Just a question.....

Sorry if this is short but my title was used and I had to retype and didnt wanan type it all again.

I notice alot of people bashing internet explorer and i would like to know why.

I have used internet explorer as long as ive used the internet and see no problem with it. What are the benefits of other browsers and why did you switch?

Also, if this forum made me change browsers what should i use?

reply to post by tylerc25211


All I can say is that I use firefox, and have never had any problems

I've heard people say IE is not very secure - but you'd need some of our tech members to tell you why, or even if it is

I would agree. I have had too many problems with IE, especially after installing the infamous MicroSoft updates. The software seems to be glitchy when it doesn't agree with something and then causes me headaches.

I switched to Firefox a few years back and have never regretted it. I have never had any problems with it and it's feature seem to me a lot simpler to use.

Try it for yourself sometime:
Firefox

I was die hard I.E. until about a few months. FireFox always claimed to run faster but I always hated the slow boot up time of the proggy. I found a portableapp.com one that is great and love using it.

I've gotten to the point where I feel anything from microsoft isn't very secure. One thing good about FireFox is that you can customize it by running cmd lines or just installing software.

It just seems that microsoft delibrately sets things up to make it dificult for the public to run there stuff so they will call and pay for customer service. I have twenty years experience in computers and I can see what they are doing in there programming.

So I was just like you wondering why everyone hated I.E.. All I can say is once you get weanned away from I.E. like I did you will enjoy other browsers such as FireFox.

reply to post by tylerc25211


Well, basically current status of IE is actually pretty good, and most of the problems people tell you about are no longer there. It does work well if you just want to browse and use web sites without getting too technical. That, however, also causes IE not to have much to give if you want better control of your doings online.

That is not to say you actually have to understand something if you use firefox, you don't have to.

Firefox has more publicly announced security holes than IE, but those are reported and fixed with better speed and phase compared to microsoft's IE. This is so only because Microsoft will not give you a list of problems even if you would want to have one, and problems of firefox are publicly listed on their web site.

IE does not follow standards well, and that is generally a bad thing because it forces people to do extra work to get sites working with engines that do not work right. Sites however continue to work and new ones will also work because there are people who are paid to make it so, even if IE is a piece of crap. So, switching to firefox doesn't really fix anything but it does give you more comfort.

IE does not follow standards well, which is a problem from certain perspectives. However, there are people working who are paid to make sites work with IE even if IE is a piece of crap. This means that there is not much to gain by using firefox, as sites are designed to work with both browsers.

Firefox is a lot faster, but about memory consumption I am not that sure becase it does load a ton of things just like IE does. Memory usage of the program itself is not the whole truth as loaded DLL files are not show in that number.

Firefox is more secure in principle, but it is an urban legend that it does not have those issues. It does, but those are fixed with better speed and phase than IE.

Technologically speaking, firefox is way ahead compared to IE but that also does not really show much if you are just browsing around, doing nothing special.

The best thing about firefox are its plugins and enchantments. With those, you can make it do pretty much whatever you want without having to know how to code.

I use Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera.

Many security problems in IE are related to ActiveX controls, something Microsoft thought was a good way of turning programmers to the Internet without moving away from Microsoft's tools like Visual Studio. ActiveX controls are really useful, if you can trust them (I converted a Visual Basic 6 program with some 6000 pages of code into a IE version in just two weeks), but the problem is that ActiveX controls run with the same security permissions as the user that is using IE, so it makes it possible to have access to all the hardware, and that is obviously something very, very dangerous.

In all the years that I have used the Internet (11 or 12, I don't remember it well) I never had a security problem with IE. Sometimes some sites may want to install an ActiveX, but if you have IE properly configured (and that is one of the reasons to bash Microsoft, they publish their home programs configure in a insecure way, server programs are a little better) IE will ask if you want to do it and you just have to say no.

IE7 on Windows Vista is much better than IE7 (and IE6) on Windows XP.

Firefox has some neat features, but it also has one thing that annoys me, the lack of a way of reloading just a image from a page. It's the best browser for Javascript, though, and I have to use it with some sites that have Javascript code that does not work with IE or Opera.

To me, Opera is the best, it has all the things I need.

I started using it at a time when I still used a 33.6 modem, and having slow connection speeds, the possibility of turning on and off the images with just one click was a very useful thing.

But after that they started having publicity on the top of the free version and I stop using it.

Now that they have returned to a completely free version I have been using it (and I am using it to write this), and it's much better than it was.

My favourite features are:
- Tabs; it's the program that has the best way of working with tabs, in my opinion, and it was the first to have them.
- Searches; we can create our own searches from any page that has a text box for searches (like ATS, for example), just by right clicking on the text box and selecting "Create search..."
- Sessions; it keeps the tabs opened and all of the history for that page between sessions, we can close the browser while keeping the pages open, and the next time we will use it the pages will open has we left them with all the history available.
- Notes; a very useful feature for people that do research on the Internet, just selecting some text or a URL, right-clicking and selecting "Add to note" creates a new note. Notes are saved on disk and are independent from everything else.
- Paste & Go; a very useful way of navigating to a new page for which we have the URL in the clipboard, instead of Control+C to copy the URL to the address box we can use Control+B to paste the URL and navigate immediately to it.
- Navigate to URL; selecting a URL or IP address from the text on any page, right-clicking and selecting "Navigate to..." opens that page.
- Open in new tab; much more versatile than the other browsers, Shift+clicking or Shift+Enter will always open the page in a new tab.

I use all of these features everyday, and that is why I keep on using Opera as my main browser.

The last Beta version (the one I am using) is also much faster, and is faster than any other browser, although I can not enjoy that speed because the limitations of my home network (I have to rewire it someday...)

Edit to add: As I had some Internet problems I had some trouble concluding my post.

I think that you should use the browser with which you feel more confortable, I don't think that changing browser just because of some site is the best way of doing things.

If you are carefull while browsing (and this applies to all browsers) you have a safe "browsing experience", like the marketing people like to say.

[edit on 14/6/2008 by ArMaP]

Ie explorer has many security flaws esp where people can run scripts off it.Firefox with no script is the safest browser in the world.

I use fire fox
I like tabs
I'm in BTS ATS checking my three emails accounts and following links
people are posting

in internet explorer what are you doing right now :bash:

reply to post by The Utopian Penguin


Just a question, how are you checking your mail accounts, through webmail or by other means?

PS: in case you haven't noticed, IE has tabs also

you can do that if it's available

but its bloated and wonky
and I'm running linux NOT windows
I built my first computer in 1978
I teach some stuff and play With Os's and software

[edit on 20-6-2008 by The Utopian Penguin]

I use IE out of pure habit even though it drives me crazy when writing html. It doesn't follow standards which means that you have to do certain stupid fixes in IE to make it look proper while in FireFox it works just as it's supposed to.

I've noticed though that Safari is the fastest browser of all. Like a greased lightning...

Firefox pipelined with fasterfox and no script is the safest fastest browser in the world.

reply to post by The Utopian Penguin


Hmm, is that an answer to my question?

reply to post by alienstar


Have you tried the new Opera 9.5?

I have read that this is the fastest browser, at the moment.

Originally posted by ArMaP
reply to post by The Utopian Penguin

 

Hmm, is that an answer to my question?

I don't use the Email that my provider gives me
and I don't have a domain

reply to post by ArMaP


Yes, opera is good and I have used it. But I never got past the trying it stage and at the time I was perfectly happy with FF.

And now I'm slightly prejudiced to like software that is published under GNU GPL so no Opera.

So IMO Firefox is best. And there is a plugin to run IE tabs in FF as well for sites which have no compatibility with FF. But that seems rare nowadays.