Poll- What's your favorite browser?

[bellgamin]

Please vote for thy favorite browser. If you have any *special reasons* behind your favorite, please share them with us.

shaloha........bellgamin

[rlane]

Internet Explorer, mostly because I've never had a chance to try anything else and it works well with Internet Information Server, which is what we use at work. I have Netscape on my machines so I can see how pages look with it.

[Gnomercy]

I've been using crazy browser for a while at Bellgamin's suggestion. It runs on the IE engine, so with a few adjustments from the default settings, it acts just like IE, but is a tremendous help with organization of what I'm working with as it tabs your browser windows in itself instead of your taskbar.

On my linux box, I use Galeon (mostly because, despite the hype, I really don't like Mozilla and anything else that looks / functions like netscape. I tried to use them but could never manage to, umm... acquire a taste for them.) I don't do much browsing on the linux machine... it's more of a learing and business tool as well as a firewall for my home network, but when I do browse, that's what I use.

[bellgamin]

Originally posted by rlane
Internet Explorer, mostly because I've never had a chance to try anything else

If you are comfortable with IE, I can almost guarantee that you will LOVE Crazy Browser (http://www.crazybrowser.com/) .

Crazy runs on the IE engine, so it looks & operates very similar to IE. The main advantages of Crazy are that it...
a) Adds Tabs to IE
b) Has a very powerful pop-up stopper
c) Is a tad faster than IE.

aloha......bellgamin

[Carolyn]

I think I'm rather ignorant because I've almost always used IE. I did once use Netscape when I first got on the net....such a long long time ago.......ah memories. LOL didn't like it then.

[Gade Terbob]

I second Carolyn's vote. I have so much trouble keeping this hunk-a-junk working, I can't imagine using anything else.

[Irv]

I detest IE for many reasons, but most recently because my friend's system was hijacked because of it. He got forwarded to a C2/lop.com affiliate portal that automatically ran some blind embedded ActiveX code that modified the registry with no warning. Even with the removal instructions found on various anti-spyware web sites and Google Group Search, it took me nearly two hours to remove the junk that it dumped into his registry. It was so bad that even an error (like say you enter an invalid URL) in Phoenix would forward you to lop.com.

I've used CrazyBrowser at work and it's okay, but I don't like the way it spawns new tabs. They don't always go at the end of the row. It depends on which tab you create a new tab from. I also don't like how it never spawns a pop-up even on user demand (user demanded pop-ups open in a tab instead) and how you can't open multiple instances of it on the taskbar in spite of the tabs.

There are a couple of other IE-based browsers out there -- AvantBrowser and MyIE2. I've yet to check these out, but they may be worth a look.

http://www.avantbrowser.com/
http://www.ruihehang.com/myie2/html_en/home.htm

I use Mozilla 1.3 and I also utilize its mail and news client as well as ChatZilla. The browser is far more secure than IE could ever hope to be and it also renders CSS in compliance with W3C standards. That said, I do use IE to check browser compatibility when I design sites, but I never use it to browse the web. I force ZoneAlarm Pro to prompt me before allowing IE to access the web. The only thing I do like about IE is easy plugin installation, but even that has its drawbacks because it leaves you more prone to having your browser and system hijacked.

Between Mozilla and ZoneAlarm Pro, I get no pop-ups, no banner ads, and no pop-up detector hijackers (There is a free BBS software out there that dumps an advertisement IFRAME in the middle of the screen if its JavaScript detects that you have a pop-up killer).

[Bytes U]

I prefer to use Phoenix on my XP box. It seems faster, stops auto-popups but allows them if you click a popup link, easy to set a minimum font size to over-ride css settings (i.e. css body text 8px but you want 14px to be minimum), graphic laden pages render text immediately instead of holding back until most of graphics are placed, tabbed browsing, themes, and I'm sure more. It's still in beta but it's been flawless for me. If you want to try out Phoenix, the latest build can be found here. Phoenix Releases (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/releases.html) I suggest using the "latest nightly build" link.

[Gnomercy]

Actually Irv, CrazyBrowser will let you open multiple instances of the browser on the taskbar and will open all tabs at the end of the row, you just need to change a couple options found under Options/Advanced Options. I must admit that not opening a user demanded popup in a popup window is irritating at times, but for it's a small price to pay for the benefits that I've seen.

[Irv]

Thanks for the tip, Gnomercy! I must have glazed over the preferences in the program, but I'll take a closer look. That resolves most of my complaints with CrazyBrowser. It's altogether a pretty good browser and although I'm not thrilled with the IE rendering engine, I still like using it far better than IE at work where the servers run IIS and there is some IE-specific code on things like MS Outlook Web Access.

Bytes U, the Phoenix themes are great. There must be like 30-40 of them out there now, and that's just on the official Phoenix help site alone.

Either way, there's no reason to still be using plain old IE anymore these days with all the popups and malicious ActiveX code out there. I have a bad feeling though that if MS adds tabbed browsing (likely) and popup blocking (unlikely -- last time I visited MSN.com with IE, guess what happened?) in IE7, they'll claim it as some new and innovative feature.

[Gnomercy]

Don't mention it Irv. Bellgamin turned me on to Crazy Browser and had to walk me through some of the options config stuff... takes a bit of digging around to really get it customized the way you want it, but works wonderfully once you get it set up.

[bellgamin]

Originally posted by Bytes U
I prefer to use Phoenix on my XP box. I suggest using the "latest nightly build" link.

I also use Phoenix as my *default* nowadays.

If any of you folks think you might like to give Phoenix a trial, I suggest that you might want to start out with one of the more stable versions, such as 20030319, before you start experimenting with the latest nightlies.

Unless, of course, you have a very strong spirit of adventure. ;)

I still use Crazy -- it is superb. There is a non-free tabbed IE-clone that is good, too. It is...
NetCaptor (http://www.netcaptor.com/)

By the way, using an IE-based browser can be reasonably safe if you apply the suggestions by...Marcus J (http://www.markusjansson.net/eienbid.html)

aloha....bellgamin

[Gnomercy]

My spirit of adventure is limited to screwing around with peoples accounts to learn new stuff :D