Browsers

[nathanmaxsonadil]

What browser do you use?

And why do you use it?

[Daniel0]

Firefox 2 because it's better than IE. Opera is pretty good as well, but it doesn't have the large amount of extensions which FF has.

[zq29]

Opera, because FireFox runs f'in slow on my machine for some reason

[Liquid Fire]

FF because it has a great library of extensions and has even better CSS support(version 3 in beta passes the acid2 test)

[timmy2]

Firefox 2+ 

[akitchin]

i'm waiting for ober to crash into the room and say "WHAT??  HAVE YOU ANY IDEA THE NUMBER OF EXTENSIONS AND ABILITIES OF OPERA??!"

 

why do we get one of these browser threads once a month, at least?

[neylitalo]

I'd use Opera if it weren't for two things:

 

1. It doesn't support modifying the HTML DOM, at least not on the level that the FCK Editor (a core part of the CMS we use/develop at work) does.

2. It's non-free.

 

And I suppose I could bend on the second one, if the first one wasn't an issue.

[Azu]

I use Firefox when I need lots of awesome features.

Opera when I just want to do bare minimum web surfing on websites that don't have ads (opera doesn't have awesome ad blocking extensions like Firefox) and find the slight speed increase worth it. Basically just for benchmarking my site's speed.

There is never any excuse whatsoever to use IE though, other then windows update.

 

P.S. opera is free.

[neylitalo]

P.S. opera is free.

 

You're correct, it doesn't cost anything to use it, but that's not what I mean. I mean that you aren't free to analyze and modify the source code and then re-distribute the modified version. I'm using the word "free" in the sense of freedom of speech, not free beer.

[GingerRobot]

I must be the the only one who still uses IE. I've no idea why, i think its just out of habit. I have firefox, but still, i click the IE icon. Perhaps ive been brainwashed by microsoft.

 

One of these days ill uninstill IE. I cant possibly use it then.

[neylitalo]

One of these days ill uninstill IE. I cant possibly use it then.

 

You can't. It's built in.

[GingerRobot]

Are you sure? I thought you could through "Add or remove windows components"?

[neylitalo]

You may be correct, although I seem to remember uninstalling it with that window, but somehow I have the impression that it either didn't stick, or it just removed the iexplore executable or something. I'm fairly (not 100%) sure that it's still embedded in Windows Explorer.

[LiamProductions]

Sometimes IE won't remove just remove the buttons... The program will still be in your PC somewhere maybe even a local button to it.

[php_tom]

My main browser is FireFox, although I use that as well as IE and Opera when testing web development projects, especially because IE tends to do weird stuff with my CSS. Typically I write my CSS for FireFox and then go back and try to make it compatible for IE, while making it still work in FF. AAAAAAAAARRRGG!!!!

 

Maybe one day someone will either make and follow STRICT standards for web browsers, or just create a universal browser.

[Azu]

You used to be able to uninstall IE. But this was a long time, in a very old browsers. Nowadays IE is embedded into the Windows core, so it's nearly impossible to get rid of it without killing Windows.

[Azu]

P.S. opera is free.

 

You're correct, it doesn't cost anything to use it, but that's not what I mean. I mean that you aren't free to analyze and modify the source code and then re-distribute the modified version. I'm using the word "free" in the sense of freedom of speech, not free beer.

You aren't free to download Google's source code, analyze, modify it, and re-use either.

[neylitalo]

That's correct. There are very few web sites that are free and open source, and Google is certainly no exception. (I'm not even sure that this is a valid argument, but I'll go with it.) When there are no free alternatives, however, then you simply have no choice. And while I do use Google, I don't like doing it, albeit not for the reason that I can't see their source code.

[GingerRobot]

May i ask, why dont you like using google?

[448191]

Because there's no equal alternative, that's why. No "choice", not really anyway.

[neylitalo]

Google is simply too powerful. While I certainly appreciate the powerful and lightning-fast searches, they are moving into too many markets to be healthy. I've said this for a long time, and hold to it: If Google and Walmart ever join forces, consumers are going to be hurting. They have effective monopolies on their industries, and what people don't realize is that once everybody else is out of the picture, they're going to start hurting consumers by way of price hikes, unfair TOS agreements, and infringements of rights. With their email service, document applications, and image manager, they could collect enough information to make even the most security- and privacy-ignorant users worry.

[Azu]

You don't like Google because it is to good..?

Maybe ask them to make a crappy version of it for you then? o_o;

 

*Confused*

 

But anyways.. you don't have a problem using websites even though you don't have access to their source.. why have a problem with browsers for not being opensource then? 0.o

 

And yes Google COULD use their power for bad but is there any reason to assume that they WILL? Whenever you give your personal information to someone, they might be able to use it for bad, but that doesn't mean they WILL..

And so far Google seems pretty trustworthy to me. What wrong have they done?

[neylitalo]

You don't like Google because it is to good..?

 

You missed the point. They're not "too good." They're too powerful. They have the ability to make all of our lives miserable. When people get dependent enough on a particular organization, entity, whatever, it's time to start worrying. Someone's behind the scenes (or right out in front) pulling all of the strings, and they can do whatever they want.

 

But anyways.. you don't have a problem using websites even though you don't have access to their source.. why have a problem with browsers for not being opensource then? 0.o

 

It's not just browsers, it's all software. I have one non-free piece of software on my computer, and that's the firmware for my wireless network card. Every other piece of software on it is completely free and open source. And half of the time, it's not access to the source that I'm worried about, it's the freedom to use it however I want and distribute it to whoever I want, however I want. Yes, it's nice to be able to hack something, add your own features or change a bit of functionality, and maybe re-distribute it, but that's usually not very high on my list of priorities.

 

And I seriously hope that you're not comparing applications to websites. They're not even remotely close to the same thing. Yes, some websites are very nearly applications, but it's still not the same.

[GingerRobot]

I understand where you are coming form neylitalo, but given the nature of the internet, im not convinced the problem of monopolies exists as much as it does in other industries. Given the sheer number of websites, i think there will always be alternatives.

 

As for worrying about walmart joining with google...you should only get worried if google were to join with microsoft

 

I would argue that given the way google is heading with their office applications online, they are quite possibly best placed to halt the microsoft domination: if the technology is good enough, people will start to wonder what the point of paying for office is if you can just use google's applications on the internet for free. Sure, open office exists for linux - but given the existing popularity of google; and the relatively obscurity of linux to joe blogs in the street, google can seriously rival microsoft. Thats my opinion anyway.

[Azu]

You don't like Google because it is to good..?

 

You missed the point. They're not "too good." They're too powerful. They have the ability to make all of our lives miserable. When people get dependent enough on a particular organization, entity, whatever, it's time to start worrying. Someone's behind the scenes (or right out in front) pulling all of the strings, and they can do whatever they want.

 

But anyways.. you don't have a problem using websites even though you don't have access to their source.. why have a problem with browsers for not being opensource then? 0.o

 

It's not just browsers, it's all software. I have one non-free piece of software on my computer, and that's the firmware for my wireless network card. Every other piece of software on it is completely free and open source. And half of the time, it's not access to the source that I'm worried about, it's the freedom to use it however I want and distribute it to whoever I want, however I want. Yes, it's nice to be able to hack something, add your own features or change a bit of functionality, and maybe re-distribute it, but that's usually not very high on my list of priorities.

 

And I seriously hope that you're not comparing applications to websites. They're not even remotely close to the same thing. Yes, some websites are very nearly applications, but it's still not the same.

I think it's safe to call GMail an application.

And you can do whatever you want with closed-source (but free) programs.

You can use them however you want.

Send them to whoever you want whenever you want for whatever you want.

You can modify it however you want if it has capability for extensions (which I think someone posted that Opera does)

So I'm really not sure what the problem is.

 

And so what if a lot of people are used to Google and are dependant on them? The same can be said about the oil companies.

I think it's silly to pick on Google when they aren't even being bad.

 

Edit by neylitalo: Fixed a typo in my quoted message. Powerfufl isn't a word, silly me...