On this fabulous post-Christmas day, I’m pondering why I’ve been using Firefox for the past few years. When I changed over from Internet Explorer to using Firefox, it was due to the world wide web peer pressure – hordes of tech geeks crying out how “evil” IE has been and how insecure.
The truth is, Firefox is by no means more secure; there have been more security issues for it in the past year than for Internet Explorer, which rarely has any “holes” anymore, due to the overall patching of the OS by Microsoft.
Having moved over to the Windows 7 platform, it seems that not even a clean installation can speed up Firefox, that chokes on every occasion. Even with the network tweaks available for it, most of the time Firefox appears to be more of a turtle than a speedy fox.
Perusing Expedia has been an absolute nightmare with Firefox, resulting in hang pages and resubmitting of queries; lots of lost time and even a double booking. I had to end up using Chrome for that one, that cut through Expedia like a hot knife through butter.
Web sites that utilize ajax technology to query databases or push out content are the slowest. Having tested both Chrome and Opera I’ve concluded that Opera is by far the best and most stable browser, second in speed only to Google’s Chrome browser. As the new millennium’s “Big Brother” isn’t Microsoft, but Google, I somehow refuse to surrender an extra layer of privacy to the company who proclaims to be “Not Evil” but gathers all the info that they can on every individual that uses their services.
Therefore, in the new year 2010, I am switching over to Opera. Available from www.Opera.com the software has been around for several years and is loaded with features and capabilities that match or surpass those of other browsers. Yes, Internet Explorer has maintained the majority of the browser market for years now, ever since Netscape died in the hands of AOL. But that’s another story to be told in 2010.
Happy last weekend of the year!
I have been using Windows 7 Ultimate for a few months now, and FF has been an absolute nightmare. It went “(not responding)” at least 25 times a day. It was enough to make me switch back to IE8 for a while. However, with the latest FF update I don’t think it has done it once and it has been loading pages reasonably fast.
Take it from me – I’ve tried them all. Opera is fine at first but pretty soon you will realize that all those so called features just make it bloated and slow and that a whole bunch of sites just don’t work in Opera because developers are so sick of hand holding all these different browsers that Opera gets sidelined.
Try Chrome. It takes a little getting used to, but I guarantee everything else pales in comparison.
run into all sorts of problems, mainly until you realize that a whole bunch of sites don’t work in Opera because as a developer I can tell you it sucks big time having to not only cater for
I have no problem with Chrome’s performance; I’ve already stated it’s the fastest. However, I am not willing to give up all my privacy rights to Big Brother Google. Also, Chrome is in constant beta. Opera worked really well – remember, this is my opinion as an end-user, not as a developer. 😀 In terms of supporting browsers, anything these days that conforms to HTML/CSS standards renders fine across all the latest browsers.
FF is bloated but quite stable for me… crashes are very rare. Since release 9.50 Opera has been less stable, it’s still my primary choice of browser.
Nowadays we have more choices 🙂
I’ve heard good things about Chrome but yeah, do no evil lol…
I’ve been using Opera for more than 5 years.
Don’t use Chrome because I don’t trust Google. Will soon also be de-Googling my online experience.
Don’t use FF. Don’t use IE.
The new Opera (10.5) is awesome. I’m running the pre-alpha, and it is very much dodgy at the moment, but when they release it in the end it will definitely kick arse.
Thank you all for sharing your opinions and experience with the latest installment of browsers. Personally, I miss the Netscape 2.0 days 😀
Netscape 2.0 with built-in email, those were the days!
I have been using Chrome since it was available for testing but have switching back to IE due to the privacy concerns. My son uses Opera and I think I will give it a whirl as well.
I like Opera. Before switching from Windows to Mac 6 years ago, this was my browser of choice. I continue to find it nice and fast. However, I must admit that it has limitations. In a number of cases, printed pages do not render as well in Opera as in other browsers. Moreover, it is not supported by some major websites: for instance, I was curious to see the new Glyde.com platform this week – I was unable to access it with Opera, I received a message “unsupported browser”, and I was asked to use either Safari or Firefox.
I have nearly ten browsers installed on my iMac, including obscure ones. I am testing them and would be very willing to adopt one that would fully convince me, but most of the time I end up using Safari.
I have been using FF for awhile and recently ran into problems. For some reason I am unable to access my Google accounts like Adsense/Adwords using FF since the latest update. My access is fine in IE. I may give Opera or Chrome a try after all.
For now, I don’t see any reason to trust Google with my info any less/more than with any other company or organization. No matter which browser you use your search queries are at their mercy anyway.