Which is best - Firefox, IE or other?

http://www.freerepublic.com/ ^ | 2-3-10 | self

[Former MSM Viewer]

Im getting tired of the errors and such on my IE browser. I hear Firefox is good...

Any comments would be appreciated.

[TomGuy]

“But it’s a bit of a memory hog” that is a WINDOWS Problem not Firefox

No, it is Firefox. You can watch Firefox, even sitting idle, consume more and more memory, if you watch it through the Processes tab of Windows Task Manager. Right now, my Firefox is consuming 156,180K and I have only 1 tab on a simple (no flash or motion graphics) website open. I closed that tab to blank and it is now consuming 166,316K.

[Robe]

Been with Mozilla Fire-Fox since the beginning, that along with Trend-Micro for virus protection has kept me out for trouble free for years ...

[Free Vulcan]

I have an older computer. I love Opera, it comes up within 30 seconds, IE and FF are several minutes, and it surfs very fast like you said. Cache doesn’t build up as fast either so that the hard drive doesn’t grind so much.

[EricT.]

I’ve used Firefox for years and don’t miss M$’s Internut Exploder at all.

It works great on XP and it works great on Ubuntu Linux. I can’t give an informed opinion on Vista or W7, since I refused to subject myself to the Vista disaster and I’m happy enough with XP that I don’t see any reason to spend money on Win7.

Then again, I have XP and Ubuntu dual-booted on my desktop computer. It takes XP about 3 1/2 minutes to boot and load virus scan, background processes, etc. before I can actually use it. Ubuntu takes 42 seconds, including the 5 second GRUB bootloader delay.

[Califelephant]

Chrome is great. And now it has lots of cool extensions! https://chrome.google.com/extensions

[The Great RJ]

I use Firefox exclusively including on my Mac. Firefox also has a library of very useful add-ons..small free applications that do everything from give you world time to enhance your browsing security. Once you try it you will never want to use IE again.

[RobRoy]

I started using firefox a couple years ago. At the time I was running Adaware daily and constantly cleaning my computer. Three months after installing Firefox I removed Adaware from my computer. I didn’t need it.

that said, You have to close down Firefox from time to time. Since I started using it at work I noticed my computer slowing down. One time I went to task manager and noticed firefox was using over 700 meg of ram. Interestingly, when I closed it it freed up 1.2 gig of ram. It seems like a memory leak thing.

And when I went home the same day and closed firefox and reopened it, I noticed my home computer ran significantly faster than it used to.

I close firefox when I’m not using it now.

This has caused my to give Chrome a looksee, but I still really like Firefox. IE is completely out of the picture now.

[Hoodlum91]

I use IE at work and firefox at home. firefox has had a huge increase in crashes the past couple of months. So far, IE in Windows 7 is working quite well (much better than before).

[RobRoy]

I’ve heard that IE is more “integrated” with windows and has access to places Firefox does not. That means that if someone can exploit it, they can get into more sensitive places in your computer and do more damage.

Is this anything you’ve heard about?

[astyanax]

Haven’t used IE in... year(s?).
I like Firefox (and the NoScript add-on is a must have. It’s fantastic.)
Wife likes Chrome.
Try them both and see which one you prefer.
Anything will be an improvement.

[Darth Reardon]

I just keep coming back to konqueror (almost certainly not an option on windows). The ability to dis/allow cookies, java, etc on a per site/domain basis and to spoof my browser version for idiot sites that block me because they don’t support my browser (even though it works fine on their site) just can’t be beat.

[Walkingfeather]

I had been with firefox for years, but over the last few month firefox was crashing several times a day. I switched to google chrome and it seems to work much better.

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

Best? Not sure.

Worst? Internet Exploder. By a mile. Anything is better.

(I use Firefox)

[11th Commandment]

First off, DUMP WINDOWS, Install Linux

I was looking at Linux, it was free, then not... where can I get it? Thanks

[The Duke]

I have to second that vote for Opera. I've pretty much given up Firefox for Opera. Opera has a very nice email/newsreader feature. Also, the built-in IRC client let's me get in touch certain business partners almost instantaneously.

But I also love Opera as a plain ol' browser. It seems like IE and Firebox both shift around their various buttons, while Opera clusters them in a very natural, simple and intuitive way.

I do still use Firefox occasionally - but very seldom touch IE.

[astyanax]

btw, I use Firefox at work (xp) and at home (xp and vista) and have had no problems with updates or anything else.
Then again, I might just be lucky... :)

[Bean Counter]

I’m using Firefox and really like it a lot. The only problem I have with it is problems with Windows Vista on my laptop. I’m in the process of fixing that problem and I expect to have even fewer problems with Firefox. Good browser...

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

Long time user of firefox and love it.

Pluses:
1. Huge library of plugins, add-ons. Some of these are incredibly useful.
2. Lots of ongoing development, support - you don’t want to use a product for which this is not true.
3. First to market with most features - tabs being one example.

Minuses:
1. Resource i.e. memory hog.
2. Also it leaks memory which says that if you leave it up a long time, the memory footprint keeps going up. To remedy this, it’s best to quit and restart (and in this case firefox, will remember all your open tabs for you).

[ShadowAce]

[dubie]

firefox on Windows7 sucks balls. crashes constantly... no addons. base install.