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 Originally Posted By: Tubby Beaver
Any tech heads have an opinion on which one is better to use?


you dont have to be a tech head to quickly learn that almost anything is better than IE.
IE has to one of Microsofts worst programs.

I use Opera which is fastest loading the most secure and comes with great features like ad blocking built in.
Firefox is also great because it has so many really useful extensions that other users have made, though you have to be careful not to add too many and bloat the whole thing.

To start it may seem daunting and a little strange to change browsers, but have a play around with the menus and settings and you will soon get used to it and wonder how you ever used IE in the first place.
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Firefox is great.

 

I wouldnt use Opera because it has less than 1% market share and many websites are not designed for it so they may display incorrectly.

 

Most web developers despise IE because it is not standard compliant, meaning they have to hack their designs to get them work on IE. But it has over 90% market share (at least for my company sites) so you have to design for it.

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 Originally Posted By: bobby12
Firefox is great.

I wouldnt use Opera because it has less than 1% market share and many websites are not designed for it so they may display incorrectly.


many? odd comment I have been using Opera for years and very very rarely do I get a site that wont work, its usually one thtas seems to work exclusively on IE.
Opera is the most secure and the fastest.
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My point is that if you use Opera the site will still function, but the display may look different to how the designer intended sometimes. You would never know unless you regularly visit the site with different browsers. Its less of a problem with big sites that design/test properly. Thats not Operas fault of course and it is a great browser.

 

Actually Firefox has (had?) a similar problem where forms and javascript break on some sites. I noticed this a lot after FF2 came out, but recently it has been OK so maybe they patched it somehow. I came close to dropping FF for a while cos just too often my form uploads were failing etc. The only site I notice a problem on now is the XBOX360 site, they force you to use IE to look at the image gallery!

 

robbright - you mean Opera has a kind of agent switcher so you can make opera run IE or firefox engine?

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yep thats right. I think Opera is really bleeding edge, and that is actually why I dont use it! I just wait for the best stuff to be taken up by FF.

 

They must be quite pxxed off about it though, they have the best browser, the best ideas, with the lowest market share \:\)

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Why not use all of them? You can run them all on your computer - try them and see what you like best.

 

IE is a disaster as far a as a browser goes because it requires non-standard code and is the least secure - but sites have to be designed to work with IE simply because its everywhere.

 

You need to practice safe browsing (check your security settings etc) with all of them and run the regular battery of anti-virus and anti-malware software - particularly if you use IE.

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Probably stating the obvious now to most on here, but people who make viruses generally do it to create zombie PCs they can use to attack websites etc (they blackmail big sites to pay them not to take them down etc).

 

To maximise their chances they go for the most popular OS/Software which means MS/IE. I wouldnt say its because MS/IE is not secure per se, more that it is targetted more. Anyway, its a good reason to use a proper browser.

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 Originally Posted By: me jane
Firefox underlines your mistakes in red in this reply box so no excuses for typos! ...


And you can chose several languages and regions. So no matter whether you prefer color or colour.

I love their mouse-over Chinese>English character dictionary too (ChinesePera-Kun), has a version for Japanese too... : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3343

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 Originally Posted By: oo
What I meant was they are JUST browsers, useful to me because they show the webpage, ie. I don't care.

\:\)


Funny, that! They are NOT equal, in most respects, FF gives a better, more true to the WWW3 definition, rendition of complying pages than IE.

Main problem arises when a developer has used the "Front Page extensions" which is MS way of getting the page to do stuff that is not in the standard. FF then has a problem displaying the page because it does not render stuff that ain't in the standard. Bugger!

Answer, as with most things in the FF domain, is to have a look at a plugin, called ietab, which allows you to shell to a rendition in IE from within FF. That means that you can look at the vast majority if IE specific sites that would normally not render accurately in FF without having to start IE as a separate application, it is run within FF. Clever, that!

So, short answer is - get FF, use it ass the default, it will do better with less bloat (although the latest version is bigger than previously) and then get ietab which gives you the option of viewing those non-standard sites that use the extensions.

You do not have to be a tech head to appreciate a program that does most everything better than the opposition.
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 Originally Posted By: me jane
Firefox underlines your mistakes in red in this reply box so no excuses for typos! I can only use IE with my uni library portal though so I usually have both running.


Jane, I find that I spell better than any computer programme. And, I use standard English, not that bastardised version that the Yanks have foisted on the world (note 'bastardised' no 'z' in there!).

BTW, I am typing this in FF and have never had a red underline in the reply box. I turn spell-check off in every programme I install, Word, Excel, and all!
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 Originally Posted By: JA
 Originally Posted By: me jane
Firefox underlines your mistakes in red in this reply box so no excuses for typos! I can only use IE with my uni library portal though so I usually have both running.


Jane, I find that I spell better than any computer programme. And, I use standard English, not that bastardised version that the Yanks have foisted on the world (note 'bastardised' no 'z' in there!).

BTW, I am typing this in FF and have never had a red underline in the reply box. I turn spell-check off in every programme I install, Word, Excel, and all!


I can spell but I can't type ;\)
Why do you turn the spell check off? I always turn off the auto-correct features but a bit of red underlining doesn't hurt!
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Jane,

Spell checks only do what they can, they cannot, four example tell the difference between too, two or to. All of which will be shown as correctly spelled.

 

I have a great poem for spell check addicts. It shows the folly of relying on them. Will try too dig it out.

 

(BTW the errors in this are deliberate, and would not be noticed by a spellchecker.)

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