# What browser?



## Blake Bowden (Oct 11, 2008)

What browser do you use?


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## TCShelton (Oct 11, 2008)

Explorer.


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## Bill Lins (Oct 11, 2008)

Always open to suggestions.


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## Bro Mike (Oct 12, 2008)

Usually Firefox, but Chrome is growing on me.  Explorer only as a last resort.


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## Blake Bowden (Oct 12, 2008)

I've been using Firefox for years now, but Webkit is really grown on me. It's one of, if not the fastest web browsers out there. It's also the only browser to pass the Acid3 test:

http://acid3.acidtests.org/

You can download it here:
http://webkit.org/

If you don't need the addons that Firefox provides, it's your best bet.


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## TCShelton (Oct 12, 2008)

What is the Acid3 test?


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## Blake Bowden (Oct 12, 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid3


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## Bill Lins (Oct 12, 2008)

blake said:


> I've been using Firefox for years now, but Webkit is really grown on me. If you don't need the addons that Firefox provides, it's your best bet.




Ok, splain to me, please- what are "add ons" & why would I need them?

(Dang! You guys is SMART!)


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## TCShelton (Oct 12, 2008)

I'm with you on this one, Bill.  I don't have a clue what the differences are, and what all this is about...


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## JTM (Oct 12, 2008)

i actually prefer chrome, but it's hard to give up my gazillion add-ons in firefox...


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## Blake Bowden (Oct 13, 2008)

Addons are enhancements to your Firefox browser. This can range from weather reports, bookmark syncing, and MUCH MUCH more. Firefox allows addons and Themes which is pretty slick. A list of addons:

feed:https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/recommended/format:rss

Firefox is great, but for simplicity, speed, and ease of use it's hard to beat Webkit. BTW, Internet Explorer is the worst browser to use, although the latest beta is an improvement.


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## JTM (Oct 13, 2008)

IE is just cumbersome and slow.  It's like a heaving giant.... not good for the kind of stuff I do.  I only use it when I have to (accessing my work stuff).  

Webkit is awesome for quick browsing, but the addons for Firefox put it over the top, for me.  Greasemonkey scripts turn the web into a completely new monster.


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## scottmh59 (Oct 20, 2009)

whats a browser


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## Bill Lins (Oct 20, 2009)

Been using Chrome for a couple of weeks, now- MUCH better than IE7!


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## JTM (Oct 21, 2009)

TCShelton said:


> Explorer.



YOU OF ALL PEOPLE!?!!?!?

lol, i use chrome at home, firefox at work.


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## davidterrell80 (Feb 22, 2011)

I teach a Genealogy Class, so have all the browsers on all my 6 notebooks, to let everyone have the experience they are used to, when i set up my portable classroom.

I like Chrome for school research, because of its tie into google translate. I'm finishing a master's in ancient and classical history and I love having automatic translation of foreign language websites. Try it for some foreign Masonic sites, it's very readable.

I have also come to like Safari, which I use for classroom interaction. Very like Chrome. Very Stable.

I use Firefox for bills. It sometimes meets with websites that do not like it. I'm thinking about switching bills to Chrome.

IE... I use it for accessing my work intranet as it uses Exchange Web Access for email and I get limited functionality outside IE. It's OK.


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## AMcClure (Feb 22, 2011)

Firefox mainly.  But Chrome sometimes.


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## Blake Bowden (Feb 23, 2011)

http://www.webkit.org/


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## Benton (Feb 23, 2011)

Chrome exclusively now. Whenever I'm not drowning in graduate school or teaching, I tend to have a hobby of gaming. As such, I like to minimize the system resources my web browser hogs, so I can run it and a game at the same time. In my personal experience, Google Chrome, though it's starting to become a bit bloated, still uses drastically fewer system resources than Firefox (which used to be lean and mean), or the awful IE.


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## mrpesas (Feb 26, 2011)

I've liked using Firefox because I can run it on my work pc and home mac and I get the same "experience"
However, Firefox has started to become a resource hog (seems there is a memory leak) and I may be switching to Chrome.
Does webkit run on a Mac?


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## Benjamin Baxter (Feb 27, 2011)

Internet explorer or safari. Are these bad? Are there better ones out there?


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## Brethren Taylor UK (Feb 27, 2011)

Firefox all the way especially as it was named after a cool film


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## Blake Bowden (Feb 27, 2011)

mrpesas said:


> Does webkit run on a Mac?


 
Actually the Safari browser is based on webkit. In matter of fact, when you install webkit it will automatically import all of your existing safari bookmarks. It also syncs them through MobileMe.


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## kwilbourn (Feb 28, 2011)

Chrome.  

I have to use everything for testing at work.  If I have a choice, I use Chrome; on my MacBook, on Windows, and on Linux.  Chrome everywhere; most of the best "plug-in" features of Firefox are available as Chrome extensions these days, and there isn't much out there that is as fast, standards compliant, and lightweight.  I also like Safari on the Mac, but since I use Chrome everywhere else, I use it on the Mac to keep bookmarks in sync.


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## Bill Lins (Feb 28, 2011)

You must ride a Harley.  :wink:


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## Benjamin Baxter (Feb 28, 2011)

Newly converted chrome user, at least at my vocational spot. The Internet explorer has been very slow the last week. I noticed that someone put chrome on here recently opened it up and the Internet is quick enough to be fun again.


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## Benton (Feb 28, 2011)

That's the primary reason I use Chrome. It can run circles around IE, or even Firefox as of late. Tried going back to FF recently, but it just couldn't compare.


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## Blake Bowden (Mar 1, 2011)

Yeah Chrome is pretty slick. FYI, it can be downloaded here:

http://www.google.com/chrome


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## MikeMay (Mar 1, 2011)

Here is a link with browser comparisons...  http://internet-browser-review.toptenreviews.com/  (there are 10 different browsers being compared) - Firefox and Chrome look good but Chrome uses more System Resources than I am comfortable with...not as much as IE, but more than I like.  

At the top of each column is a link for more details on that particular browser.  I use the new Firefox Beta 4.0 (up to build 12 so far) because I am feature testing for developers.  Besides, I have been a Mozilla fan since the Netscape days...but that's just me.

My feelings on IE....  :33:IE
It's like :52:

Don't ask how I really feel about it....  LOL!


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## Benton (Mar 1, 2011)

Interesting test results. I have to say, I've had the opposite experience. Chrome uses much less system resources on my PC than Firefox (have both installed and up to date), and the pages load much, much faster in Chrome. In fact, the main reason I don't use FF isn't so much the system resource, but rather how it takes about twice as long to load a page, any page, than Chrome. 

Makes me wonder why thats the case on my particular machine.


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## Bill Lins (Mar 1, 2011)

MikeMay said:


> My feelings on IE....  :33:IE  It's like :52:
> 
> Don't ask how I really feel about it....  LOL!


 
Now that's funny right there...  :lol:


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## jhodgdon (Mar 2, 2011)

Used to be FF but Chrome blows it away, at least on my system. IE completely sucks. Haven't used it in years


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## Bigmel (Mar 2, 2011)

I use Chrome Also Windows Explorer Both serve my needs.


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## MikeMay (Mar 2, 2011)

jhodgdon said:


> Used to be FF but Chrome blows it away, at least on my system. IE completely sucks. Haven't used it in years


 I'm going to give it (chrome) a shot again on a clean system and see what if anything changes.


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## kwilbourn (Mar 2, 2011)

Like Benton, my experience has been that Chrome outperforms and uses less memory than Firefox in almost every situation.  I especially like that Chrome runs tabs as separate processes under Windows, so if one tab crashes the rest of the browser generally doesn't.  For normal use, that may not be a major point, but when you're debugging web apps, it's nice if the entire browser doesn't crash just because somebody made a dumb mistake (usually me).


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## Beathard (Apr 11, 2011)

You guys make me jealous. My franchisor only supports IE. So I have no choice. Stuck in MS hell.


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## Brent Heilman (Apr 11, 2011)

Right now I am using only Chrome. I got in on the Google Chrome Netbook trial. So I am using it for everything and loving it.


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## MikeMay (Apr 11, 2011)

Beathard said:


> You guys make me jealous. My franchisor only supports IE. So I have no choice. Stuck in MS hell.


 
You need lots of prayer brother!!!


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## SC Heston (Apr 13, 2011)

No choice for all of them?  When testing my software applications, I need to ensure it works groovy with all the available browsers.  I use primarily IE at home & Firefox at work.


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## MikeMay (Apr 14, 2011)

SC Heston said:


> No choice for all of them?  When testing my software applications, I need to ensure it works groovy with all the available browsers.  I use primarily IE at home & Firefox at work.


 
I used to use them all for network and server testing, now I use IE for work only...everything else is done on Firefox 4.


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## kwilbourn (Apr 14, 2011)

MikeMay said:


> I used to use them all for network and server testing, now I use IE for work only...everything else is done on Firefox 4.


 Same story here, except with Chrome in place of Firefox.  I only ever use IE to access and work with MS Sharepoint since it is particularly stubborn about using ActiveX controls.  Have everything (including multiple versions of IE 6-9, Firefox 3 & 4, Chrome, and Opera) installed for cross-browser testing; you would think browser standards would have improved by now.


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## MikeMay (Apr 14, 2011)

Since the days of the Microhell and Netscape wars...browsers have been battling it out for supremacy....


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## kwilbourn (Apr 14, 2011)

How true, the more things change...


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## Ashlar (Apr 15, 2011)

Comodo Dragon


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## AnthonyBolding (Apr 29, 2011)

I work with computers, it's my job, and let me tell you this. Ie can give you a virus quick. I recommend firefox. Chrome is good but they have a lousy download manager.


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## JohnnyFlotsam (May 1, 2011)

Firefox, but if Chrome had ad and flash blockers, and no-script, I'd be on it.


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## crono782 (Nov 18, 2013)

Opera is my preferred, but you can't beat Chrome for page rendering speed. IE at work on windows and FF on se linux. 


My Freemasonry


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## cherrynobel (Nov 18, 2013)

For me chrome is the best.Internet explorer is also good but sometimes there is problem in loading of webpages sometimes


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## Blake Bowden (Nov 18, 2013)

JohnnyFlotsam said:


> Firefox, but if Chrome had ad and flash blockers, and no-script, I'd be on it.



It does. 

My Freemasonry


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## dfreybur (Nov 19, 2013)

For this forum and most of my social browsing I use Firefox.  On my Fedora laptop at home it's the only browser I have installed.

For work browsing I use IE on the Windows laptop supplied by work.  On it I have IE, Firefox and Chrome when I have problems with either of them.  At my previous job the list was IE for internal, Firefox for external, Safari when I needed large tables like my time reporting sheets.

My wife is now a Mac user and she only uses Firefox at the moment.


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