FireFox vs IE ~ Pros and Cons?

[ArlanKels]

I got talked into picking up firefox and using it in place of IE.

Personally I never had issues with IE, but some people kept pressuring me to grab it and I must say...I'm not impressed thus far.

Exactly what can Firefox do that IE can't, and vice versa?

[Fifthfiend]

It depends, if you're using IE7 you're not gonna see enormous differences because IE7 copied a lot of the stuff that made Firefox better.

[Nikose Tyris]

The only perk I see to Firefox is that it has a built in Download Manager, which 60% of people don't know what that is anyway.

Yes, I like making up percentages, so no that's probably not accurate, but if you don't know what it is, then you'll feel okay because that's a big percentage and if you do know then you'll feel smart because you're on the smaller side.

FireFox is also a little bit more picky towards proper XHTML; that is, using <br /> as a line break instead of </br>, so you spot errors a bit faster, and things don't always load properly. For instance,

www.parkercomics.com In IE, my Copyright has a tiny line next to the image, while in Firefox it does not.

Those are the only things I know of personally, that I see/notice on a frequent basis.

[Mirai Gen]

I've always found Firefox preferable since you're statistically less likely to find a hack or virus through it as opposed to IE.

That and, you know, spellchecker.

[Sky Warrior Bob]

It depends, if you're using IE7 you're not gonna see enormous differences because IE7 copied a lot of the stuff that made Firefox better.

Right, IE didn't have tabs until recently, and that's something that Firefox has been doing for ages. Firefox is a bit less picky than IE. Because for some reason, I've yet to make IE work on a computer that's connected wirelessly via Linksys.

Honestly, if there was no Firefox, IE would stagnate & stink. So at least having a healthy competition isn't a bad thing.

SWB

[Mr.Bookworm]

Personally, I suggest that you check out all of the browsers out there. There's a few my dad uses that he loves.

EDIT: I know one of em's Opera, but I can't remember any of the others.

[DFM]

I've been using firefox since it doesn't keep downloading all that ad and spyware automatically. Or it does a better job of hiding it.

Maybe IE's stopped doing that since then, I dunno. People made a big ruckus about firefox back in the day and now it seems like they're making a ruckus about Opera. So what's the big deal with Opera?

[Donomni]

Opera is a lot easier to download stuff with, in my opinion.

It also can handle torrents on it's own. Hell, I still use it if I ever find a torrent.

[DFM]

Built in torrent support?

That is schweet.

[Demetrius]

Not really, you have to leave the browser open and because it is handling the torrents as well as your surfing, it bogs horribly. I do like the GUI homepage thingey, I use it to easily see which of my favorite webcomics have updated without having to go to each site.

[KaitlynAriana]

I only prefer FireFox to IE cause FireFox will work on my computer.
*curses Microsoft*
There are something Safari won't let me look at that FireFox will. But even then, it doesn't cover all the bases.
*curses Mcrosoft*

[bananarama]

Firefox is the greatest and anybody who argues about it is stoopid (though I have heard that Safari actually loads pages faster than any other browser, but that could be bullshit....)

[KaitlynAriana]

Safari does load pages faster than FireFox, but it can't use a lot of sites. Like, and school I have to use ebuddy on my laptop, but I have to use FireFox for that. My Facebook applications have to be used with FireFox too.

[Preturbed]

My bank page won't load properly with Firefox, and I can't pay my insurance bills with it either. Other than that, firefox all the way!

[Aerozord]

well I use IE (old IE too) because I just like how it looks better. I know tabs have alot of advantages, but I just dont like using them.

What I have found is that sometimes firefox runs better then IE and vice versa with certain programs. So I dont avoid using firefox, its just not my default. And if your in a position to have both on your system, then I would definately suggest it.

[Frostatine]

Firefox takes money from microsoft everytime you use it, that alone should be reason enough.

In fact, if we all used firefox, maybe the company would crash and Xbox would fall off the side of the earth, prompting Sony to get off its ass.

But this is all drunken conjecture.

[Ugainius]

I personally think IE is superior, but that's probably because It was the first one I used.

However I really don't think there is enough difference between the inteweb browsers to effectively argue that one is noticably superior to the next.

[Mac]

When I use the family comp, I will be browsing a site like Kotaku or 1up and I get an error message that crashes IE.

While visiting those same sites on my laptop using Firefox, I rarely get those errors. In fact, when Firefox crashes, I open it up again and resume surfing from the last pages I visited.

[Fifthfiend]

Firefox takes money from microsoft everytime you use it, that alone should be reason enough.

?

Both programs are completely free.

Or putting it differently, if you're using a windows PC, you've already paid for IE, regardless of which browser you use.

I mean if you're running Firefox on like, a home-built Linux box or something, then sure, more power to you.

I've been using firefox since it doesn't keep downloading all that ad and spyware automatically. Or it does a better job of hiding it.

I've found that where the newer IE blocks stuff, Firefox does it without making a whole bunch of other stuff an arbitrary pain in the ass.

Like if I want to use this forum's entry box button for adding links to things, IE blocks it and then I have to temporarily authorize the page to allow javascript or some shit and then I can go back and use the box to add the link. Firefox never pulls any shit like that.

I also find FF tends to be better with the smaller details. Like you can have one tab open in the window and drag a link over to another tab and have the link open in that tab. IE7 won't let you do that.

There's also some nifty Firefox plugins, like there's one for connecting to gmail I find really handy.

So anyway, yeah. Firefox is good and I like it.

[Melfice]

Firefox takes money from microsoft everytime you use it, that alone should be reason enough.

In fact, if we all used firefox, maybe the company would crash and Xbox would fall off the side of the earth, prompting Sony to get off its ass.

But this is all drunken conjecture.

I am TRULY sorry for the off-topicness, but...

How does the bolded thing work?
Wouldn't the fact that the Xbox disappears mean less competition, meaning Sony will NEVER has to get off it's ass?

Bah. If anybody wants to make a topic out of this, go right ahead, but I've said my piece. >_>

Melfice, out.

[Vault Of Thrones]

At home I have 3 different browsers on my computer.
Safari
Firefox
and something called Camino

My personal favorite is Safari.
There are some options like resizable text fields (version 3 beta only) and other such things that make it really nice.
It also seems really fast but I have no way of actually testing the speed so I just take Apple's word for it.

If you are in no position to use Safari then I would recommend FireFox.
I can use either one at school and I like FireFox quite a bit more.
That may be because only recently has IE gotten tabs, and most of the features in there are just copied from FireFox.
I prefer to go with the original, not the rip-off.

Melfice, to answer your question, just read the last line.
Firefox takes money from microsoft everytime you use it, that alone should be reason enough.

In fact, if we all used firefox, maybe the company would crash and Xbox would fall off the side of the earth, prompting Sony to get off its ass.

But this is all drunken conjecture.

[Melfice]

New rule!
No posting when drunk UNLESS it's funny!

[Doc ock rokc]

I normally just use IE(7) but i think it has got something from some pop-ups that the stupid program was supposed to block
so...
will some one link me to FireFox so i can download and test my theory
because i cant use Google anymore...

[roadkill]

Firefox here (http://www.mozilla.com)

[Doc ock rokc]

thanks road kill i tried it and it appears that whatever i have it isn't a browser connection...

[KingOfChaos]

The only perk I see to Firefox is that it has a built in Download Manager, which 60% of people don't know what that is anyway.

Yes, I like making up percentages, so no that's probably not accurate, but if you don't know what it is, then you'll feel okay because that's a big percentage and if you do know then you'll feel smart because you're on the smaller side.

FireFox is also a little bit more picky towards proper XHTML; that is, using <br /> as a line break instead of </br>, so you spot errors a bit faster, and things don't always load properly. For instance,

www.parkercomics.com In IE, my Copyright has a tiny line next to the image, while in Firefox it does not.

Those are the only things I know of personally, that I see/notice on a frequent basis.

FireFox is more secure than IE...that's all I need to know.

[bluestarultor]

I liked IE6. IE7 is a steaming pile.

I now use FF almost exclusively unless I have to do homework, because NTC is a Microsoft whore and uses pages that crash once they realize you're not in IE, then tell you that's all they'll work in.

[Tyrazial]

I've noticed that Firefox eats up alot more memory on my system, but runs much more beautifully.

I have heard, however, that Opera is supposedly better than both.

But I like having a flaming hound encircling the world in the corner of my browser. It keeps me warm at night.

[Eltargrim]

blue, get the IE Tab extension; it allows you to render pages using Trident, rather than Gecko, and therefore they can't tell the difference.

Due to IE's integration, the separate process displays less than what it actually would need stand-alone.

[Lord of Joshelplex]

Kind of off topic, but whne I tried to use Firefox on my computer (IE7 installed) it works for like 15 mionutes, then it just slows down to a complate stop, and freezes as soon as I open it. Is tis MS's doing?

[Fifthfiend]

It sounds like your cache is fucked up, which is a thing that hapens with FF. I would think they'd have fixed that between versions one and two but I guess that's how it goes.

Anyway for what it's worth here's a side-by-side comparison of the two (http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/2006/08/22/internet_explorer_7_v_firefox_/1) that I found, and here's a writeup of the security differences (http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=109) (though note the security article refers to the beta releases of both programs).

Anyway it would be remiss not to mention that one of the best reasons to use firefox is the multitude of totally neat extensions (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:1) you can get for it; pretty much any time I find myself saying "man, it'd be neat if firefox did ________," a quick look through the extensions finds one that does exactly the thing I wanted.

[Eltargrim]

That's what sells Firefox to me, over Opera. I always start very bare-bones, but quickly find exactly what I need to make Firefox my own. Mouse gestures, AdBlock, TabMixPro, IE Tab, various different themes; it's all very important, even if it does increase FF's footprint.

EDITUS: About IE7; taken as an improvement over IE6, it's vastly better, so much so that it really does begin approaching Firefox. However, it still has one of the most fatal flaws of IE6, and the IE family in general. A browser should not have the level of control over a browser that IE7 does. It's far too integrated for it's own good, security wise. Ideally, it would be available in a way that it isn't tied into Windows, but that's just not an option at this level. Maybe with the next Windows OS.

[Donomni]

Kind of off topic, but whne I tried to use Firefox on my computer (IE7 installed) it works for like 15 mionutes, then it just slows down to a complate stop, and freezes as soon as I open it. Is tis MS's doing?

Do you have an extension that adds extra buttons to the sides of Flash panels and such? If so, turn it off.

FF will always be slow with those damn things there. At least for me.

[Blues]

Firefox can be configured to be immune to moving javascript things, obnoxious flash things, loud sounds and music player things, things that pop up, and whatever other things people put on websites specifically to piss me off. It also crashes whenever I try to view a myspace page, which is a plus because I hate myspace. I haven't had any spyware or any other such thing on my computer since I switched to firefox, and this was a big problem before, when I used IE. And then there's all the extensions. Bad thing: memory leaks. I understand the encypted cache is a good thing but I wish it was easier to browse.

Opera is clunky and ugly and sometimes shit doesn't seem to work on it.

IE allows the internet to rape my computer and it just seems so bare-bones and stupid after using firefox for a couple of years.

[roadkill]

Opera is clunky and ugly? It's just as easy to get new skins for Opera as it is to get new skins for Firefox.
As for things not working, I get that sometimes. When that happens, I just open up Firefox and copy the link over. It's kind of annoying, but it doesn't happen much and I like Opera's features more.

[Nikose Tyris]

honestly, it's less a matter of "Shit not working" as much as older web coding standards still being around. It's <br />, not </br> and some browsers won't acknowledge the old one anymore, Opera being one that tends to say "fuck off" a lot about it.

[Moor]

I use Opera mainly but my colleges site doesn't play nice with it. So I use firefox for it. And then the site my math work is done on doesn't like anything so I have to hate myself. I mean use IE7.

[Mongoose]

I prefer FF for many reasons.
-the flexibility is phenomenal (about:config is a godsend)
-add-ons and themes are plentiful/easily found/maintained/updated
-it's open source, which automatically gives it +1 awesomezorz
-pipelining
-the built in download manager for FF is great, but there are small issues I have with it. however, you can add-on a number of alternatives
-security
-IE's css support has been shoddy for me
-has worked with pc's/macs/linux pc's perfectly every time I've tried

Safari and Opera are great as well and for the average user, pretty much any browser will work fine, but when it comes to having complete, secure control over what you're working with, FF just wins.

oh, and I hate microsoft for requiring you to have IE to update (not sure if it's still that way with Vista, but who likes Vista anyways). MS is getting sued by opera in europe right now over something about that actually.