and play with all of them. They all have certain "talents" of their own.

Started using Firefox years ago (maybe it wasn't called that, then), just because it wasn't Microsoft, and still use it.

Only trouble I've had was in getting Adobe Digital Editions. I had to install IE to do that. Infuriating.

I'm a big fan of Chrome. Lightweight, easy to use and does everything I need it too. I find IE too clunky and got tired of sites not working properly on it. Got Chrome right away and have been happy enough with it that I haven't done any more searching.

I also recommend avoiding IE. I quite using it a year or so ago and have been using Firefox. Love it.

Firefox or Chrome.

I like Safari--a lot--for Mac OS X, but the Windows version is not well done.

IE is an invitation to disaster. Avoid it.

Personally, I'm mostly running Chrome, and keeping other browsers around for checking Web sites I work on.

That said, the Reader feature in Safari is sweet--but there are alternatives.

The biggest threat to security in IE is the SAME as with every other browser: installation of code that is not necessary and that goes double for exe files. I know a lot of people who will download and install executables when using IE, as if their brains just went out the window, despite IE warning them at least once, and Windows Vista/7 warning them again. AND, the same people despite being advised to use Firefox, will use IE reflexively, and even search it out, defeating the hard work of making every possible association with the web with Firefox. So, it largely comes down to idiocy on the part of the human user.

With the appropriate ad, flash, and javascript blocker add-ons, and a user who doesn't just install every damn Active X control under the sun, IE is pretty secure. But, the aforementioned idiots can take the tightest set-up VMWare virtual Windows instance, even with Firefox, and get it so infected that the infections find their way out of the sandbox onto the real world machine and LAN.

There's no replacement for simple common sense, which is now so uncommon, Deadpool has it as a super power.

alleycat said:

I have both IE and Firefox on my computer. I use Firefox (3.6.17) almost exclusively. There are a few occasions where I need IE.

Click to expand...

+1

Firefox 3.6.17 is my primary browser, even though it's not lightning-fast (my ISP's DNS server isn't exactly that either, so it hardly matters) and can leak substantial amounts of memory if I don't remember to restart it every few days. For me, the high level of configurability and customizability (including the ability to have different configurations for normal browsing and for testing webpages available simultaneously) trumps the problems.

I also have Firefox 2.0.19, Chromium, a couple of versions of IE (running under WINE, which means they're not really stable enough to use for anything more than page testing--I use Linux as my primary OS), and some minor/obscure/obsolete browsers. Chrome/Chromium seems like a nice enough browser, but it isn't suited to my needs or personality; the others aren't modern and/or stable enough to use for general browsing.

I'm probably going to upgrade the Firefox 2 to 5 at some point over the next few days, if only to see if it's as bad as most people seem to think it is--if it has no serious warts other than the plugin containers problem, it might actually be okay.

Firefox 5 is fine...only had one plugin not be updated for it yet. They changed the interface in 4 so a lot of folks don't like that.