Best browser for these forums

Discussion in 'Open Discussion' started by wisemx, Aug 31, 2010.

  1. Salutations,
    I've been testing the performance of these forums in multiple browsers.
    Overall the pages refresh and show updates best in IE8.

    Firefox has been the worst, at times it doesn't display updates without a hard refresh. (Another quirk is FF is using more system resources.)

    Google Chrome does a better job than FF but IE8 does a better layout.

    Opinions?

    As a side note, any of you testing IE9? ;)
    All the best,
    Mark
     
  2. Bruce

    Bruce DiscountASP.NET Staff

    huh.. i've always use firefox for the forum..

    let me try w/ IE.
     
  3. mjp

    mjp

    I use Firefox too. It's a resource hog (still), but without getting into some pointless browser bashing, IE still lags behind in things that are important to me. It has lagged behind for the past, oh, fifteen years or so, so they are going to have to do something really right to convince me to use it on sites that I don't have to use it on. And we all know that the odds of them doing something really right where web browsers are concerned are slim to none.

    Well, there, you made me do browser-bashing anyway. What can I say.

    I don't mind bashing Chrome though. I've always used it here and there for multi-browser testing, but I recently started using it daily (as one of my three open browsers), and it stinks. At least half a dozen times a day I get, "Google Chrome cannot open that web site - do you want to open a cache?" No, no I don't, actually.

    I had to switch to Opera as my third browser. No complaints there, they make a good browser.
     
  4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox

    I can only date info back to 2004, which is only about 6 years :(
     
  5. mjp

    mjp

    Yeah, well, Firefox wasn't the first non-IE browser. Everyone take a deep breath, because I'm about to blow your minds! Ready?

    Microsoft didn't invent the web browser.

    I know, it seems preposterous, but it's true.

    Okay, I know you already knew that. But IE is 15 years old. Before IE 1.0 though, that we used Mosaic and Netscape. IE played catch-up with Netscape for years, then Netscape imploded and Mozilla came out of the rubble. But through all that, IE was widely considered the inferior browser because Microsoft chose to ignore many standards, significantly slowing the progress of things like CSS. In fact, IE 8 is still behind every other browser in CSS compatibility. I mean, come on. That's either willful neglect of standards in favor of their own proprietary methods, or incompetence. Take your pick.

    But they're only web browsers, after all. Different strokes and all that.
     
  6. I shoulda figured this would happen. ;-)

    I've been using browsers from the very start and even created a few myself.
    Yup, anyone who used Borland Delphi had access to tools for creating browsers, POP and FTP.

    In the late 90's as a eCommerce business owner I had to pay for browser licensing.
    Sad fact is I probably still have a commercial version with code for Mozilla.
    You guys probably know both IE and FF are based on it.

    Did you remember this? "Netscape developers are wienies"
    That was embedded backwards in the early Msft FPE DLL's.
    The guys at Msft that did that started a big war that's still going.

    Yes the current version of FF uses more system resources than SQL Server.
    All the best,
    Mark
     
  7. I've been using Chrome/FireFox as a combo for a bit over a year now, and yes, the resources are quite high on both actually.

    Chrome does sometimes have a problem loading up some pages, and I even have a harder time at home since my DNS is flakey (damn you Time Warner!). FireFox is a bit slower for me, especially when used on the older machines.

    I would say for me Chrome is my favorite, but I still like a lot of the addons FireFox provides, and until Chrome has all the addons I need, I'll stick to having both of these on my machine.
     
  8. mjp

    mjp

    I think the "war" started when web site designers wanted to move forward, and the standards were all in place to move forward, but IE did not render much of anything properly. The problem you face as a web developer is you can't ignore a crappy browser if the majority of the people on the web use it.

    That, more than anything, is what started the anti-IE sentiment, and it's the reason that sentiment still exists. If you want to do anything with CSS you have to hack your way around half a dozen fundamental things that are (still) broken in IE. It's a pain in the ass, and it wastes everyone's time and resources.

    As a user, I really don't care about web browsers. If you told me I had to use IE exclusively, forever, I wouldn't jump off a tall building or anything. Who cares? It's as a developer/designer that I start to draw lines. You have to. The first time you look at your beautiful new site in a couple of different browsers and it's all hosed and wonky and busted, you've pretty much parachuted right into the middle of the "war," like it or not. And everyone knows, in a war you have to choose a side. ;)
     
  9. Well to be fair to IE it was rendering better than Netscape 4.7 at that time.
    Advanced developers needed to use jpegs to trick Netscape into rendering table corners.
    Then Macromedia started with the w3 group suggesting blank gif's that could be stetched. Some developers still use them.
    I'm standing should-to-shoulder with Msft because IE9 is looking pretty sweet.
    HTML5 is going to mess with a lot of us, as usual full speed ahead with no standards.
     
  10. Chrome is horrid. IE doesn't have a built-in real time spell checker. That leaves FF.
     
  11. There is a free Spell checker in the IE add-ons, I'm using it with IE8 and it works just as good as the one in FF.
    [​IMG]
     
  12. Old school "Spell Check"? It sure is better than nothing, but I like the real time red underline thing. To be honest though - even it could be much better.
     
  13. This will make a long discussion. ;-)
    Old skool guys like me probably frown on younger persons who need such a feature.
    It's right along the same as the kids who run cash registers now, you can throw them off by adding an extra penny when you pay, then they have to go back to the machine.
    God help us we're getting our heads sucked into these machines, soon our feet too. :)
     
  14. I rarely ever use a spell checker, unless I've had a cup or two of coffee and my fingers aren't keeping up with my thoughts.

    I just checked out my Chrome, and it actually has the "New School" spell checker, basically doing the same thing FF would do.

    One thing that I remember pulled me away from FF 100%, was the synchronized bookmarks using Gmail. Being able to put in the browser without any extensions helped out a lot, considering I switch between 2-3 desktops on a regular basis, and this comes in quite handy.

    I guess this is just a discussion of what color is better in this sense. I'll ride this train though...
     
  15. mjp

    mjp

    Pink.
     
  16. Pink can be very cool, one of my friends just posted this:
    [​IMG]
     
  17. mjp

    mjp

    Well I just found out that IE9 is not the browser for any site, for me anyway. No way to disable "ClearType"? Are they kidding? Had to uninstall.

    Incidentally, is there any technology in the history of the world more inappropriately named than ClearType? Shouldn't they call it FuzzyType? or AutoBlur?

    Just saying.
     
  18. You needed to disable ClearType?
    I've honestly helped a lot of people here by activating that for them.

    My kids use Chrome for friv.com
    I've been using Firefox for these forums and Facebook. (Adblock rocks)
    For everything else I do find IE9 works great and has the best security.

    Maybe we don't all like the same flavor lollipop. :)
     
  19. mjp

    mjp

    I don't really care which browser I use. At home I use primarily Firefox, but at work I have Firefox, IE and Chrome all open all the time.

    But ClearType - I can't comprehend how anyone would prefer that to the standard screen font rendering. Maybe some people like the challenge of reading a page of blurry text. ;) To me it just looks like something has gone terribly wrong.

    In any event, it shouldn't be forced on the browser user with no way (in the browser preferences) to turn it off. But that's a typical Microsoft "take it or leave it" kind of approach. I would hazard a guess that as IE9 rolls out more widely they are going to be forced to change that.
     
  20. Back to being serious for just a moment...

    One thing I forgot to mention is the way IE9 on Windows 7 can be created as an application.
    This is really cool for Smartermail.

    You can use it to bypass all spam and security risks.

    1) Use IE9 to login to your Smartermail account.
    2) Use your Left mouse button and drag the URL from IE9 down to your taskbar.
    3) It's now an application you can easily use with Outlook.

    a) Click to Open the new Smartermail login app you created.
    b) Browse your inbox and delete any spam, anything possibly malicious.
    c) Close IE9 then go ahead and check your incoming mail with Outlook.
     

Share This Page