# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Tech Talk >  >  Browser Wars

## ninja9578

I'm curious after the last poll what browsers people use the most?  As a web-dev guy I would also like to know.  Most of our company focuses on Firefox, but we have a whole team who do IE stuff still.

Which browser do you use the most?

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## Marvo

I'm using Firefox 3x. I've tried Chrome, IE8 and Safari. Safari is pretty bad on Windows though, so I went away from that quickly. Chrome was better, but lacked a core addon that I really like to use.

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## slash112

I use Chrome for windows.

Chrome is so darn fast compared to IE or firefox. It is just slightly glitchy sometimes for me.

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## Odd_Nonposter

I use FF3x because I haven't really tried that many browsers, but I know that IE sucks in all ways possible. Chrome was nice, but it lacked an adblocking addon that FF could use. It didn't stop (come up with Connection Reset) most of the way through loading like FF does, but loading a whole page was still slower on ad-ridden websites.

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## MementoMori

FF 3X for the win for me... I've messed around with IE and all it's versions and it just blows a**. I recently tried out Chrome and it was very decent but as others have mentioned, it lacks the unique customization attributed to FF 3X, Haven't tried Opera, had Safari on my iTouch iPod and it just blowed ass... I actually used to think FF sucked balls until i started delving into it's many many many add-ons, which in turn inspired me to learn coding and scripting and hopefully someday I'll write some add-ons attributed to DV's in the near future  :wink2:

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## Keresztanya

Opera

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## Odd_Nonposter

I have Mozilla 3.5, Chrome, Safari, and IE running on my machine right now. All are opened to this page.

Task manager says:

Mozilla is using ~70,000K for memory
Chrome is using ~24,000K
Safari is using ~28,000K
IE is using ~40,000K

Mozilla is definitely the heavyweight here. But the addons (esp. adblock) make up for it big time. I have a very slow internet connection, so loading any more data than I have to will increase loading times for me significantly.

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## Ynot

> Mozilla is definitely the heavyweight here.



yes and no

in fact, more no than yes, but anyhow....

http://dreamviews.com/community/showthread.php?t=74369

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## ninja9578

> Mozilla is using ~70,000K for memory
> Chrome is using ~24,000K
> Safari is using ~28,000K
> IE is using ~40,000K



Impossible, those numbers are way waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too low.

Safari 4 and Firefox are both Heavy hitters on OSX. Safari is gobbling up 128MB, Firefox is using 109.1MB, and Chrome is only using 24.0MB

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## Donran

Atlast! A complete free-for-all browser battle!

Mozilla charges for the fight!(I still have to test the others, but i love mozilla.)

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## MementoMori

> Impossible, those numbers are way waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too low.
> 
> Safari 4 and Firefox are both Heavy hitters on OSX. Safari is gobbling up 128MB, Firefox is using 109.1MB, and Chrome is only using 24.0MB



I dunno, I'm running Windows and my Firefox is eating only 84,940KB right now and that's with the smileys jumping around, three other tabs open and a movie buffering on one of them...

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## ninja9578

Maybe Safari is lighter weight on Windows that it is on OSX.

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## Supernova

IE7.  I've tried FF on my school's computers, but for some reason I prefer to stick with IE.  Not updating to 8 though, just yet.

Then again, knowing my school, their version of FF is probably horribly outdated.

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## PeaceL

Firefox FTW. I haven't tried Chrome yet though. Will vote after testing it. It seems it's the only that could match Firefox IMO.

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## Mzzkc

I use Chrome on Windows, but I still use FF on my linux boot. However, I'm thinking about switching to Safari there. The latest versions of FF have just been too damn big and slow for my tastes.

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## Emi Chan

I like the Google Chrome ^_^ It looks cute to me.

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## Man of Steel

I use Google Chrome for everyday browsing, with Safari and Opera close seconds. I use Opera when a page or image stops loading halfway in Chrome or Safari, as it is apt to do for some reason. I use Chrome mainly because of it's tiny footprint and crash handling.

I use Firefox for web development, though. And IETester to test sites in all versions of IE, so I don't have to actually open IE7.

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## ninja9578

You know that IETester only tests the _rendering_ abilities of IE 6-8 right?  Not the JS engine?

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## AURON

> I like the Google Chrome ^_^ It looks cute to me.



all of this this.

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## ninja9578

Firefox can be cute.

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## khh

It's Opera all the way for me.

I've tried and used firefox 1x, 2x, 3x, safari4, Chrome 1x, 2x, 3x, IE6, IE7 and IE8, some on both linux and windows, but only Opera fulfills my browsing needs.

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## Man of Steel

> You know that IETester only tests the _rendering_ abilities of IE 6-8 right?  Not the JS engine?



No, I didn't know that.





> Welcome to the IETester Homepage.
> 
> IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Windows 7, Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process.

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## ninja9578

Oh, they must have added that since I looked at it  ::?:  It used to just be rendering, at least I think so.

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## CanceledCzech

Ha, I had a dream about this last night, looking at a graph I saw a while back and hearing someone (myself maybe?) saying "nerds are always really stubborn about which browser they use and usually refuse to change" and something like, "and they really hate IE".

Anyway, I use Firefox 3, or whatever it is. I hate IE, but only for the shitty interface and I've only really ever tried FF.

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## MementoMori

i for some ungodly fuk-saked reason open IE8 last night to just glimpse at it's flaws and BAM! i got attacked by some serious Malware!!! GRRRR i wanna rip IE outta my computer physically..... Bill Gates you sonovabich!

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## SomeDreamer

Firefox ftw!  :tongue2:  Even though it's quite good at eating some memory. As others I tried Chrome, and it is quite good, but obviously missing the customization of firefox, which I can't live without  ::D: 

I don't even understand why people would touch Internet explorer... even with a ten-foot pole. Unfortunately I have to when developing websites as it's kinda the mainstream browser in the industry for bigger companies .__.

Trying out the Acid3 test in IE is just embarrassing, I scored a 12  :tongue2:  And actually Chrome did better than Firefox. Chrome scored a 100 while firefox landed on a 93.

I would change to Chrome if some sort of add-on support was added in the future. Don't know what kind of plans they have in that area.

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## ninja9578

Makes sense, Chrome uses Webkit.  Webkit is the only engine out there that is Acid3 complete.  Opera will score a 100, but the engine recognizes that it's being tested and fudges the results.

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## SomeDreamer

> Makes sense, Chrome uses Webkit. Webkit is the only engine out there that is Acid3 complete.



ah, actually I didn't realize that Webkit was Acid3 complete. But awesome it is indeed ^^





> Opera will score a 100, but the engine recognizes that it's being tested and fudges the results



Now that's just cheap :3

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## MementoMori

OMG FF has this great add-on called bb, it's for bbcode, you never have to click any buttons again you just type up what you want and then highlight right click, choose the bbcode and bam! AWESOME shizit

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## ninja9578

> Now that's just cheap :3



Actually, it's not uncommon practice. When gaming companies brag about how fast their engines are on certain tests, they usually have code in them that detect that they are being tested and turn certain things on or off specifically for the test.

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## khh

> Makes sense, Chrome uses Webkit.  Webkit is the only engine out there that is Acid3 complete.  Opera will score a 100, but the engine recognizes that it's being tested and fudges the results.



No, Chrome uses a different javascript engine. Also, opera doesn't fudge the Acid3 results, they've just focused on getting it to work by implementing the functions it uses. But then so did Apple. At any rate, no browsers yet really pass the test, it's a criteria that it's to be rendered smoothly, and no browser does.

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## ninja9578

Webkit is not a JS engine, it's a rendering engine.  Chrome uses Webkit.

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## khh

> Webkit is not a JS engine, it's a rendering engine.  Chrome uses Webkit.



That was my whole point. And Acid3 tests javascript almost exclusively.

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## ninja9578

No, it also tests CSS functionality.

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## youssarian

Opera. I used IE8 for under a day and got sick of the lack of speed. My computer is buggier than the Amazon forest. Opera is small and slick, runs even better than Chrome for me.

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## Marvo

Chrome uses a JS engine called V8 I believe. It was developed by some danish guy, and Chrome is the first big browser to use it.

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## Maria92

Firefox 3x. Got my laptop a few months ago, and Firefox runs incredibly smoothly on it (vista is the OS). As I've stated before, I have tried other browsers, but none compare to Firefox. The infinite sea of addons and options is very nice, and I have yet to notice any "bulkiness" that some attribute to FF. I don't really care that it uses a tad bit more memory or that it's a bit slower on startup. It browses just as quickly as the other big players. The ad-blocker I have installed is also very nice. Plus, FF is cozy. :3

EDIT: Who's the poor, unlucky soul still using IE7? Person needs to dump that crapware and upgrade. Heck, a pencil and a piece of paper could do a better job than IE.

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## ArmoredSandwich

I don't understand why you do this in a poll. You can easily log this automagically. 

Also, Chrome is available for Linux, and it's awesome!

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## AURON

hey ninja! thanks for the cute firefox pic =)  btw...you remember back when netscape was the browser for cool kids?

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## ninja9578

Are you kidding?  I remember when netscape was the _only_ browser  ::D: 


That brings me back to my 8 shades of grey days.

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## MementoMori

Holy electronic shit batman! That's antique bra!

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## YULAW

I like how no one here likes IE. So this should be very fitting.

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## ninja9578

lol

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## SomeDreamer

Awesome...  :tongue2:

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## oniman7

Well, I logged onto the tech forum in order to say that I'm trying out Opera for the first time. I haven't really decided if it works better than Chrome yet, but I like some of its features so far. I'm a little bit confused about the Opera Turbo. I had mine set to auto, and it turned it off with a notification saying that it's only useful on slow networks. I was under the impression it could be an improvement anyways, but oh well.

I do like how Opera loads XML or whatever its called piece by piece, but still allows normal functionality while it's doing that. For instance, it loaded the text box first so I was able to start typing smoothly while the rest of the page was loading.

Or maybe I just never noticed it on the other browsers  :tongue2:

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## ninja9578

> I do like how Opera loads XML or whatever its called piece by piece, but still allows normal functionality while it's doing that. For instance, it loaded the text box first so I was able to start typing smoothly while the rest of the page was loading.



Ynot, I'll take this one.  Never say that to a technical user.  If Opera is loading XML in pieces, then it's not a proper XML parser and is sure to falter somewhere.  The XML specifications _require_ that the entire thing get loaded and parsed before any work is done, if it doesn't do that, then it is not considered an XML parser.  XML is one of those rare formats where both the format and the logic of the parser are defined by the specifications.  SAX can be done in pieces, but SAX is less robust than XML.

Hense why I use JSON for all my stuff  :tongue2:

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## oniman7

Sorry, I'm not a real high-end techie. I've done some playing around in C, but I don't know a whole lot about the technical or coding end of the computer, although I did pick up some handy logic.

What I meant -- and failed -- to say is that the graphics on the webpage load one piece at a time, instead of loading the whole page at once. I'm not sure if it was done by design, or maybe just something with my computer, but it seems to be a more efficient process.
Maybe it's all the cookies I've got on Google Chrome, but that seems to load almost instantly, and Opera is noticeably slower. I do like that it seems to operate more smoothly, where Google Chrome tends to slow down now and then.

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## ninja9578

Oh, all browsers do that.  Some of them just have things in cache so they load very quickly, some sites (like DV) come back compressed, so it has to be loaded all at once, (except for images of course.)

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## Kromoh

Chrome all the way. Light, standard-compliant (for html'ing), noob-friendly, nice looks.

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## khh

> I'm a little bit confused about the Opera Turbo. I had mine set to auto, and it turned it off with a notification saying that it's only useful on slow networks.



When you've got Opera Turbo activated, the pages will go through Opera's servers and get compressed before the page is sent to you. This leads to a noticeable speed up on dialup, or when you're browsing through your cell phone and other slow connections, but since it requires an extra step it won't help with a fast connection.





> Hense why I use JSON for all my stuff



JSON isn't all that supported yet, though, is it?





> Chrome all the way. Light, standard-compliant (for html'ing), noob-friendly, nice looks.



Opera is also very standard compliant, noob-firendly and nice looking. Though it's best suited for tabbed browsing.

edit: Also, the gradual load of pages are due to a slow connection. Opera outputs something as soon as it's got something to output, and the redraws the window continuously until all content is downloaded. Many other browsers wait till they have more to display. On my connection the pages appear nearly instantaneously.

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## ninja9578

> JSON isn't all that supported yet, though, is it?



In what capacity?  A good chunk of server to client communication is done via JSON because it's lighter weight than XML.  Server to server still has to be XML because of advanced features of XML.  JSON -> JS Objects conversion is embedded in the JS engines of Firefox, Chrome, and Safari.

JSON is preferred by me because the specifications don't require that it all be parsed at once.  I wrote the fastest JSON parser out there because mine does on-the-fly analysis.  My engine can load an array of 100 thousand JSON objects and not skip a beat.  Try that in XML.

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## Kromoh

> Opera is also very standard compliant, noob-firendly and nice looking. Though it's best suited for tabbed browsing.
> 
> edit: Also, the gradual load of pages are due to a slow connection. Opera outputs something as soon as it's got something to output, and the redraws the window continuously until all content is downloaded. Many other browsers wait till they have more to display. On my connection the pages appear nearly instantaneously.



Tried Opera, found it terrible.

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## chikiwighi

I am using mozilla firefox 3.6 for Linux platform and Internet Explorer for Windows XP professional.

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## oniman7

Quick update. I've been using Opera for a while now and I've switched to that for my web browsing, switching back to Chrome from time to time. I like the functionality of Chrome. Like I've said, I'm decent with computers, but I don't need all the developer tools or anything like that (I don't even know what Opera has to offer in this way). Just found the Widgets bar as I was making this  ::D: . Will have to try it out. (By the way, the I Can Haz Cheezeburger Widget is amazing).

Anyways, I like the small customizable things Opera has to offer. The toolbar is intuitive, with most of the common tools in one place. The tabs are also very friendly, which Opera and Chrome do well (I never used tabs until I got Chrome, and realized that 90% of IE users don't know how to use them). The Turbo feature is nice for when my connection gets slow, and I like the Speed dial better than the most visited pages (which tended to glitch up and stick on pages I had visited once or twice).

The only downside I can find is that, from time to time, I'll run across a website or application that doesn't support Opera. 

Seriously, after using browsers like Chrome and Google, I can't understand why anyone would use IE, though I'd rather use that than Safari.

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## sheogorath

Chrome here. I used to use firefox, but for me chrome is worth it just for the increased screen space and speed. I do still use firefox sometimes though when i need to use an addon or to check secondary accounts on youtube (so that it doesn't log me out on chrome)

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## Kromoh

> increased screen space



Oh, I totally forgot that. It was one of the major reasons I swapped to Chrome back then. It's not that I have a small screen, but the extra space just did it for me.

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## Spenner

FF3 Fo sho.

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## Maria92

I found a series of simple FF tweaks that make it comparable to Chrome in browsing speed. Personas are just incredible. Many of the add-ons are very pleasant, too. The small screen space is nice to me...I get a quick-access bookmarks toolbar and a stumbleupon toolbar, in addition to the standard one. Definitely worth a few pixels for all you get. ^_^

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## youssarian

Opera.

LAAAAAA! Figaro! Figaro!

I also have Firefox.
I *should* have IE on my computer, but when I upgraded it I tried running it before restart and it threw me an error and when I _did_ reboot... it was gone. And it took the start menu (and maybe the executables) for Wordpad, Paint and Windows Media Player.
I also have used Google Chrome. I like how one frozen tab won't crash the others.
My high school had MacOSX computers (why?) so I was a Safari user also. Plus my friend let me use a VNC to hook onto his computer and I was able to use Konqueror.

But Opera has been best for me.

(As a side-note, while playing with the icons on the OSX dock, I got the icons for Finder, Internet Explorer, Safari, and Microsoft Word lined up. It looked like it said "MEOW". hehe)

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## Man of Steel

After some thought . . .

I find your lack of Konqueror, Epiphany, Fennec, Midori, Dillo, Flock, Lynx, and sundry others disturbing.

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## LRT

Chrome now has addons (and themes!). All you FF diehards can leave now.

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## Ynot

> All you FF diehards can leave now.



I think not

anyway,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron

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## Maria92

Firefox still pwns all in terms of add-ons. Until I see picture-in-picture for Chrome, as well as personas, I'm not changing.

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## Man of Steel

Chrome's themes are nearly identical to personas.

Edit: Checking out Iron now, too.

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## Maria92

Granted, but you can't make your own, and the number available is starkly limited compared to the number and variety offered by Personas. 

At least Chrome got add-ons. I might actually start using it now because of that. ^_^

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## Artelis

guess I'm the only Mac Chrome user. It's still in beta, but pretty solid. I've run into a few small bugs, but they've all been fixed in recent updates. Score.

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## Identity X

I use Chrome, both at home and at work (with IE8), but develop for IE8 (though fundamentally cross-platform*, _via_ good design  :Shades wink: )

Opera 10.5 is looking nice though. I was a hardcore Opera user but Chrome took a hold a while back. It _is_ an awesome piece of engineering, and is on many "good code to read and learn" lists.

* This includes IE6...

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