Has FireFox. Doesn't see why it's great.

[Zeek]

I've been long overdue to get FireFox, but it became very apparent that the entire internet is against default browsers. There was even a study posted recently that claims if you use IE9, you're not as intelligent as those who use FireFox or Chrome. Surprisingly Safari users scored just above IE users in that study, too.

But you know what? I don't see why this browser is so great. I have the NoScript add-on for security reasons (recent hijacking... ON MY MAC!! ), and so far, I don't see what the big deal is.

After hearing about how great the browser is and I should have it and use nothing but it, I'm not seeing the benefits right now, let alone any improvements.

Mind telling me what you guys LIKE about the browser? Seriously, I'm posting this thread while on FireFox and I still don't see what's so great about it other than a yellow bar on the bottom that tells me it's blocking tracking ads from Google right now.

[Alcoremortis]

Honestly, I got Firefox because of the icon. I really can't tell the difference between Firefox, IE9, Safari, and Chrome except that some of the online applications that I need to use for school only seem to work on Firefox, hence that is the one I use. Also, I guess that after using for so many years, I'm just used to it and set in my ways. Though the recent update that moved the refresh button to a very unhelpful place sort of annoyed me.

[Harald B]

I switched to Firefox so long ago that by now I mostly use it out of habit. That said, much of the attraction seems to be with the plug-ins these days. From my own experience I can tell Adblock Plus is a godsend, Firebug and Rikaichan are very nifty and I quite like TACO.

[Vainamoinen]

Originally Posted by Zeek

I've been long overdue to get FireFox, but it became very apparent that the entire internet is against default browsers. There was even a study posted recently that claims if you use IE9, you're not as intelligent as those who use FireFox or Chrome. Surprisingly Safari users scored just above IE users in that study, too.

Someone mentions a study, that means I have to chime in. During the months of summer, newspapers and online news sites are desperate to fill space and they are, internationally, willing to publish the most unbelievable shit just to get something on their pages. The study you mention has made its rounds in German newspapers as well, and only the BBC seemed to be able to take a closer look:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14370878

To put the whole thing in a nutshell: All fake.

[Davies]

Firefox is pretty good and my favoured browser due to it having more features and a higher compatibility over Internet Explorer. To be honest though, that was mostly years ago when IE was a piece of shit. These days, IE should do fine for general surfing usage.

Much like Alcoremortis, I mostly stick with Firefox these days due to habit and because I like the icon. Also, judging people's intelligent via which browser they use is in of itself moronic and elitest.

[Ribs]

No, use Opera. Opera is and always shall be the best. It's like Chrome and Firefox had a baby and mixed it in Chocolate to add to the amazing.

Firefox is, by my count, the fourth worst of the Big browsers. In my opinion:

1.Opera
2.Chrome
3.Safari
4.Firefox
5.Internet Explorer

[Davies]

Originally Posted by Ribs

No, use Opera. Opera is and always shall be the best. It's like Chrome and Firefox had a baby and mixed it in Chocolate to add to the amazing.

Darn, I forgot about Opera and you're correct; it's a really nice browser.

[Zeek]

Originally Posted by Davies

Firefox is pretty good and my favoured browser due to it having more features and a higher compatibility over Internet Explorer. To be honest though, that was mostly years ago when IE was a piece of shit. These days, IE should do fine for general surfing usage.

I guess the one website that said I needed it to view their Flash games is just stuck in their ways. Or they won't admit that their coding sucks.

Seriously, I can't access their games on Safari or IE, yet I can access the rest of the internet's flash content just fine?

OH well, I know Newgrounds purposely codes for browsers outside of IE, or at least they used to until IE9 caught up. Now you just have the hold outs over there that don't like IE because it is associated with Microsoft.

Anyway....

So I take it that I'm actually in the norm right now? Firefox is no better and no worse than Safari or IE? It's just a matter of preference now rather than performance?

[Vainamoinen]

I tried the Explorer, Chrome and Firefox, and I'm stuck with the latter. Can't say I'm satisfied, but I think I chose the lesser evil. The newer versions of Firefox seem to take eternity to start up and unfortunately, the flash plugin seems to crash quite a lot. Chrome, while advertised as the fastest browser, seems to be seriously slow. But I found the Explorer to be the most tedious of the lot, and it still seems to be a goddamn open barn door when it comes to virus, worm and trojan infections.

[DAISHI]

For me it boils down to speed, reliability, performance and ease of use. Firefox is fast and in a variety of tests performs well. It never crashes on me, doesn't have a long start up time and doesn't take up a huge chunk of my memory. If there's ever something Firefox doesn't have, you can get a plug in for it so that it has that ability. And the interface is sleek, minimal and simple.

The new IE is a lot better than the old one and took a lot of its design ideas from Chrome/Firefox.

[DrRocketGenius]

Originally Posted by Harald B

Adblock Plus

This. This is the reason Firefox exists.

[WarpSpeed]

Opera is indeed a very nice browser, but not everything works well with it. Most sites will test with Firefox, but not everyone tests with Opera.

I've never been comfortable with IE, because it's too interlocked with the operating system. I can have multiple versions of other browsers installed if I really want to, but not IE.

I'm also typing this on a Linux system, so IE isn't much of an option anyway.

By the way, you can move the buttons around in Firefox if you don't like their positions, but it isn't as user-friendly as it should be.

[RetroVortex]

Firefox used to be the best.

But everyone else caught up.

[corruptbiggins]

Firefox does everything I want it to do. Really do not like IE and Chrome, while nice, doesn't do everything I want it to do. Yet.

[DAISHI]

I also find it hard to use IE because it's IE. I grew up using Navigator and being aware of the battle being waged against Microsoft's browser monopoly. So, some bitterness there.

[Johro]

Firefox was great when Explorer was garbage. Many people, like myself, just stuck with them.

[Chyron8472]

The advantage of Firefox over Chrome is the greater availability of extensions (add-ons). This may be changing, however slowly, but the last time I used Chrome there were several extensions that I use in Firefox that weren't similarly available in Chrome. One such example of this is NoScript.

[waroftheworlds01]

I have fire fox because for some reason, after updating it, internet explorer doesn't play videos with a clear screen anymore. For example, the videos when you first open the TellTale website, I can hear them, but the screen is black. So I have to use FireFox to watch videos. Except for youtube. youtube still work on IE

[Chyron8472]

sounds like you need to update your installed version of Flash.

[Falanca]

The reason why I'm NOT using IE is IE is very prone to anonymous toolbar downloads and spywares, also uses a big amount of memory space. After this point onwards I have the freedom of using any browser I want, and I chose Firefox. Its design is slick and it was first compatible with the very few amount of add-ons I use, so I never wanted to change to Chrome or Opera or anything else. People say Chrome is better because of less CPU usage or something but it's not like I'm always deeply running out of memory and CPU usage here.