[Poll] What Web Browser Do You Prefer and Why?

[cable]

Due to curiosity I decided to create a poll to see what you people prefer to use.

If you use perhaps another channel of Firefox (like Aurora or Nightly) pick Firefox. If you use Chromium choose Chrome, if you use Opera Next choose Opera, etc.

[hoggy]

I stay with chrome because it seems to be more efficient in terms of keystrokes. Swapping back to IE seems like a drudge.

[reaper]

Same here. Chrome seems faster at rendering images.

[002]

I'm probably the only person using IE, I bet.

[rodtang]

I use Firefox nightly it is pretty stable every other day which works out perfect since I only bother to update every other day.

[zoidbergslo]

Using chrome Firefox was taking to long to open. At work I use IE since some web applications don't play nice with other browsers

[Tarkoon]

I ended using chrome now.
It is fast, has good features and usefull plugins.

[cable]

My main browser would be Nightly (UX). The reasons would be: I like bleeding edge stuff and I like trying out things before they're officially out, and the good thing with UX is that it frequently updates the user-interface.

For bills and shopping I usually end up using Firefox (I use another clean profile without any add-ons).

Must also admit that I like to try out other browsers too, like Chromium and Opera Next, just to try new features and compare with the other browsers.

[GeorgeStorm]

I use Opera, I like the interface and it performs well, what more could I want

Although seeing this thread, now going to try Opera Next

[nathanscribe]

Safari at the moment, just because it's the default. I used to use Opera, but at the time there were problems with compatibility and I moved to Firefox. New computer, new OS, new browser - haven't felt the need to change, though it might be good to try Opera again since I bet they've ironed out those old problems now. Mostly I think it was issues with pages just not liking Opera, rather than the other way round.

[Poo]

I'm probably the only person using IE, I bet.

Yeah I think so
Even if IE has been improving last years, it's still way behind Chrome or Firefox IMO. But some feature are still interesting.
I dream of a Web Browser which take all the good features from the other to make the perfect one
But for now I'm using Chrome, it's fast and since I use a lot of Google products ...

[webwit]

Chrome users are what AOL and Myspace users used to be. I mean, come on, they are running the Google/DoubleClick web browser, a web browser by the world's biggest ad broker, because the ad broker advertised it as a cool thing. It's never a good idea to unnecessary empower such an entity. Because you are their product. Because that entity sees anti-privacy as a core business and, among others, employs a small army of lobbyists in Washington to make sure the "privacy" laws stay on their side. It hardly has a unique user case anyway. You want a smart, minimal interface & fast? Opera. You want the best hardware acceleration on Windows? IE. All browsers are quick on your machine and you want the most powerful browser? Firefox. You're on a Mac? Safari.

[sixty]

You want a smart, minimal interface & fast? Opera. You want the best hardware acceleration on Windows? IE. All browsers are quick on your machine and you want the most powerful browser? Firefox. You're on a Mac? Safari.

Opera is okay, but for me it is actually too bloatedl. I wish they would go the original Mozilla route and split it up into a core browser and put the rest of the stuff (mail client, irc client, torrent client (wtf!)) into a separate fork, while keeping the basic browser a standalone project. Kinda like what happened with the Mozilla Suite and Firefox. As for Firefox, it is noticeably slower on all my machines. This is not the type of slowness when loading pages. It does not feel snappy. Closing tabs, opening tabs, dragging shit around. On average it also uses about 300mb more ram, but that is not really an argument anymore nowadays where there really is no reason not to have 16GB.

All of this has gotten a lot of better in the Nightly builds since a few weeks ago though. For the past months I have been on UX Nightly on and off, usually until it breaks. I am now actually considering to go back to it as it is starting to perform much better than the stable builds. That said, the current stable Firefox versions still do not feel "smooth" to me. I have been on the beta Chromium builds since 2 years or so by now, and sadly it is still very hard to go back to anything else.

[webwit]

P.S. deskthority browser stats over a certain period of time.

[7bit]

Iceweasel is missing!

Also, I would like to vote for Netscape and Mosaic!

[Poo]

Chrome users are what AOL and Myspace users used to be. I mean, come on, they are running the Google/DoubleClick web browser, a web browser by the world's biggest ad broker, because the ad broker advertised it as a cool thing. It's never a good idea to unnecessary empower such an entity. Because you are their product. Because that entity sees anti-privacy as a core business and, among others, employs a small army of lobbyists in Washington to make sure the "privacy" laws stay on their side. It hardly has a unique user case anyway. You want a smart, minimal interface & fast? Opera. You want the best hardware acceleration on Windows? IE. All browsers are quick on your machine and you want the most powerful browser? Firefox. You're on a Mac? Safari.

I totally agree with you, the power of anti privacy is hitting really hard on us nowadays.
But in the other hand what can we do ? Stop using Fb and all the others Social networks ? Or do not buy on Amazon ?

I think it has become kind of hard not to be part of the system except if you are ready not to use the internet. I realized the last two years, that I should better accept it instead of trying to fight some Big Brother which is better armed than me

I still have my own free will and I can use it anytime I want ... But yeah I am a product of the system (at least I know it).

[mintberryminuscrunch]

Iceweasel is missing!

Also, I would like to vote for Netscape and Mosaic!

iceweasel is firefox (more or less)
totally agree with webwit

[cable]

P.S. deskthority browser stats over a certain period of time.

Hmm, possible to merge all these versions into one? So it won't be as cluttered.

Iceweasel is missing!

Also, I would like to vote for Netscape and Mosaic!

I know that Iceweasel's awesome on Linux. Netscape isn't supported or updated anymore. I won't comment on Mosaic, that little old fellow.

They all go under 'Other', or perhaps Iceweasel to 'Firefox'.

[webwit]

P.S. deskthority browser stats over a certain period of time.

Hmm, possible to merge all these versions into one? So it won't be as cluttered.

That's it, but see the pie chart. Only Chrome and Safari are unfortunately grouped together.

[RC-1140]

In the pie chart I'm probably filed as Firefox, as I use its useragent, because google tends to block my original one. I'm using Luakit. It's a highly configurable, lightweight, Webkit based browser with vim-keybindings. One of the lightest and fastest browsers I know (besides lynx, links or w3m of course) but still very fun to use. Linux only btw.

[Lustique]

I switch between Firefox, Iron, IE and Chrome. Firefox, because it's the browser I have used for ages (since Firefox 2 or 1.5 or something). Iron (like Chrome, but "without Google"), because I was searching for a fast browser for my old PC and my netbook with HTML 5 video support and low hardware requirements (lightweight, resource-saving, etc.). IE, because I sometimes have to update my XP machine (old computer) using Microsoft update, and sometimes I use IE as well on my new machine, especially when I want to circumvent some restrictions I laid on myself (Leechblock in Firefox ). I think I'd actually like the new IE if it had a decent ad blocking solution. And I only use Chrome, when I'm using the alternate OS on my netbook (linux) which has Chrome as its default browser (and I don't know how or whether I'm even able to change that).

I used Opera for some time a couple of months ago, but it seemingly was as hungry for hardware as Firefox was (which I only use having "Memory Fox" enabled, because the memory usage is just fucked up without it), so I don't use it any more, although I liked some features like mouse gestures and so on.

During my search for a lightweight browser for watching videos, I stumbled upon "Midori" and "Arora" (not Aurora). Both were rather fast and small, but unfortunately also rather unstable, so I dumped them, as well.

And I think Firefox is just getting better and better worse and worse with every update (stability, memory leaks and so on), so I think I will have to find a long-time replacement for FF in the future if they don't get these problems fixed.

[Brian8bit]

I use Safari as it's the default on OS X. I've tried other browsers on OS X but I end up back on Safari. I'm not a power user or plugin user so really don't have any need for anything else. For the same reason I still use IE on Windows. On Linux I'll use the default that comes with the distro. Firefox usually.

[gorkypl]

Opera - it is fast and gets the work done.

Oh, and it is my first post here, so hello

[Findecanor]

I use Firefox mostly because I'm lazy. It is part of the Ubuntu distribution. I used to use Opera for many years, from the Netscape 4 era up until 2010.
I still configure my browsers like the classic Netscape, and I am not sure that I can do that with Chrome.
I browse in multiple windows, sometimes two side by side but often many more. Being able to minimize a window to its title bar in the window manager (Window Maker) helps a lot.
Maximizing a browser window is just silly on a widescreen monitor. Tabs are for one-dimensional minds. When I have lots of windows, I have multiple groups of title bars on the screen grouped by context -- in two dimensions, with space between groups. That is a more powerful interface than tabs.

I agree with Sixty about the performance of Firefox. It has nothing to do with how fast the rendering or Javascript engine is. It is an issue about how you organize the threads in your application. For instance, you can sometimes not navigate the bookmarks while a page is loading -- and that is just stupid. I get annoyed by it quite often.

[kps]

Firefox because Pentadactyl.

[itlnstln]

I roll with Chrome. I like using GDIPP for font rendering, and Chrome is one of the last browsers that supports it w/HW acceleration since FF and IE went to DirectWrite (for Windows, obviously). Chrome 18 breaks GDIPP rendering, though, so I'm holding firm on 17 until GDIPP or Google fix the problem.

[cable]

I roll with Chrome. I like using GDIPP for font rendering, and Chrome is one of the last browsers that supports it w/HW acceleration since FF and IE went to DirectWrite (for Windows, obviously). Chrome 18 breaks GDIPP rendering, though, so I'm holding firm on 17 until GDIPP or Google fix the problem.

I'm a fan of gdipp as well and it works better in Firefox if you force a few things in about:config.

Go to about:config > Search for direct2d > Set gfx.direct2d.disabled to true > Restart your browser >

[itlnstln]

I tried that, and it didn't work. I had to turn off HW acceleration altogether to fix it. Of course, that made things a little slower/choppier.

First world problems.

[cable]

I tried that, and it didn't work. I had to turn off HW acceleration altogether to fix it. Of course, that made things a little slower/choppier.

First world problems.

What version of gdipp are you using? How did you install it?

[itlnstln]

0.9.1 on Windows 7 x64. It only installs as a Service on this version. I have a copy of 0.7.6 that I can install via Registry if it might help. The only problem with this version is that it breaks font management (Control Panel -> Fonts).