Why is Firefox regarded as superior to Internet Explorer? Help me out.

[Jump_Ace]

As a system admin, I prefer to have our users use Firefox or Chrome as much as they can. IE can be exploited via ActiveX, which is one reason why Office 2010 no longer has the Web Page option in Access (which was cool). Personally though, Firefox starts faster and like someone said earlier M$ forces you to have it on your computer, so I, in turn never use it. Since Windows Updates are done via the Control Panel, there should be a browserless windows install option. You know, like Windows 95A


Jerome

 

[terminator363]

Firefox is so customizable and it can suit whatever your needs are, I mean make it personalized, IE sucks by the way.

 

[homeforsummer]

Off-topic, but I've been liking Google Chrome quite a bit. It's fast.

This.

Can't stand either IE or Firefox now. I started browsing with IE years ago, then moved to Firefox maybe three or four years back, but since I've had my netbook I've been using chrome.

Entirely unscientifically, Chrome starts up in maybe a few seconds. Firefox takes nearly 20 seconds sometimes. I'm not an impatient person by nature but any more than 5 seconds to open a web browser even on a fairly low-spec computer is a joke.

I also like Chrome's splash page with various windows to your regularly visited sites, and the lack of on-screen clutter.

 

[turboash78]

Chrome FTW!
I use Chrome at work and Firefox at home (why, I do not know).

 

[Moot]

This.

Can't stand either IE or Firefox now. I started browsing with IE years ago, then moved to Firefox maybe three or four years back, but since I've had my netbook I've been using chrome.

Entirely unscientifically, Chrome starts up in maybe a few seconds. Firefox takes nearly 20 seconds sometimes. I'm not an impatient person by nature but any more than 5 seconds to open a web browser even on a fairly low-spec computer is a joke.

I also like Chrome's splash page with various windows to your regularly visited sites, and the lack of on-screen clutter.

I have a single core 1.6ghz netbook and firefox usually doesnt take more than 5 seconds to load, depends on homepage possibly. And also if you have any Add-ons installed. But sometimes it can take longer.
Edit: Actually I tell a lie it's about 10 seconds. But I suppose it has to load up more functions.
Can chrome install adblock and flashblock and spell-check and flash downloaders etc?

 

[Grayfox]

nLite and Vlite could get rid of IE pre install.

In Windows 7 you have the option to turn IE off as a feature.

Microsoft should make a Windows 7 I version with a browser than can be fully uninstalled, like the eruope users get windows 7 N.

 

[Casio]

Echoing the thoughts of some that IE now really is a lot better than what it was. Given the choice I'd use IE9 over FF5 which has turned into a bloated mess. IE is also much better to manage in an Enterprise environment, as you can control it with GP.

Also if anyone wonders why IE still continues to have a huge market share, see to the news from last week where Mozilla announced it wasn't supporting FF4 anymore.

I'm a Chrome user. But I think there isn't enough Opera love here. I think in it's current iteration (11) it's better than FF and IE. Pretty snappy, and great memory management on older machines.

 

[bergauk]

I have a single core 1.6ghz netbook and firefox usually doesnt take more than 5 seconds to load, depends on homepage possibly. And also if you have any Add-ons installed. But sometimes it can take longer.
Edit: Actually I tell a lie it's about 10 seconds. But I suppose it has to load up more functions.
Can chrome install adblock and flashblock and spell-check and flash downloaders etc?

Chrome has almost every single extension you could think of.

 

[Omnis]

Yeah, I mean, the only reason I used Firefox was NoScript. Then they came out with NotScripts for Chrome.

 

[gtavcfan]

I myself use all three (IE, FF, and Chrome) and they all do the thing I want: surf the internet, post on forums/facebook. Find videos, pictures. and find important information (example local news) I don't use any of the fancy apps or stuff like that [except for one], do not capture my attention and are too annoying to use.

I use Chrome for the private browsing

I use FireFox for forums and facebook. For some reason videos are OK but I cannot download them with FreeCorder. It is not supported.

I use IE for YouTube downloads and other videos too. The only plug-in I use (freecorder) works only on IE. I only download the videos to watch when I'm not online no other reason.

 

[Moot]

I have installed chrome at several stages and then deleted it again within minutes because it fundamentally can't do certain things as a browser. But I forget what it is now. Something simple that I take for granted with Firefox. Maybe there was not a simple option for installing and browsing the add-ons which I have in Firefox when I tried it, or something in the way it looks and works.

 

[homeforsummer]

Can chrome install adblock and flashblock and spell-check and flash downloaders etc?

Possibly, but I'm not sure. I do know that it comes with its own spell-check, unless all those wiggly red lines under words are for something else!

Never has problems downloading Flash or Java either, though I usually end up de-installing Java until I need it because without fail it always grinds every computer I've ever had to a halt.

 

[Moglet]

Am I the only person using Opera then?

 

[LaBounti]

Firefox killed my lap top 3 times, freezes, blue screen then won't boot after using it. I will never install in on this laptop again. Had no choice but to go to Chrome. My laptop has been working fine since I re installed Vista the last time. This started shortly after the last update to FF. I miss it but won't take that risk again....

 

[bass264]

Firefox killed my lap top 3 times, freezes, blue screen then won't boot after using it. I will never install in on this laptop again. Had no choice but to go to Chrome. My laptop has been working fine since I re installed Vista the last time. This started shortly after the last update to FF. I miss it but won't take that risk again....

Don't run Windows Vista, it's the most unstable OS. Upgrade to Windows 7.

 

[nick09]

Don't run Windows Vista, it's the most unstable OS. Upgrade to Windows 7.

Windows ME would be the most unreliable actually. Vista is just in second place compared to ME.

 

[Grayfox]

Windows ME would be the most unreliable actually. Vista is just in second place compared to ME.

Windows ME sucked cause microsoft dropped support for it as they went "we don't care about DOS no more".

Windows ME was the first O/S i had when i made my own PC as it was from a older PC and i had to save for XP.

ME had minor issues but none that bad, and ME brought things like System restore, movie maker.

XP is in my view crap as if you run into one little error when copying data the copy stops.

And people need to stop vista bashing, did you know XP was crap at the start like vista was?
Vista has been improved by the service packs for it.

 

[Casio]

Windows ME sucked cause microsoft dropped support for it as they went "we don't care about DOS no more".

Windows ME was the first O/S i had when i made my own PC as it was from a older PC and i had to save for XP.

ME had minor issues but none that bad, and ME brought things like System restore, movie maker.

XP is in my view crap as if you run into one little error when copying data the copy stops.

And people need to stop vista bashing, did you know XP was crap at the start like vista was?
Vista has been improved by the service packs for it.

+1.

I also had an ME machine and I never had any problems with it. It just has a bad stigma like Windows Vista. If I remember correctly, the much loved Windows 98 also had a lot of problems until the 2nd edition release.

I ran an Athlon64 3500+ machine with 512MB of Memory, on Windows Vista perfectly for years. I honestly don't know what people did to make their Vista machines go so slow. I think most of the issues people had with Vista was due to them not meeting the system requirements of aero, or not adapting to the new interface.

 

[Crispy]

Just made the switch to Firefox from IE8 today and I must say, it is really fast. I like it a lot better than IE, and I would recommend you check it out if you haven't already.

 

[bergauk]

+1.

I also had an ME machine and I never had any problems with it. It just has a bad stigma like Windows Vista. If I remember correctly, the much loved Windows 98 also had a lot of problems until the 2nd edition release.

I ran an Athlon64 3500+ machine with 512MB of Memory, on Windows Vista perfectly for years. I honestly don't know what people did to make their Vista machines go so slow. I think most of the issues people had with Vista was due to them not meeting the system requirements of aero, or not adapting to the new interface.

Vista gets a bad rap via the severely underpowered mainstream computers that manufacturers built to run Vista. 512MB is bare minimum for it.. really. There's a laptop in my workplace that we're trying repair back to normal for a customer, it is absolutely awful in terms of performance. I had to, and I mean HAD TO, put an additional 512MB's of ram in it to work on it.

It is just that bad.

However, my laptop with about.. 3GB of ram? Runs smooth as can be, and is a prime example of how Vista should behave under ideal circumstances. Vista itself is a nice OS, a bit annoying at times because of certain features. [I'm looking at you UAC] But for the most part, its stigma comes from manufacturers putting out bad machines incapable of running it correctly.

 

[niky]

The problem with ME was that Microsoft dropped support before fixing it. 98 was fixed. A lot of our older machines run on 98 because the last build is more stable than the garbage that ME is.

Vista was a terrible program. Windows 7 is great, in comparison, even on my slow-as-hell netbook.

I use Firefox because it's great. It's a memory hog, no doubt, and I can't run it alongside certain work programs (photo and vector publishing) without causing massive slowdown on my cheap netbook, but it's svelte, easy-to-use, and extremely customizable, even compared to recent IE builds. Chrome... well... it's great, but I guess it's an acquired taste. After using Firefox for a while, it kind of gets hard to use anything else. Opera is similar and similarly good, but the first- and third-party support for Firefox is exceptional.

 

[chug-a-bug]

Am I the only person using Opera then?

Nope. I prefer it to FF (and I prefer absolutely anything to IE).

 

[spunwicked]

I'm a web developer and I use Firefox as my primary browser for testing work, then Internet Explorer (because of its inherent flaws which render code incorrectly).

However, when I'm surfing for fun, I use Google Chrome as it's lightening fast and pretty slick too.

 

[HELLAFLUSH240SX]

I have all browsers on my computer





deal with it.


But I do prefer Opera, I started with IE,went to Opera, went to FF, then to Chrome, then I was like back to Opera

 

[Akira GT]

I use Chrome mainly due to its insanely fast start up speed and browsing speed!

(I use Firefox sometimes too though..)

 

[Borna12345]

To wfoshee: Wrong. Opera had tabbed browsing first (and it's still the fastest) while Firefox and IE were busy fighting with useless stuff.

 

[Casio]

To wfoshee: Wrong. Opera had tabbed browsing first (and it's still the fastest) while Firefox and IE were busy fighting with useless stuff.

Wrong.

InternetWorks used tabs for it's Web browser in 1994.

 

[Peter.]

On my Mac, I found that Chrome was slower than Firefox to boot up, and its speed was slightly slower too, and it also froze a lot and didn't open some pages. Both seemed faster than Safari though.

 

[W3H5]

I use Firefox for it's customisation abilities (Extensions and Add-ons), the fact that I can have minimal toolbar interference and GTP runs well on it for me, it's also very good for people whom don't often use a keyboard. The only problem I have encountered (on my office PC) is that Adobe Flash Player seems to not want to install, but then it is on a Chinese pirated version of Windows.

I often recommend it to my students and some of the less educated members on the GT5 forum for the easy to use, browser dictionary.

I've used Opera too which I also find very user friendly but already had all of my bookmarks on FF. I would recommend Opera for anyone with a slow/busy internet line or mobile browsing on a smart phone.

 

[Dennisch]

An other big no no for IE9.

Example:

When you do a fresh install of windows, and then IE9, you go to the funny vid thread, and find out that the embedded youtube videos won't work, all you see is an empty space with a small picture-icon on the top left.

I know that you need to download a flashplayer plug-in and some of the others here know that, but some one like my mom wouldn't know what to do.

Firefox tells you that you need to download a plug-in, one click and you are done.

Shame on you M$.