In this topic, I will compare the 4 main internet browsers and give my opinions on them. The four main internet browsers are Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Apple's Safari and Opera. For the sake of argument, I will compare Firefox 3, Internet Explorer 7, Opera 9.5 and Safari 3.
Firefox 3
This is the browser which I use everyday. It is very customizable, with a lot of very useful addons. I use the English and French dictionary, which is very helpful when writing emails in Windows Live Mail and when I'm writing articles or forum posts, in French or English. I also use Chatzilla for IRC, as it is easy to script and it shows all my channels and all the servers in one window, something which it is hard to do in other IRC programs. There are various other addons which I use aswell. Firefox is one of, if not the safest browser. Ever since I started using FireFox I have had less and less threats showing up in my anti-spyware programs. It displays everything in pure and clear detail, something which Safari and Opera do not. It is very easy to use and doesn't use too much memory. Firefox 3 is extremely fast and can download files very quickly, that is, unless you have the 56 kb/s emulator installed. The Full Screen function is very good (Activate by pressing F11) as it gets rid of everything, but when you move your mouse up, it shows you your tabs and the website adress.
However, there are a few downsides to Firefox. You can't install an addon without restarting Firefox, which isn't always ideal, especially if you have Chatzilla open and a load of tabs, you have to close them and then get back to them, altough FF3 does have the option to save the tabs which is very useful.
Look at Fig 1 to see Firefox in action.
Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer is a very good browser, as it comes with your pc. It is very easy to use and provides the basic needs to most people. It is very easy to get your settings perfect for your use. The new use of tabs is very useful.
On the other hand, I dislike the way the tabs work. You can only close a tab if it is open, unlike Firefox. It lacks many saftey features and IE7 uses a lot of ram, which isn't ideal when you have many programs open at once. The download speed is painfully slow and it looks to bland, at least with FF you can use addons and Opera looks quite good.
Look at Fig 2 to see Internet Explorer in action.
Opera 9.5
Opera 9.5 looks very good and is very easy to use, with the ability to change a lot of the preferences very easily. It has so many addons built in, like the Speed Dial, which you have to download for Firefox, comes with Opera. Opera seems like a highly tuned up version of firefox, yet it lacks some of the saftey features and it a bit slower. However, the download is half the size of Safari's.
But, Opera isn't well known and it can get quite complicated and rarely shows sites like FireFox and even Internet Explorer do, it often displays them with errors. The way that you scroll down in Opera is too slow and it annoys me.
Look at Fig 3 to see Opera in action.
Safari 3
Safari is Apple's version of a web browser. It clamis to be to be the fastest web browser, the safest etc.. the list goes on. One thing I do admire is the way in which it blocks popups, It does this better than Firefox, Internet Explorer and Opera.
However, it fails. It doesn't show many websites clearly and it shows the wrong fonts, blurred. There isn't an easy way to get tabs to show up. I spent a good 5 minutes trying to get them to show, but I had no luck. It's extremely slow! It's worringly unsafe, especially as Paypal said that it wasn't at all safe and you shouldn't use it. There appears to be no fullscreen mode, which isn't a need but it is useful to have sometimes. It crashed 3 times in 10 minutes aswell. I guess it isn't meant for Windows, so I would never use it.
Look at Fig 4 to see Safari trying to work.
In conclusion, I prefer FireFox 3, then Opera, then Internet Exploder and last and least, Safari.
Fig1. - Firefox [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Fig2. - Internet Explorer [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Fig3. - Opera [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Fig4. - Safari [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Discuss.
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Firefox is definately the best, then opera / IE 7-8 (six is terrible) and finally safari..
You can notice in the screenshots, that Firefox displays this site best, Opera displays it almost the same as Firefox, IE is almost flawless.. and Safari's is almost flawless, but it hates ALL windows based fonts, so thats why it look retarded and blurred, not because of the image quality.
There is no point in getting Firefox without addons, well Firefox 3 does load pages fast without having to install fasterfox. I haven't used anything faster than IE 7(after tweaking registry). It loads pages wayy faster than firefox with fasterfox installed aswell as opera.
In the end Firefox beats them all with its massive collection of addons.
I predict IE to dominate all in the end.
Maybe IE 8 is going to do it, if not, then IE 9 for sure.
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I've only used an untweaked IE, and I have to say it was slow as all hell....I'd say Firefox hands down, and alot of that has to do with all the addons you can find for it. It's fast, it's relatively safe, and I can make it look pretty
Firefox is pretty solid as of right now. Except for some reason IGN doesn't load properly.Version 3 made some cool updates, I like the redesigned navigation buttons. Initial start time could definitely be faster though, although after that things are pretty speedy.
IE7 is not bad at all. I personally just feel safer using Firefox (with AdBlock + NoScript). It's speedy, and has the best site compatibility?
Opera was both aesthetically pleasing and fast when I tried it about a year back. Switched back to firefox though, not exactly sure why. I always go back to firefox.
When I test-drove Safari a year ago, there were absolutely no add-ons for Windows. Back to firefox.
With IE8 coming out with features like WebSlices and such, it is definitely aiming to gain back the market share it lost to Firefox. However there is no question that for the average user, Internet Explorer is a safe (enough) option for browsing the web and performing everyday tasks. Firefox is for those more *ahem* educated.
There is no point in getting Firefox without addons, well Firefox 3 does load pages fast without having to install fasterfox. I haven't used anything faster than IE 7(after tweaking registry). It loads pages wayy faster than firefox with fasterfox installed aswell as opera.
In the end Firefox beats them all with its massive collection of addons.
I predict IE to dominate all in the end.
Maybe IE 8 is going to do it, if not, then IE 9 for sure.
IE7 and IE8 both suck.
IE7 and Firefox load pages at the same speed, they just render in a different order thats all.
Firefox renders Top Down, Images and some Text and then finishes the remainder, whereas IE renders the page, then the text then the graphics.
It basically depends on preference, on a site like darkzune's forum, you'd prefer IE's loading style if your internets slow, so you could see the page layout before its fully loaded, whereas if you were using firefox and are reading articles, it loads the more important stuff (the text) first, so you can start reading, while the surrounding clutter is next.
Also, the ALPHA suport and PNG-24 in Internet Explorer is still terrible, except in IE8 beta1, they've finally fixed it.
Also Internet Explorers main other flaw is that it still isnt fully following page standards and gets stuck and slows down, if there are ANY coding errors, or anything its unfimiliar with, whereas i've NEVER had this problem on firefox.
But You are right, Microsoft is making a darn good effort to get IE back.. and i think they will gain back 40 - 50% of the Browser share with the release of IE8 , with firefox next and the more minor browsers after.
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