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Browsers all suck.

silverfire

By silverfire
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silverfire Advanced Member

silverfire

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I've tried all three of the major browsers lately, and frankly, I don't like what I see. Most notably:

Internet Explorer 7 beta 2:

--Too much eye candy (bordering on bloatware now)

--Two too many clicks to get to JavaScript settings

--Too many options lumped into 'Advanced'

Firefox 1.5.0.1:

--Memory leaks to hell, back, beyond, and a few orbits around

--Excruciatingly long application startup time compared to the others

--Opens a brand new tab when downloads are started (Disable targets for downloads extension does absolutely nothing)

Opera 8.53:

--Strange quirks with thinking cookies are disabled when they're fully enabled.

--Nonstandard action with Ctrl+T setting a bookmark instead of opening a tab like in IE 7 and FF 1.5

--Weird print placement issues

All three have:

--Websites that don't render properly regardless of Acid 2 compliance

--Perfectly fine security, though I'm definitely not the best measure of security since I use the internet responsibly, with updated protection, and regardless of browser, I have never had any viruses or spyware in the last year and a half. It is noteworthy, however, that IE 7 comes with a phishing filter out of the box... just when phishing isn't the in-thing for skript kiddies anymore.

--No speed problems with page loading

All three browsers are competent at what they do, but I just wish there was one browser that wouldn't be screwed up in one way or another. I think when browsers wave around Acid 2 compliance, security, speed, or other irrelevant things, they're simply inflating their features list. Page rendering still rests in the hands of the people coding the site, security or the lack thereof stems mostly from user stupidity, and speed depends mainly on your internet connection. Associating these solely with a browser is idiotic.

/me stops using the internet

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stevvi Advanced Member

stevvi

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On a related note, does anyone else have problems veiwing the BBC homapage in FF? For the last few days it's not displaying some images, forms and buttons at all. It only seems to be the homepage that's effected. I've tried clearing out cookies etc. but nothing seems to work.

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Ares Advanced Member

Ares

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Whoa, I was thinking about a µBrowser just yesterday. It would be awesome if Ludde ever got into that, but I wasn't going to say anything as he's got enough on his plate anyway, and he's probably not interested to begin with. But one can dream. :P

For that matter, I wouldn't mind running LuddeOS either ;) - I bet it would run off a floppy and run circles around Windows lol

-Ares

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Ultima Advanced Member

Ultima

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@silverfire: You can set the keyboard shortcut in Opera (I know you already know this xD). In any case, since you tried IE7 beta, why not try the Opera 9 Weekly builds? They seem fairly stable to me, and the default action for Ctrl+T (I believe -- I overwrite keyboard settings with my premade ones, so I don't remember) is to open new tabs now, with Ctrl+D being save bookmark.

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silverfire Advanced Member

silverfire

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Firefox 1.0.7 is fair game for hackers since exploits appear frequently for Firefox as well as any other browser. Its only redemption as of now is quick updates. Without it, Firefox would be considered just as leaky as Internet Explorer. Aside from that, 1.5.0.1 starts up a lot faster than 1.0.7 ever did for me, and doesn't bloat itself to as astronomical of proportions as 1.0.7. I'm going to stick with Opera 9.0 Preview 2 for awhile then perhaps move on to Firefox 2.0 alpha since I really don't have the attention span to stay with something for long.

http://www.whitedust.net/speaks/1432/

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Badsecurityforum Advanced Member

Badsecurityforum

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I've tried all three of the major browsers lately, and frankly, I don't like what I see. Most notably:

Internet Explorer 7 beta 2:

--Too much eye candy (bordering on bloatware now)

--Two too many clicks to get to JavaScript settings

--Too many options lumped into 'Advanced'

You forgot:

- it is still Internet Exploder

Firefox 1.5.0.1:

--Memory leaks to hell, back, beyond, and a few orbits around

--Excruciatingly long application startup time compared to the others

--Opens a brand new tab when downloads are started (Disable targets for downloads extension does absolutely nothing)

Many memory leaks are caused by bad extensions. This also adds to the load time. My mem usage stays pretty much the same at 70MB if using FF normal. Sometimes i open nearly 100 tabs and then mem usage goes up but that is just normal.

As for the blank tabs while downloading. I have TabMixPlus installed and it prevents them just fine most of the time. IMHO also the best extension to handle tabs.

But it looks like some systems are more affected by memory leaks.

All three have:

--Websites that don't render properly regardless of Acid 2 compliance

--Perfectly fine security, though I'm definitely not the best measure of security since I use the internet responsibly, with updated protection, and regardless of browser, I have never had any viruses or spyware in the last year and a half. It is noteworthy, however, that IE 7 comes with a phishing filter out of the box... just when phishing isn't the in-thing for skript kiddies anymore.

--No speed problems with page loading

I am only using Firefox but what makes you think that a page is not rendered properly?

First, you should not rely on the browser to render pages correct that don't follow the standards. And that is what the Acid2 test is about. And most of the browsers don't pass the Acid2 test at all. If a webpage is coded correctly it will most certainly display fine in every good browser. In 99% of all cases a webpage renders not properly because it has errors or is "optimized for IE"

OK, IE7 is new but i doubt that it will be any better at security as IE6 is now. It is still Microsoft software. Maybe it is not as worse as with IE6 but i will be far worse than Firefox or Opera and i wouldn't put "perfectly fine security" and "Internet Explorer" in the same sentence.

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BloodStaindHurricane Advanced Member

BloodStaindHurricane

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I fired up Maxthon(my old browser of choice b4 Opera), and couldnt believe the memory usage difference between that and Opera. Maxthon was much, much lighter when compared with the same session open. Ridiculously lighter.

I even installed FF again to test it out...been a while since I last used it. Have to admit that I uninstalled it within 15 mins. Horrible. I could never be a fan of that browser.

I tried the Opera9 Tech Preview 2 and the widgets, for one are completely useless to me. I cant figure really why they wanted to add widgets...

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stevvi Advanced Member

stevvi

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I've been slowly getting more pissed of with FF as it just seems to be dog slow to do anything and everything recently. I've just started using Opera (rather than just having it there for testing site design) and am *very* impressed. Yeah, I see no use for the widgets available right now but no-one's saying you have to use 'em.

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1c3d0g Advanced Member

1c3d0g

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Popular extension combinations are known to produce memory leaks, unfortunately. :( For instance, I used FlashGot with AdBlock Plus (among other extensions), but those 2 specifically created ugly memory leaks, and after uninstalling FlashGot and upgrading AdBlock Plus (it fixed a memory leak in a recent vesion), everything is OK again. :) I've also found that setting your disk cache too high (mine was 100 MB) slows down my PC...so I adjusted it to 16 MB, and now all is well. Disabling the "recently-viewed pages" option (or whatever it's called) also helps a lot. ;)

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Memory_Leak

http://www.squarefree.com/2006/02/04/memory-leak-progress/

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BloodStaindHurricane Advanced Member

BloodStaindHurricane

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Yep, Opera usually uses around 33-35 RAM w/ me, but I've never seen it less than about 16. I've been using nothing but Maxthon all day, and it hasnt risen above 9, no matter how many tabs open. I had forgotten it used so little RAM vs Opera/FF/etc. That alone tempts me to go back to using Maxthon full-time, since I'm already familiar w/ it anyways. That and its higher compatibility w/ sites. But, I'd miss too many things from Opera, namely Opera Mail. I'm usually pretty selfish w/ my RAM, but its not an easy decision when it comes to thinking of replacing Opera.

Ultima, what was the RAM usage like in Opera 9? I tried the techpreview 2, but went back to 8.5 until v9 is publicly released. No problems, just decided to wait. Didnt pay much attention to RAM usage during the short time it was installed either.

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silverfire Advanced Member

silverfire

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@Mugros: I evaluated all three browsers with an open mind. The 'it's Internet Explorer' argument doesn't work on me since I see no problems with using Internet Explorer. And I can safely say that Internet Explorer is "perfectly safe" since I never get viruses or spyware through responsible computing by not relying on inherent browser security. Additionally, under Windows Vista, Internet Explorer 7 can run in a 'protected mode' that cripples any of the previously dangerous integration with the underlying OS, so all your bashing of Internet Explorer is unnecessary. I will admit that all three browsers have their advantages and disadvantages, but saying that 'it's Internet Explorer' is a disadvantage is immature and borderline fanboyish.

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Badsecurityforum Advanced Member

Badsecurityforum

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Well, the latest Adblock Plus 0.6 has really nothing to do with the older versions. It is a total rewrite. I am using vanilla Adblock and also Flashgot. Add Greasemonkey, NoScript, RIP, TabMixPlus, CustomizeGoogle, Fasterfox and a dozen more. I don't have memory problems. Of course, memory usage is not the best but i never noticed any slowdown because of the memory FF consumes.

1c3d0g linked useful infos. It is always good to check if FF behaves bad with a clean profile.

BSH, i hope you also count the mem usage of the iexplore-thread (i am not sure how they will show up in the tasklist). Most certainly there should be any. Maxthon uses the IE engine and that is not so light on the mem. The 9 meg should be only the Maxthon wrapper for the engine not the renderer itself.

Apropos IE: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/23/180255

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Ultima Advanced Member

Ultima

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@BSH:

The numbers I wrote above are for Opera 9 ;P

I run Opera on a whitelist basis when it comes to content, though, so by default, all sites have no sound, Java, Javascript, or plugins. That might help with the memory usage. And yeah, I remember using Maxthon and being awed by its amazingly small memory footprint. Even though that's the case, I suggest you use Opera anyway. In my experience, even though I'm a safe surfer, I somehow managed to get crap onto my computer when using Maxthon, which prompted my ditching Internet Explorer and any shell using it as an engine.

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