I downloaded the new Internet Explorer 8 Beta and it was terrible. I've always used Internet Explorer but because I really didn't like it I decided to take the plunge and download Firefox and it was a great decision. I was always too scared to turn my back on Internet Explorer as it's an institution. Firefox is much faster and better to use, with a better layout and features.

Do you use Internet Explorer, Firefox or another browser?

Probably be better including a poll for the major browsers like IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari or, god forbid - AOL.

I use Firefox 3

Never tried Firefox but I don't have any problem with using IE.

Firefox 3 every time. Awesome.

Added poll.

I use Windows IE. I used to have Firefox on my old computer but never really liked it as I was so used to the traditional IE. So when I got my new computer, I never bothered installing Firefox.

I use Firefox 3 and sometimes Safari, both miles better than IE imo

I use Firefox 3. Netscape was okay, rarely died on me except for going through long periods of time inwhich it wouldn't open at all.

I only opened this thread because I thought you'd made a poll to see what was the better browser between Explorer and Firefox - retarded.

I never even had a poll at all until Jay 7 suggested using a poll for the major browsers. I've only used Explorer and Firefox myself (and AOL for about a day a few years ago) but Firefox is much better.

I use avant browser which is very good

Avant and the AOL browsers are nothing more than a skinned IE. You can achieve the same in FF using the IETab extension. They really shouldn't be considered separate browsers.

While I have a particular dislike for IE, from a programming point of view it has it's uses. It's still a car crash of a browser, but it's considerably better than IE6 was. Opera is nice in the way that distant cousin is nice to chat to once in a while but you wouldn't want to speak to them daily. Chrome is the new boy on the block missing tons of stuff. Netscape doesn't exist. Safari is laughable on Windows (and if you want webkit, just use Chrome).

That leaves, Firefox. Which is my primary browser for both client side developing and surfing in general although I need IE to debug Visual Studio.

Im a firefox person myself. I started using it back before IE had tabs, and I just prefer the way it does things. I haven't used chrome yet, I might give it a shot, but Im quite happy with FF for now.

I occasionally use firefox for quicktime plug-ins, but I must say I'm finding IE8 beta not to be too bad. it's got a compatability view to fix a few problems and runs quite smoothly.

I use Firefox, Safari, Opera, and now, Google Chrome.

Safari has the best actual on screen display, but the colour scheme on and around the control panel is terrible, and you can't change it. Firefox is probably the best all round one, and Opera is pretty terrible apart from their 'speed dial' thingy. Google Chrome is sleek and fast, and looks not bad, but hasn't got the features of Firefox (yet)

Only use IE at work, as there's no other choice.

I've recently found IceCat (and IceDove for mail)

Same as Firefox (and Thunderbird) but GPL groovy for those who care

In what way?

You are such a fanboy!

Not really. I know that lots of people wont use Opera and that the reasons for using it over FF are really all down to user preference. If he'd said he didnt like it I wouldnt have commented, but I've never heard anyone call it terrible and was interested to hear why.

Aye, I'm maybe being a bit harsh. Not used Opera for about a year, so put it on for a couple of hours tonight, and it's changed quite a bit for the better. I still much prefer Firefox and Safari though.

When I used it before, it was slow, unresponsive, and just generally...well, clunky. Seems to be a lot smoother and quicker now. Hey ho.

I use Firefox at home and work because I like it, but also because IE doesn't give tabs on Windows 2000, which is crap to have 20 windows open!

Ive just started using Firefox recently and I cant say enough about how much of an improvement it is on Internet Explorer. My Internet Explorer had no end of problems and was generally much slower especially on this forum for some reason.

I can't say I've ever experienced many problems on IE ... some crashing now and again but nothing unbearable

what does firefox have that will make me download it?

Mozilla for me

Extensions - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

Very, very, useful.

I recommend AdBlock Plus and Download Statusbar.

Please tell me yore not talking about the horrific windows version?

Why is it horrific? The screen display is the best of any browser there is. And it's fast, too.

It's only really let down by the actual front end, which is that horrible grey colour.

It wasnt fast when I tried it. In fact I put it head to head with opera and FF and it was quite a bit slower than both on the sites I tried.

Not sure what you mean by best screen display. I will agree that it looks awful though

I am guessing you've not used Safari on the Mac then..

The PC version is very much the ginger stepchild, but hell, maybe you like ginger stepchildren, who am I to say?

In my experience anything that was written for Mac and then later released to run on Windows, runs horribly. Not only would it run slow, it'll slow down the entire PC in general. As Ric has said before, surely if you want to run Safari on a Windows environment, surely Goole Chrome is the best option for you?

Until last night I would have voted for IE. It's always been stable, flexible, and reasonably fast. But then I downloaded Beta 8.2. I've got it at work and it's excellent, especially with it's compatability button, but f**k knows what's wrong with it on my home PC but it won't let me download anything because of the security settings. I'm not talking about music downloads either - more Flash 9 and Acrobat Reader. When I do get video I can't get sound. Real Player won't work on it. And worst of all you can't delete it or go back to an older version of IE. Instead you have to wait till they get round to the next version and hope that it'll fix the problem.

So now I'm working on Firefox 3 which I don't like - it's too cluttered and too unclean for my liking. Graphics and text look strange and a bit blurry. But at least it works.

You could try google chrome or apples safari as well. You can change the skin on firefox if you dont like the default one, also try turning clearfonts on in your display settings to sharpen up text.

From a technical point of view Stuart, IE is an absolute mess. The whole idea of a compatibility mode is laughable. There are standards out there, why don't they just create a browser that renders that rather than swapping between this and that mode. The reason they don't is because IE is such a dog, it has allowed people to write extremely poor HTML, CSS and Javascript which IE will attempt to display instead of just saying "no you are a f*cking idiot, go learn how to do this properly". It's a problem all of Microsoft's own making and we are now in a position where they aret trying to get themselves out of that corner they've painted themselves into.

They have also introduced a must stronger set of phishing filters. Again this is a problem of IE's making. Because it offers a technology called ActiveX (which integrates directly into the OS), something other browsers don't, this allows the vast majority of virus or trojans to get on your system. The reason IE doesn't allow you to download stuff is because it's so full of security holes and exploits that it's scared too.

This is just scraping the surface, I could go on and right an essay on the decisions that MS have made in regard to IE and why they were the wrong decisions and why they have damaged the evolution of client side development.

None of that, of course, helps your situation, I just couldn't let a mention of IE8 pass without some comment on it. In regard to your actual problem there are two things here. One of them is the downloads. Now thanks to IE being, in the main, inherently unsecure, they now make the default setting so that you can only download files when the site is within what is called the "trusted zone". Press [F1] in IE to bring up the help dialog and read what it says in there regarding the different zones and what they mean.

With respect to the other problem, it should be uninstallable in the same way every other program is, although I notice that it's listed under "Windows Internet Explorer" rather then just Internet Explorer, or Microsoft Internet Explorer which is was before. For more details, depending on OS, go here..

http://www.ghacks.net/2008/08/29/uninstall...net-explorer-8/

Market share amongst the masses (Q2, 2008):
IE: 73.8%
Firefox: 18.4%
Safari: 6%

Market share amongst people that use W3schools (latest stats):
IE: 50.5%
Firefox: 43.7%

I think that tells its own story: many people with a decent understanding of how crap IE really is, ditch it.

From my own point of view, the only reason I ever use IE is that all our works standards governance team refuse to back non-supported Open Source technologies (despite using Apache servers ) and as such we're forced to develop for IE. At home, IE is never used. At all.

Stats will always show a bigger FF usage from the more geekier (and some may say intelectual) subjects. That's not to say all IE users are retards, just the ones that use it out of choice. A large percentage of them have no choice as it's their designated browser on their work computers. That's where Chrome really needs to bite as I can't see a groundswell of big corporations switching to an FF based browser*, as it's been popular for quite some time now and if there was a switch you would see it happening by now. For me the figures being shown are far more down to home desktop usage than at work.


* One of the main reasons for that is, ironically, down to the fact that FF is "more" secure than IE. Because IE is integrated to the OS it will take on board Group Policy settings. These are things set by network admins to stop people dicking about with their PC (like the inability to set desktop wallpaper so the company one is always shown) and it also controls a lot of how Internet Explorer works (you can see this by going to [start]>[run] then type gpedit.msc). This takes away a lot of the work, and removes the need for a pre and post parsing proxy, which would be needed for FF as it doesn't take on (to the extent of IE) the GP settings and isn't as integrated to the core OS as IE is.

Ric, just found this thread again. I'll follow your advice on unistalling IE when I get home in the morning. I've always used IE - mainly because it was the browser of choice at work and I just preferred to work on the same software.

After I posted on here the other night I downloaded Google Chrome and I do like that. It loads much more quickly than Safari, IE and FF3 and it's a much cleaner browser. Obviously that's still a beta version too but I could easily be persuaded to make that my default browser at home.

Anyway thanks for the help Ric

No probs, if you continue to have problems, just post them in here.

Ric, I tried again to uninstall IE8.2 but it wouldn't go. I searched for more info and it seems that if you install 8.2 and then intall the latest service pack for XP you cannot uninstall IE 8.2. Apparently I would have had a warning about it when I installed 8.2 so it's my fault.

Anyway I tried to deal with it for a few days but if IE is broken so many functions on the PC go with it. For example it was impossible to do rollback the system to a period before 8.2 being installed. You also couldn't access the Microsoft Windows and Office update pages. Eventually I gave up and just did a system restore back to it's original state.

Lesson learned, don't install IE 8.2.