# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Tech Talk >  >  What Web Browser do you use and why?

## Adam

I have gone through IE7, Firefox, Opera and now trying out Safari 3.

So wondered what you guys use and on what OS, and the reasons  :smiley:

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## Alex D

Camino on OS X Tiger.

Why? Same basic browser as firefox, renders things exactly the same etc, but it has a slightly better design.

I'd use Safari 2, but that's really bad when it comes to flash for some reason, so that's a no-go. Maybe Safari 3 will fix that.

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## ninja9578

Safari 3 Beta on OSX, because it's by far the fastest rendering and I need speed.

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## Ynot

vanilla firefox mostly
sometimes firefox disguised as IE to fool my banks crappy online banking system

*edit*
on a similar note
this was published today
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/13517/53/

*edit 2*
reasons....
too lazy to try anything else

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## sourcejedi

Konqueror (on Linux).

Because... it integrates rather nicely with the rest of KDE.  You can configure it to create new tabs just after the current tab, instead of as the last tab, so you can keep related tabs together while flipping to and fro.  You can duplicate individual tabs (or an entire window) very easily, and they copy the history as well so you can copy your current tab and go back, while leaving your current page intact.  

If you find a page with lots of links you want to open in tabs, but you've already got lots of tabs open, you can "detach" the current tab into a new window.  And if Konqueror can't render something properly, there's a menu item for "open with", so you can switch to Firefox or whatever easily when you need to.

Sounds funny that I'm so attached to Konqueror's tabs, but that really is what I like most about it.

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## Replicon

Firefox. It's not just about tab browsing and "quick link" bookmarks (which rock, by the way), but also some of the extensions:

- Flashblock: Makes it so any flash that loads in your browser needs to be manually clicked on first. This means that you don't get interrupted by annoying flash banners that just waste bandwidth (and not to mention sometimes play sounds you don't care about).

- AdBlock: You can use a wildcarded expression to block any url from being accessed by firefox. Essentially, any page you go to a lot (facebook or whatever) is as ad-free as you want it to be.

- FireBug: This is more interesting for developers, but this thing shows you all http requests (and timing for them), DOM details, various debug messages, and all kinds of other REALLY nifty stuff.

- GreaseMonkey: For a given site, you can install a custom javascript to modify the page into pretty much anything you want. For example, if I wanted the "++ Quote" button on this site to open the "quick reply" box and manually paste the quote in, I might be able to do it (with a bit of work).

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## Man of Steel

Firefox. As Republicon says, it's the extensions/add-ons that make it for me. I've used Opera too, and liked it, as it integrates some features that you need add-ons to get in Firefox, but those add-ons tend to do a beter job, in my opinion. And there're a heck of a lot of them. I use:

-Adblock Plus
-GreaseMonkey
-FireBug
-Firefox Showcase (lets you display all open tabs in a single pane, in real-time)
-All-in-One Sidebar (basically just like Opera's sidebar, only with more features)
-Fasterfox
-FlashGot (works with download managers)
-Forecastfox (weather on the status bar)
-freenigma (email encryption)
-GameFOX TK+ (works to improve the GameFAQs website)
-Linkification (makes any text link clickable)
-PDF Download
-Sage (RSS feed)
-ScribeFire (blogging tool
-StumbleUpon (ultimate boredom killer)
-Tab Mix Plus (improves tabbed browsing)
-Tab Effect (it's cool, but it slows FF down)
-translator (translator tool)
-UnPlug 
-VideoDownloader (lets you download imbedded video, etc)

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## Keeper

Firefox

It better then my other one  :smiley:

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## Barnsey

I use Opera. Same standard features as the others, i.e tabbed pages. It appears to be the quickest to load up pages too. I also like the speed dial feature, voice commands and the way it can speak text to you.

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## MSG

I started using IE7 when it came out since it was much faster than Firefox, used up less screen space for toolbars etc., and was downright sexy looking (especially in Vista). Stopped using it though because it had a tendency to break some websites.

I use Firefox now, except without add-ons / extensions / all this bullshit that is trying to put everything in the web browser. Default theme for me, I truly don't care if my buttons are skinned to look exactly like the Starship Enterprise control panel.

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## Replicon

HAha "Republicon?" there's a new one  ::lol::

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## Sornaensis

IE7 totally PWNS all!!!!!!!!!1111 Because it does 8).

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## Kromoh

Firefox, mostly because of easy usage and all of the extensions already mentioned.



IE7 is good, but not the best. IE7 is 92/100 ; firefox is 98/100

Have already tried opera and dislike it. Better than IE6 but worse than IE7

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## Man of Steel

> HAha "Republicon?" there's a new one




Err, crap. Sorry about that, Replicon. I seem to have a knack for butchering usernames... The other day in chat I read lvlindless as Mindless. Yeah, that was embarrassing too.

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## Neko

Firefox all the way. The extensions and the nice themes are what do it for me.

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## Replicon

> Err, crap. Sorry about that, Replicon. I seem to have a knack for butchering usernames... The other day in chat I read lvlindless as Mindless. Yeah, that was embarrassing too.



Nice! I would have thought the "lvl" was purposely there to spell Mindless  ::D: .

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## BeautifulDreamer

Firefox, easier to use, adblocker, nice themes, add ons... IE7 is a bad copy of Firefox.

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## bob_barker

firefox

cause of the add on things


like foxy tunes

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## Karillion

Firefox for this theme and for the great add-ons. Can't wait for FF3 to come out as it will supposedly improve page rendering times by quite a bit, which is my only gripe with FF.

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## Penter

Firefox. The only other browser I've really used is Internet Explorer, and Firefox is just way better. But I don't care enough about a browser to try out all of them and experiment.

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## bitness

Currently, I am using Safari 3 on OS X. I would be using Flock, but the latest release is bogged down by all the bloat. Safari 3 seems to be really fast at least perception-wise compared to Firefox. Probably cannot beat Camino though.

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## Man of Steel

I downloaded K-Meleon a day or so ago, and gave it a try today. While I think I'll stick with Firefox, K-Meleon is a tad faster, I think. Too, it loads like lightning.

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## Wavefunction

> IE7 totally PWNS all!!!!!!!!!1111 Because it does 8).



One of the few people with sense around here  :wink2:

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## Adam

> Firefox for this theme and for the great add-ons. Can't wait for FF3 to come out as it will supposedly improve page rendering times by quite a bit, which is my only gripe with FF.



You tried this?

http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=38277

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## Neko

> You tried this?
> 
> http://www.dreamviews.com/community/...ad.php?t=38277



Wow, that actually works.  :smiley:

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## Dragos Dreamer

I use Advanced Browser...yes it's really called Advanced Browser...

After I realized how much I hated IE, I started looking around and found it. Haven't tried much since because I love this one, so I don't know the many features they might have, but some of the features I enjoy on Advanced Brower are: 

-The ability to center-click a link and have it automatically open up in a new tab, with settings for opening either on top of or below your current tab.

-The ability to hold right click and press left click and have it go back to the previous page, and vice versa to go forward a page.

-An option where you can individually allow Advanced Browser to delete stuff like cookies, temporary internet files, search history, and several other things every time you exit Advanced Browser. <--- I love this one.

-Simple, effective, and customizable design.

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## Adam

> Wow, that actually works.



You sound suprised lol. Glad if works for you  :smiley:

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## dsr

I mainly use Camino because it conforms nicely to Apple's human interface guidelines (as does the aforementioned Konqueror conform to those of KDE) and implements by default most of the Firefox extensions I would be using anyway.

Since this is the tech forum, you should probably add a console web browser like lynx or w3m. The latter is one of the best browsers available if you don't mind the lack of a GUI.

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## Man of Steel

Dragos Dreamer, I would highly recommend Firefox. The security is much better.


Who's used Dillo before?

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## 2Fruits

Firefox! The addons, the fantastic adblocker, the security and just the easy layout and tabs etc.! I haven't tried safari or opera but would never go back to IE.

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## pokilty

Firefox because hell yeah. Need I say more?

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## Adam

I'm thinking of switching back to firefox, but Opera sits so nicely within Vista, very aesthetically pleasing; even if the performance has to suffer a little...

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## Adam

Yep - Just switched back to Firefox.

Anyone know any good black skins for Firefox? My opera skin looked so nice with Vista, this firefox one is JANK!

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## Ynot

just browse through these
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:2

there's a few vista type skins under OS integration

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## Adam

Thanks, I had a look through these after going via the ad-ons tab. Nothing really floats my boat though lol

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## Man of Steel

Adam, might I recommend either Redshift V2, OldFactory Black, or MidnightFox. Especially OldFactory Black.


I use iFox, myself, though. Along with the Milk visual style for StyleXP. And a coupla docks...

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## Adam

Thanks mate, will have a look for these  :smiley:

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## hopefullninja

Firefox with my windows XP. I tired IE, but it slow, not too good to look at and could get overcrowded. Firefox is exactly the opposite. It usually doesn't slow down with multiple windows/tabs.

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## badassbob

I use IE7, because that's what I was given and I don't know the difference...

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## Pyrofan1

Firefox on Gentoo. because it rocks and it has less dependencies than opera

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## dsr

> Firefox on Gentoo. because it rocks and it has less dependencies than opera



emerge --kill-gentoo-(pyro)fanboy

Portage rocks!

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## ZNOFZ

I used IE 6 for such a long time and has so many bad experiences with it that I swore id never go back.  Ive heard that IE 7 is much better and safer but the memories remain.  I like Firefox mostly because of the community and amount of other uses that use it.  It makes it very easy to get add-ons and customizations.  I usually customize Firefox, such as making the buttons larger and getting rid of the unnecessary drop down menu's.

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## illidan

Safari. Main reasons: rendering speed and pretty GUI.

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## TweaK

Firefox on Vista. Simply it works best and ActiveX is blocked. I use Adblock Plus with it so I can disable certain images/flash thingies etc (like -gasp- _ads_). 

I'd use IE but the lack of a menu on top (File / Edit / View etc) looks bad to me. I know you can press alt to reveal it, but that's only so you can use it. I want it to just _be there_. Also, the taskbar is at the top, and I like the Firefox layout much better (from top to page contents: Menu, Taskbar/Buttons/Searchbar, Quick bookmarks, tabs, page content). That being said, I do not dislike IE7.

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## Lord Toaster

> Firefox because hell yeah. Need I say more?



Ditto

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## Identity X

Back in the dark days I used IE6 like most PC users I guess. I switched to Firefox and used it for about three-four years. When I was using it, I thought it was great. IE7 came out, didn't interest me much and the interface looks likes it has been designed by a retard with a hate for menus.

I'm not sure why I downloaded Opera 9.2, even though it was only a month ago. Seriously, I have no idea why. But, I mean this, this is far better than Firefox. I mean, it urinates on my personal Firefox experience from a great height.

I'll explain some of the benefits:

It has a bin always visible that stores tabs you have closed. This is ESSENTIAL and is a life saver.It has a side bar where you can view websites in mini, such as a mini dictionary, mini wikipedia, plus you can view history, mail, downloads, notes, and various other system views.Faster (great cold start speed, good rendering) and doesn't swallow memory like a fucktard (that'll be Firefox for you).You can save sessionsIt looks nice and you don't have to resort to shitty themes (although you still can if you're so inclined).Not only has it a decent, well-intergrated mail client, it's also the only mail client I've ever had which has managed all the email accounts it has given without fault.A little page preview when you hover over a tab. A gimmick until you actually start using it.Inbuilt IRC, RSS, Usenet, Torrent, whatnot.The download manager in Firefox is SHIT. Opera's exists as a tab and has a lot of info displayed... great stuff.A notes taking thing in the side bar. Select text, copy as note... great for saving snippets of websites.Mouse gestures, but you can get those in FF anyways. I'm an advocate.No status bar! Pointless things...Everything "just works" and most things are easy. it's got an auto-form filler, which saves time, and a bunch of other stuff.

All in all, it's a ten out of ten piece of software. It hasn't replaced uTorrent but as for all its other features, I use it. No extensions, but none are necessary.

http://www.opera.com/

So, yeah, I use Opera.

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## Ynot

Thought some would find this interesting
Interview with the founder of Opera
http://www.theregister.com/2007/08/1...ceo_interview/

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## Xedan

I take it this thread was pre-chrome (I don't remember when they released it). Sorry for necro posting, but I found this in a google search. Or more precisely, an archived log of this.

Anyways, I use Chrome because it is sleek at the top, runs fast, and so far has not gotten an virus or had any glitches. Recently Firefox (which I only use when I need to download media with orbit downloader, which is incompatible with chrome) has started crashing VERY often. But that wasn't really the reason I switched, I didn't discover that until after. In my oinion, chrome seems to be a good balance between FF and Safari.

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## Indeed

I agree with the guy above.
Chrome is the greatest.

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## slash112

lolbump

Anyways, yea, Chrome is great. But it has a lot of problems. vB4 has quite a few problems with Chrome (And that's what DV uses now)
And it has plenty of problems in other situations too.

Basically, it's a shitty fucking browser, but I still love it.

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## marcher22

Firefox, my brother started using it when I was like 11, and then I caught on. It's must faster than IE and I haven't tried IE7 but don't want to bother going back either. I also have Chrome but I found FireFox to be faster and theres been a few issues on Chrome when loading certain websites.

Both run on Windows XP

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## kookyinc

Safari V 5.0 with the Glims plugin. The activities window is helpful for downloading stuff like YouTube videos. Plus, I've used Safari since I got my Mac, and I don't change very often.

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## Forsaken

lol I think this poll might suffer from the problem of most IE users not knowing or caring what browser they use, thus skewing the results wildly.

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## no-Name

> lol I think this poll might suffer from the problem of most IE users not knowing or caring what browser they use, thus skewing the results wildly.



there's nothing really being messed with, is there? it's a valid answer. sure, it's the most common answer IE users will report; but it's hardly wrong.

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## mattbrox

Firefox 4.0 is fantastic. Go get it.

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## Xedan

I've posted here before getting opera. Now that I've tried it I really like it, but I've grown fond of Chrome and it's style, and don't see too much of a reason to use opera instead. Except in the case of my laptop where for some reason out of the blue Chrome just stopped working on it or even opening, and I couldn't successfully re-install it either. So on my laptop I use opera and it seems to me to be very reliable, I haven't had any real problems with it. I don't even think it's ever crashed.

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## Abra

Has it already been said that customizable systems are the hipster of the future?

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## Keresztanya

> Has it already been said that customizable systems are the hipster of the future?



Gentoo is for hipsters!

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## Abra

> Gentoo is for hipsters!



p. much. Though I was more poking at casual ubuntu users such as myself.

But my desktop is a sphere and my windows minimize into blue flames!

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## dajo

I use Firefox. 

Sorry for being off topic, but I have come across numerous articles about hipsters and what they're supposed to be about. Loss of identity, consuming culture as opposed to being a counter culture and apparently you see them in every major American and European city. Well... I live in a major European city and I have no idea what's up. As far as I know they and people complaining about them only exist in the internet. Can someone fill me in?





> Firefox 4.0 is fantastic. Go get it.



Apparently it's not out for macintosh yet?

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## Abra

> Sorry for being off topic, but I have come across numerous articles about hipsters and what they're supposed to be about. Loss of identity, consuming culture as opposed to being a counter culture and apparently you see them in every major American and European city. Well... I live in a major European city and I have no idea what's up. As far as I know they and people complaining about them only exist in the internet. Can someone fill me in?



I see hipsters as people who do anything on an empty premise. They buy fair trade coffee because they like the idea of helping natives get by, starting from the time they see the label, and ending when they voice their desired purchase to the cashier. So here, hipsterdom would be jumping on the open-source bandwagon without any resolve to learn the language, or using firefox solely because it's not IE (without knowing why IE is terrible. Conversely, a hipster would only see differentiability between the two by using firefox personas.).

Also they listen to indie (it's a genre!), wear scarves in the summer, and dress like 80's nerdesque vomit.

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## dajo

It may be that hipsterdom is just be called indie here.

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## Xox

There are so many hipsters in NYC. I don't mind them. Why would I anyway? :p I find there is this whole huge hate thing against hipsters, which is amusing. Hipsters are amusing. Hipster hate is amusing. (Not calling you a hipster hater btw Abra)

I use Chrome. It's beautiful.

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## Abra

> There are so many hipsters in NYC. I don't mind them. Why would I anyway? :p I find there is this whole huge hate thing against hipsters, which is amusing. Hipsters are amusing. Hipster hate is amusing. (Not calling you a hipster hater btw Abra)
> 
> I use Chrome. It's beautiful.



But I _am_ an hipster. 'Cept for the 80's nerdvomit.

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## Puffin

Firefox on my mother's computer, IE7 on my father's.
I find Firefox to be much faster and it doesn't have the annoying IE popups at startup.

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## Tyler

Firefox because it's beast.

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## Zac

Safari 5, because it's amazing. I also have Firefox, Chrome and Opera installed. I like the simplicity of Chrome, too, but Firefox just seems bloated to me.

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## reere

Firefox!!! My favorite one for years! ::bowdown::

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## Xei

Why is there no Chrome option? :l

Considering it's more popular than Safari and Opera put together. :l

Probs cos the poll was made in 2007. :l

I use Chrome. :l

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## Maria92

I've tried FF and Chrome, and Firefox wins. Still use chrome once in a while...mostly for checking to see whether or not a page is actually busted, or if my browser is just spazzing out. I just love Firefox's customizability and massive sea of great addons. Chrome is starting to catch up with extensions, but I still think Firefox gives you greater freedom to do what you want to it. On a newer system, the difference in speed between the two browsers is marginal to nonexistent.

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## freakyDreamer

I use firefox
Mostly because IE sucks, and firefox has a bunch of sweet plugins
I have
AdBlock Plus (blocks commercials/ads, including the stupid CBS commercials on youtube)
YouTube Downloader
And a couple others

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## Hidden

Chrome, because Firefox and IE are too slow on this computer.

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## XeL

Chrome. I'm not happy.

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## khh

> Chrome. I'm not happy.



Get Opera.

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## ninja9578

> Chrome. I'm not happy.



Use wget

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## Xedan

> Chrome. I'm not happy.



0.0

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## Xedan

I wonder if chromium will ever be an actual competitor against FF, Chrome, and Opera.

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## khh

> Use wget



Wget isn't really a browser. He should get links or lynx.

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## DrunkenArse

> I wonder if chromium will ever be an actual competitor against FF, Chrome, and Opera.



I use chromium

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## Xedan

> I use chromium



Is it as glitchy as people say it is?

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## DrunkenArse

It works pretty well. I went to checkout acid3 with it earlier and it didn't have javascript in that one window for some reason. I just went and checked it out again and it scored 100/100 as promised. Occasionally flash will crash but on the whole, it's good enough for my purposes.

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## Xedan

> It works pretty well. I went to checkout acid3 with it earlier and it didn't have javascript in that one window for some reason. I just went and checked it out again and it scored 100/100 as promised. Occasionally flash will crash but on the whole, it's good enough for my purposes.



what about style? That's a big point with me. Is it as sleek as chrome?

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## DrunkenArse

it's essentially indistinguishable from chrome aside from the default style.

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## Tyler

I was checking out a site to download Chromium from, but my computer wasn't on the list of compatible systems.

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## DrunkenArse

try 


```
[email protected]:/~$ sudo apt-get install chromium
```


. This (or a variant involving pacman instead of apt-get) should work on all real operating systems.

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## OldNutter

Firefox. Cause Internet Explorer sucks on so many different levels and Chrome seems to make my laptop cook itself. 

On Linux, I use Firefox too, and Konquer is the Linux version of IE.

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## Clyde Machine

I used Epiphany on Linux for a bit because it was the fastest browser I've ever used (GC, IE, Safari, and FF all being taken into account), but I went back to FF because of the addons I've become so reliant on. That's why I use it: addons, RSS feeds in my bookmarks toolbar, and overall familiarity.

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## PXUmais

Google Chrome... Everything else in comparison feels like slugs on my computer...

I hated IE for a while since it just sucked so bad, but lately they've been uping there game.. But it still can't beat Chrome...

My previous browser was Mozilla Firefox.. It was awesome at the time, but Chrome came out.. So that went.. Plus Chrome looks awesome aswell, so...

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## dsr

I use Firefox with the Vimperator extension so I don't have to reach for a mouse. It does more for productivity than pretty much anything besides a tiling window manager. I'll probably use Chromium with the Vrome extension when the latter matures a bit. It doesn't feel very responsive to keypresses right now.





> This (or a variant involving pacman instead of apt-get) should work on all real operating systems.



It's refreshing to see that Arch Linux is gaining popularity.  ::D:

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## Man of Steel

Chrome/Chromium all the way these days. Whether I'm using Ubuntu Lucid Lynx or Windows Vista (ugh, only for the necessities like Photoshop), Chrome is my main browser. With the advent of extensions and a few carefully selected bookmarklets (I freakin' love Quix, all hail Yoast!), Chrome does everything I need it to, and faster than Firefox at that. I still use Firefox for FireFTP, Web Developer Toolbar (the Chrome version is not nearly as good, not sure why) and of course, FireBug, but for anything outside of web development, Chrome wins.

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## PXUmais

> I wonder if chromium will ever be an actual competitor against FF, Chrome, and Opera.



Chromium is like a developers version of chrome.. The only difference between it is that in chromium they are testing things that might be buggy or haven't been definitively chosen to go into the stable version of Chrome... 

It goes like this: 
Chromium (Experimental) ---> Google Chrome Dev (Buggy and testing) ---> Google Chrome Beta (More stable then dev, but still not perfect) ---> Google Chrome Stable (For the general public who don't care about having the latest stuff, plus it's completely polished) 

In other words, quite alot of the stuff in Chromium end up in Google Chrome.. It's an open source project that result in the stable releases of Chrome.. I guess it is a different browser, but I doubt Google would let it actually *compete* with other browsers.. Since it's buggy and experimental..

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