Too many times I have gone into a live thread looking for a link. I seem to find one, click it, and end up spending the next half hour trying to get whatever Java crap it has, not to mention how many times I’ve tried clicking only to find I have to click again and again etc until I get so tired of it I exit Firefox and just do a purge of my cache...I am really, really waiting for a browser that simply doesn’t recognize Java...
Suggestions ... don't rely on a single browser. Multiple versions of different browsers can co-exist. I have at least ten different ones side by side ( the icons all in a row in quicklaunch ). What happens is that you can use certain browsers for certain tasks, one for strong privacy, others favoring certain websites, each maintains their own settings including whether to enable java and flash and scripting. This is great for web development and also simple browsing because when one fails a site you just try another. They can even be running at the same time.
If your computer is 64-bit you have double the options. You can have 32 and 64 versions of most browsers available as separate programs, use one for this and one for that. There is no reason you cannot have 20 different browsers at your fingertips and tailor each one to your needs.
In addition to plain old Firefox ( which truly does suck lately ). Get it's cousins Waterfox and Palemoon. The former, Waterfox is a 64-bit version of the Firefox codebase ( which itself also has recently released an official 64-bit version ). Palemoon is a rather nice back level version of Firefox without the retard skin and comes in both 32 and 64.
There is also Opera, which in its modern releases are simply Google Chrome with a skin, and then there are the still viable backlevel true Opera versions 11 and 12 that function fine with a little coaxing and tweaking. Not every site shows up "correctly" in the older ones, but sometimes that itself is an asset ;-)
You can indeed go in and tell a specific browser to ignore java, as well as almost any add-in. So install other versions of browsers and then customize them at will.
Note that you must pay attention at install time to check or clear "make this browser the default", and you often have to dig for that setting, and you often need to clear another setting to "check if default each time". It's a handful of work, it may take half a day to set up a battery of browsers, but when it is done you will have many options at your fingertips. And after a period of time you will learn which ones are good for which sites.
Thanks! I’ve tried many of the browsers, can’t do 64 bit because I’m XP. I actually think Chrome is fairly good. But I kept my default settings Firefox.