Is Firefox is the best or not?

Rather than just a simple "firefox is better" I thought I'd share a bit more detail.

I like firefox myself, mainly because:
a) the security is HEAPS better than IE. It protects you from a lot more, right down to blocking ad servers. What this means, though, is that you seem to lose a bit of functionality - where you can just go ahead and do stuff in IE, firefox will throw up warnings or block it for security reasons. It's not hard to get back to the same levels of access as IE, but it's a great education as to what is, and is not, a risky behaviour online.
b) the functionality. Add-ons have already been mentioned, and the range of things that let you tweak and customise your copy of firefox to make it perfect for what YOU want to do (eg blogging, shopping, art, whatever) are almost endless. In fact, it's so customisable that entire new browsers have been built around it (like Flock, for example).

Having said that, one thing I DON'T like about Firefox is that the updates tend to be a bit intrusive. I usually like to let an update sit for a while before I install it, so bugs get worked out, but you will get reminder windows in Firefox telling you there's an upgrade - every time you use it. Last time round I gave in and installed v 3.0.5, and now some sites won't display aweber signup forms. Sure, that's not always a bad thing, but a bit annoying.

IE is a major security risk. I've lost count of the number of friends I've had to help recover from viruses/trojans/various other nasties because they clicked something in IE that changed their settings and/or installed something they weren't intending. I'd uninstall it if it weren't such a massive pain to do.

Used Opera briefly a number of years ago, so I don't know what it's like now, but I remember it being very light on features by comparison to firefox. Maybe someone who's current on it can shed more light on the pros v cons?

 

Opera does more out of the box. Instead of a separate pop/imap client it has one built in. Instead of a separate bittorrent client it has one built in. For 80% of what people use extensions for Opera either already has it built in, or widgets will give you similar functionality. It has a LOT of accessability aids, like the more mature content zoom function (that everyone else is now copying), the speed dial, ability to drag and drop favicons to any toolbar, ability to write your own custom toolbar items or drag/drop them from websites on the subject, mouse gestures, flip navigation (that's where you hold one down the left mouse button, click the right one it goes forward. Hold the right one and click left it goes backwards), ability to hotkey code validation (CTRL-ALT-V under opera 9.2x or earlier keyboard, CTRL-ALT-SHIFT-U under 9.5x+) - and now it has dragonfly which gives you most of the functionality of firebug, except it's BUILT IN to the browser. Most of these things (but not all) are available as extensions to FF but for casual users it's nice to only install one program and have it all there.

Conversely firefox is CAPABLE of so much more by way of real extensions when it comes to changing the basic functionality of the browser. Dragonfly is still a poor substitute for Firebug (though if you need firebug to manage your own code you are probably coding wrong! Great tool when working on OTHER people's code, apart from that, meh...) and some simple extensions for FF like the web developer toolbar have no equivalent for Opera. It just does so little out of the box that anyone 'serious' about using it as a development tool or even casual browsing is going to end up loading up on extensions... extensions that at any moment could break in the next major release.

We've all seen it, and it really is true. FF is a Hummer, Opera is a DB9, and IE is a horse and buggy.

http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/1177/firefoxoperaieeh6.jpg

-- edit -- no wait, that's not fair to the horse and buggy. A horse isn't dumb enough to run itself head-on into a tree.

 

Updates include bug fixes from the previous version so waiting doesn't make sense.

 

What he said - to an extent. The only exception I'd make is I never trust x.0 releases. Opera 9.60? Buggy as hell. Firefox 3.0, buggy as hell. Safari 3.0? You get the idea. In the case of FF, remember that 2.x continued parallel bugfix releases right up until FF 2.0.0.19 just a week or two ago because 3.x wasn't ready for primetime for everyone. (or in the minds of everyone). Now that they've said 2.0.0.19 will be the final patch and FF 3 is now at 3.0.5, anyone still using 2.x should probably move to 3. (I'm planning to end bothering to support 2.x in my site designs at the end of january)

Waiting on a major jump if the current branch is being maintained is good if you want to avoid troubles, but minor revisions should go in ASAP because usually they are to address documented vulnerabilities.

Not running updates is how disasters like NeverNoSanity Pwned the web through people not keeping their copy of phpBB up to date. It's why you REPEATEDLY see wordpress installations pwned when the majority of sites running it are still using the 2.6.x branch or earlier when 2.7 has been out for months... Though much of that can be attributed to the ease of installation allowing people who are unprepared to host a CMS suddenly having full control over one without understanding the risks - as likely a contributor to Wordpress winning this years Pwnie for mass 0wnage as the actual documented vulnerabilities themselves.

It's kind of like changing the oil in your car - don't be suprised if you skip it for a year and then throw a rod accellerating up to highway speed.

 

I have used FF forever, at least that's how it seems. I have never had any problems with it. IE sucks in my book, although I use it once in a blue moon. To me, nothing beats Firefox.

 

It is the best browser so far. Its free, fast, easy, secure, customizable, what more can you ask for than firefox.

 

I have tried Opera on Ubuntu. Its lighter than Firefox but I feel that pages appear quicker in firefox.
I tried Konqueror when I used Kubuntu, its not meant gnome or xfce as far as I know!!

 

but some website doenst load well in firefox

 

Each major browser have their own advantage and disadvantage at present .
FF is excellent , I usually use FF and maxthon (IE core) .
I usually surf with maxthon which is light weight and cost less resources .
And I code html/css with FF which has lots of web developer's addons .

 

Name one. .

 

I have found that Firefox works for anything and everything I do...

Firefox loads fast, great addons, what more can I ask for?

 

Firefox is the best of course, its plugins are useful so much

 

Firefox is the best
Very fast ...reliable and safe

 

It will run - you can run KDE apps alongside gnome ones, and even under XFCE though the memory footprint can end up slightly larger and first load can be slower, they will work. You have enough machine you'll not even notice the difference.

... and if you are on a debian offshoot like Ubuntu the package manager will actually get the kde bindings correct. (unlike YUM and red hat offshoots which usually will give your google-fu a workout to do the simplest of things)

 

I agree with you

 

I don't think it is the best browser. It doesn't webpages sometimes and I had to reinstall to get it back. Chrome is the best and the fastest.

 

I dont think Chrome is the best browser... it sucks FF is the best for me till date.

 

I am not sure it is the best browser. But I like it much. It is much faster than IE.

 

Try this:
http://www.listafterlist.com/tabid/57/listid/9518/The+Web/Websites+that+Dont+Work+in+Firefox.aspx

Much less the raging chodo many financial institutions have for ActiveX. Much of that list is out of date, and certainly we've seen improvements as FF's market share improves, but there's still a ways to go.

Love that attitude BTW. You don't see it so the people with problems must be at fault - RIGHT.

 

Opera is the best. Firefox is better than IE.