Best web browser?

[Deleted]

Due to the massive amount of people recommending Chrome in this thread I figured I should give it a try.

I tried it for a few days. I really tried to like it. But seriously, I couldn't think of a single feature that Chrome had that Firefox didn't have a better version of.

The extreme lack of customizability in Chrome was what put me off the most. I can't clear my history and cookies on shutdown, not even with extensions. Customizing what to clear and what not to clear didn't seem possible either althouh I didn't look into extensions here. I can't use smooth-scrolling or change scrolling behaviour at all. I can't change tab behaviour, where newly opened tabs are placed, how I tab to them. Bookmarks are handled terribly bad, I must open a new tab then browse through my saved sites, rather than in Firefox where I simply scroll click my item under the Bookmarks-button. Heck, even when I write the full, exact name of a bookmarked item in the adress bar the browser wanted to google for it. If the bookmark showed up as a suggestion I had to tab down to it a few times. Pinned tabs function way worse in Chrome where they're easily closed by mistake and are saved by state not by site.

Ontop of that I experience worse rendering of websites in Chrome than in Firefox when I create web content myself.

I wanted to like it but. I have no idea why people claim it to be a superior browser when it provides nothing other than half a second faster cold startup time.

[ddsad2212]

As a programming student who does alot of wed work, chrome is probably the best atm, but i don`t think opera is given any where near enough credit, it is imo way ahead of firefox, and might be better then chrome(this is purely on a what you can do with it bases), i know in html5 it is ahead of chrome at any rate, but i must admit i have done little CSS3 in it so i actually have no idea how well it supports it (but i assume it has on par support with chrome, and if so it over all has more functionality).

All that been said, i dont understand how IE has such a large user base, i guess coming with all pc`s gives it a big leg up

[Teramelle]

I used to use Firefox, until an error occurred that basically made it use up 90% of physical memory when it was open; this was of course, a huge, but apparently common problem. At the time, there was no fix and I don't know if there is yet, but I gave up on it and switched to Chrome. But, I'm happy I did. I can tell that it's much faster; plus, there are features in Chrome like the google search in the URL bar if what you type in isn't an actual URL and everything is much more streamlined and less 'clunky.'

Certainly, if you use any other browser, I recommend making the switch. You'd think it'd be annoying to adjust to all the differences, but it's really not. There are far more benefits; I can barely think of any negatives.

[Asera]

Lots of issues in Chrome. Sandboxing is a complete waste - unless it's at the kernel level (which it isn't - thank god), it doesn't accomplish much. Ever had one tab crash and the rest follow? Yeah, "sandboxing". It also leads to stupidly high memory usage given enough tabs. Colour correction is hideous. The native download manager is terrible, and the option availability could do with some work. And it's none of your damn business what I search for, thanks G. Where FF and even IE to an extent include tools to avoid ads, Chrome is literally an ad machine.

I think the biggest issue with Chrome is how it doesn't use the DNS API built into Windows. Instead, Google opted to shove in their own which, while making Chrome stupid fast due to bypassing the Windows API, causes strange DNS errors, lost queries, broken pages, etc.

Also, Opera 12 is a complete piece of crap, being rushed out before hardware acceleration worked properly. It's breaking more pages than ever for me, and using a ridiculous amount of memory. I had to switch back to Firefox.

I wanted to like it but. I have no idea why people claim it to be a superior browser when it provides nothing other than half a second faster cold startup time.

Because it supports more "standards". Most of them, no website even uses yet.

Chrome's Flash engine is pretty horrid too.

[Deleted]

I use Firefox. I have tried Internet explorer and chrome but didn't like them as much.

[Deleted]

Due to the massive amount of people recommending Chrome in this thread I figured I should give it a try.

I tried it for a few days. I really tried to like it. But seriously, I couldn't think of a single feature that Chrome had that Firefox didn't have a better version of.

The extreme lack of customizability in Chrome was what put me off the most. I can't clear my history and cookies on shutdown, not even with extensions. Customizing what to clear and what not to clear didn't seem possible either althouh I didn't look into extensions here. I can't use smooth-scrolling or change scrolling behaviour at all. I can't change tab behaviour, where newly opened tabs are placed, how I tab to them. Bookmarks are handled terribly bad, I must open a new tab then browse through my saved sites, rather than in Firefox where I simply scroll click my item under the Bookmarks-button. Heck, even when I write the full, exact name of a bookmarked item in the adress bar the browser wanted to google for it. If the bookmark showed up as a suggestion I had to tab down to it a few times. Pinned tabs function way worse in Chrome where they're easily closed by mistake and are saved by state not by site.

Ontop of that I experience worse rendering of websites in Chrome than in Firefox when I create web content myself.

I wanted to like it but. I have no idea why people claim it to be a superior browser when it provides nothing other than half a second faster cold startup time.

I don't know why you'd want to clear cookies on shutdown but you can in Advanced Settings > Privacy Settings > Content settings.

I don't know about the smooth-scroll I just utilize my mouse for that.

You can arrange your bookmarks in folders and on the bookmark bar if you like, right click "Open in new tab", you can also use the "new tab" to access most visited sites.

As mentioned I like it mainly for the profile syncing option but there are other reasons as well. I also never (or very rare) have sites that won't work/load in Chrome, if that happens I just use "IE tab". I love the "NoScripts" extension. "Turn Off the Lights" extension for YouTube is quite nice as well. I can understand people already using FireFox won't switch but coming from IE and other browsers I definitely think it's better (for the average user).

I switched to Chrome from FireFox but this was a long time ago, haven't even looked at FF for years. Don't they switch versions every like month? always found that odd.

[Incognito Noctix]

I used to be all about Firefox but switched to Chrome a few years back for different reasons and features. If Firefox caught up with that later, I don't know, but I stopped using it.

[insmek]

I've been using Chrome (and Chromium) for 3 or 4 years now, and it's been great for me. I've never felt the serious need to switch. Lately I've found myself working a bit more with Opera as well, which is a perfectly solid, fast browser that simply isn't established to my liking the way I have Chrome at the moment. Opera, however, does seem to play better with HostMonster's web tools, so it's more than worth keeping around for that reason.

I switched to Chrome from FireFox but this was a long time ago, haven't even looked at FF for years. Don't they switch versions every like month? always found that odd.

That's a recent development. Previously, Firefox utilized the more traditional method of slower releases with incremental version numbers, and large 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 launches. Lately, however, they've switched to the rapid release Chrome model where you're getting Chrome 9, 10, 11, 12, etc, in quick succession without having to stagnate in a single spot for too long. The thing is, with Chrome it's fairly transparent for the user. Nobody really notices that they're moving from one version to the next, because it happens in the background and generally without a large amount of sweeping changes. Firefox, from what I've seen, is still doing version changes with quite a bit of fanfare, it's just happening more often now, which I find strange.

[Hyve]

Safari & Firefox.

Company Work & Settings = Firefox

Personal Use & Websites = Safari

(Running iMac)

[nevermore]

I used to be in favour of Firefox, but the recurring memory leak that pops up every now and then is NOT okay. After installing the latest version I noticed my computer was getting more and more laggy... opened up task manager and bam, Firefox was sitting at 1.8GB of RAM used, what the hell?
Switched to Chrome and been loving it ever since.

[Dudejoss]

i mainly use FF as i like the look and addons and it has been fine untill flash crashes every 5-10 mins

[erh]

when i was small, IE was all i knew about (probably all that existed)
later started using firefox
when i chrome came out (and i noticed it opened/loaded pages about 10x faster than firefox) i switched to chrome

(firefox has improved speeds since then but not enough/no reason to switch back)

i still use chrome because i have an android device and i like the syncing with it and with other comps by just logging in however i use both firefox and IE at times, IE9 is reall nice btw but bad reputation from old versions.

i used to use opera mini on my old phone and use safari on my ipad.. and i think that is about it i voted for chrome because i use that most!

[Twoddle]

If Chrome had a decent adblocker and script blocker I would be all over it but it doesn't. Google, Facebook, Twitter and ad research sites are watching you wherever you go. So I use Firefox where you can turn all that off with addons, besides that Firefox has a better UI.

Tried getting used to Opera for a couple of weeks, don't really like the side panel idea and the way you can't drag and drop bookmarks around very easily.

[This name sucks]

If Chrome had a decent adblocker and script blocker I would be all over it but it doesn't. Google, Facebook, Twitter and ad research sites are watching you wherever you go. So I use Firefox where you can turn all that off with addons, besides that Firefox has a better UI.

Tried getting used to Opera for a couple of weeks, don't really like the side panel idea and the way you can't drag and drop bookmarks around very easily.

Google isn't evil.

Well its the least evil of pretty much every company, If I had to trust any company, it would be google. As far as I can tell they have a scary amount of power, influence, money and information but they have good intentions and they keep producing excellent services that are bring science fiction from 40 years ago to life.

Self driving cars, google glass, unrolling fiber optic cable across the united states to essentially say a big "fuck you" to all the other price gouging isps who have had a monopoly for over a decade.

100x the speed, from 10mbits to 1gbit.

NO CAPS

And no bias towards any google products, everything they do is for equality and improving the quality of life of everyone.'

Any underhanded shit they do is worth it as far as im concerned.

The end justifies the means, google doesn't hate you.

[Twoddle]

Irrelevant. I want to be able turn off whatever I want.

[This name sucks]

Irrelevant. I want to be able turn off whatever I want.

Except theres nothing to turn off, because google chrome doesn't track you any more than fire fox does.

I know its crazy but google doesn't want to "STEAL ALL UR DATAS"

[Drunkenvalley]

Etc

Blatantly wrong.

Firstly, Firefox can be told to not track anything. That's kinda what Twoddle said he uses Firefox for, durp. On the other hand, Chrome doesn't have the same support for the app that lets you do it in Firefox. The result is rather obvious.

Secondly, google are tracking huge amounts of data for a variety of reasons, usually apparently with the intent of plugging them into algorithms in services so it can serve you content that it believes you want.

[Twoddle]

We're arguing over something completely different. I'm saying I prefer Firefox because I have more control over the html and what gets rendered, you're saying but Google isn't evil which is totally irrelevant.