Browsers...

[Sebine]

I found the most awesome one

Opera

this is some neat shit... mouse shortcuts, a 'speed dial' of your 9 most frequented pages, all around better than IE


Whats so great about FF anyway?
FF hates me

 

[richi1173]

Whats so great about firefox?

The add-ons.

 

[Zylstra]

FF is open source and can be made to do nearly anything- except display myspace. I tried to visit myspace and I keep getting sent to the mobile version, even after disabling WMLBrowser :evil:

 

[GoodKat]

Firefox tells me the weather, automatically checks my email, automatically uses proxy servers for specific sites, looks exactly the way I want, downloads and converts videos from YouTube for me, tells me if the webpage I'm visiting has a bad reputation, displays a preview image for all of google's search results, ect, ect.

 

[Moky]

FF is based off Opera I heard. I switched to Opera after I had issues with FF and things got better. I still had issues, but less than with FF.

 

[Zylstra]

FF is based off Opera I heard

Opera evolved from Netscape and is a cousin of Seamonkey.

From Mozilla.org

The Mozilla project was created in 1998 with the release of the Netscape browser suite source code that was intended to harness the creative power of thousands of programmers on the Internet and fuel unprecedented levels of innovation in the browser market. Within the first year, new community members from around the world had already contributed new functionality, enhanced existing features and became engaged in the management and planning of the project itself.

By creating an open community, the Mozilla project had become larger than any one company. Community members got involved and expanded the scope of the project's original mission,instead of just working on Netscape's next browser, people started creating a variety of browsers, development tools and a range of other projects. People contributed to Mozilla in different ways, but everyone was passionate about creating free software that would enable people to have a choice in how they experienced the Internet.

After several years of development, Mozilla 1.0, the first major version, was released in 2002. This version featured many improvements to the browser, email client and other applications included in the suite, but not many people were using it. By 2002, well over 90% of Internet users were browsing with Internet Explorer. Not many people noticed at the time, but the first version of Phoenix (later renamed to Firefox) was also released by Mozilla community members that year with the goal of providing the best possible browsing experience to the widest possible set of people.

In 2003, the Mozilla project created the Mozilla Foundation, an independent non-profit organization supported by individual donors and a variety of companies. The new Mozilla Foundation continued the role of managing the daily operations of the project and also officially took on the role of promoting openness, innovation, and opportunity on the Internet. It did this by continuing to release software, such as Firefox and Thunderbird, and expanding to new areas, such as providing grants to support accessibility improvements on the Web.

Firefox 1.0 was released in 2004 and became a big success. In less than a year, Firefox had been downloaded over 100 million times. New versions of Firefox have come out regularly since then and keep setting new records. The popularity of Firefox has helped bring choice back to users. In 2008, Firefox reached 20% worldwide market share and renewed competition has accelerated innovation and improved the Internet for everyone.

Mozilla celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2008. In ten years the community has shown that commercial companies can benefit by collaborating in open source projects and that great end user products can be produced as open source software. More people than ever before are using the Internet and are experiencing it in their own language. A sustainable organization has been created that uses market mechanisms to support a public benefit mission and this model has been reused by others to create open, transparent and collaborative organizations in a broad range of areas.

The next ten years have challenges and opportunities equal to those of our first decade. There's no guarantee that the Internet will remain open or enjoyable or safe. Mozilla will continue to provide an opportunity for people to make their voices heard and to shape their own online lives. Of course, we're not alone in doing this. The Mozilla community, as well as other open source projects and other public benefit organizations, exists only because of the people who are engaged with making our common goals a reality. If you want to join us in our mission, please get involved.

Major Software Releases

* June 17, 2008 - Firefox 3.0 is released
* April 18, 2007 - Thunderbird 2.0 is released as a major update to the free, open source email client
* January 18, 2007 - SeaMonkey 1.1 is made available
* October 24, 2006 - Mozilla releases Firefox 2.0
* January 30, 2006 - SeaMonkey 1.0 is released
* January 12, 2006 - Thunderbird 1.5 is made available
* November 29, 2005 - Mozilla releases Firefox 1.5
* December 7, 2004 - Mozilla rolls out Thunderbird 1.0 providing users with an alternative, free email client
* November 9, 2004 - Mozilla Firefox 1.0 goes live, allowing users to experience the Web in a whole new way
* June 17, 2004 - Mozilla 1.7 is launched with many improvements to speed and standards support
* June 30, 2003 - Mozilla 1.4 is released with popup blocking, junkmail filtering, and many improvements
* September 23, 2002 - Phoenix 0.1 is released, the first official version of a stand-alone browser that will later be renamed to Firefox
* June 5, 2002 - Mozilla 1.0 is released - the browser which is the precursor to today's wildly popular Firefox Web browser
* November 14, 2000 - Netscape 6 is released and is the first official Netscape product based on open source code

If memory serves, there were some legal battles following the original split. I read about it once, but I don't recall where

 

[Zylstra]

More here

It took many years for Firefox to be an overnight success. Who would have thought back in March 1998, when the struggling Netscape released the source code for its Communicator Suite, that Firefox would be the favorite browser on the Linux platform and a formidable insurgent challenger to Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) on Windows.

Gradually over the past ten years, Netscape morphed into the Mozilla browser, which in turn gave rise to Firefox. Today, Firefox owns a market share of around 20% worldwide (and much higher in certain places). How was Firefox able to accomplish this rise from the ashes of Netscape and go from underdog to hero?

The story of Firefox also is a story of the coming of age of open source, of opportunities presented by Microsoft failing its users of IE, of Internet users hungering for something new and of cutting-edge innovation that blew our socks off.
....

Certainly you remember the browser wars of the mid- to late-1990s,the ones that Netscape lost handily. Although we were fortunate that Netscape cared enough to maintain a Linux version, we used the Communicator out of necessity, not passion.

Little did we know at the time, but the seeds of change (and the beginnings of the Firefox browser) would be planted on January 23, 1998, when Netscape announced the release of source code for Netscape Navigator 5.0. ....

The Making of Mozilla: 1998-2002

It took some time for Mozilla to come of age post-Netscape. Although Netscape Communicator's source code was released in early 1998, the Mozilla 1.0 suite, or applications framework as it is technically called, was not finished until June 5, 2002. Despite Mozilla's Netscape-like look and feel during this period, much was changing under the hood. In November 2000, Linux Journal writer Mike Angelo commented that "if you have any notions that Mozilla, the browser suite, is an upgrade from Netscape Communicator 4.x, please lose them. Picture Mozilla as a browser suite that is new from the ground up, but just looks and feels lots like the Netscape 4.x browser suite, thanks to its skin".

In spite of the overhaul, Mozilla retained Netscape's "all-in-one" suite orientation, which was later to be shed by the self-standing Firefox. Mozilla consisted of the applications Mozilla Navigator, Mozilla Composer, Mozilla E-Mail, Mozilla News and ChatZilla.

During this period, in March 1999, Netscape went off to become part of America Online. Nevertheless, the two organizations retained close ties,for instance, many of Mozilla's developers were inside Netscape/AOL, and Netscape/AOL continued to assist Mozilla financially. Furthermore, while Netscape/AOL utilized the Mozilla code as a base for its own Netscape 6, the company added its own proprietary features, such as AIM.

Development-wise, these six interim years were productive. Most important, the Mozilla development team built the Gecko browser layout engine from scratch and ensured full W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) standards compliance. In addition, changing skins on the fly, security features and the plugin model were expanded and improved significantly.
Mozilla 1.0: Worth the Wait

After four long years of development, Mozilla 1.0, mostly free of its Netscape Communicator past, was at last released on June 4, 2002. CNET.com's Rex Baldazo raved that "The four-and-a-half-year wait is over,Mozilla 1.0 has gone gold, and from what we've seen, it's been worth the delay." Immediately, users were impressed with Mozilla's speed, stability and features, such as tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking and custom skins.

Mozilla's features caught the surfing public's attention and re-ignited the browser wars of yore. Several different Web analytics firms reported that Microsoft's Internet Explorer dropped from a 97% market share in 2002 to 93% in late 2004. During the same period, Mozilla went from a 2% market share with Netscape to more than 5% with all of its open-source browser offerings.
Firefox Grows in the Shadow of the Mozilla Suite

While the Mozilla browser was out in the world making Web surfers everywhere gleeful, the development team at mozilla.org, led by Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich, already was laying the foundation for a much better browser. On September 23, 2002, the Mozilla team released Phoenix 0.1 (Pescadero), the first official version of a standalone browser that would later be named Firebird and, eventually, Firefox. Phoenix was a redesign of Mozilla's browser component but written using the XUL user interface language and designed to be cross-platform. Phoenix's developers stated that "Phoenix is not your father's Mozilla browser. It's a lean and fast browser that doesn't skimp on features", loading pages in half the time as Mozilla 1.1. Furthermore, they added, "Not only does Phoenix aim to match the feature set of Mozilla,subtracting features deemed geeky and better offered as add-ons,but it extends it. We also believe Mozilla, in general, is going in the wrong direction in terms of bloat and UI, and see no reason for our releases to carry those connotations."

On April 3, 2003, Mozilla announced its intent to develop what would become Firefox (code-named Firebird at the time) as a standalone application rather than as part of an integrated suite.

Mozilla's Eich summarized the new browser's philosophy in its development road map as follows:

[Firefox] is simply smaller, faster, and better,especially better not because it has every conflicting feature wanted by each segment of the Mozilla community, but because it has a strong "add-on" extension mechanism....Attempting to "hard-wire" all these features to the integrated application suite is not legitimate; it's neither technically nor socially scalable.

Firefox 1.0 Arrives

Six years, seven months and nine days after the birth of mozilla.org, Firefox 1.0 was born on November 9, 2004. Looking back to the earliest days of Firefox 1.0 with three and a half years of perspective and comfortable browsing, it's easy to forget how exciting the post-release vibe was. Firefox saw more than 100,000 downloads in the first few hours and nearly 10 million per month shortly after the release. Toward the end of its run, Firefox 1.0 reached 100 million downloads in October 2005. This success translated into a market share of around 5%. By early December 2004, according to OnStat.com, Internet Explorer's market share dropped yet again to below 90%.

There was a palpable hunger for an alternative. As part of the Spread Firefox campaign, 10,000 Firefox supporters coughed up some of their hard-earned money to show support for their browser by contributing to fund a full-spread advertisement in the New York Times. Spread Firefox is the nexus of global community volunteerism to promote Firefox via guerrilla marketing activities.

The left page of the masterful New York Times ad features the names of all 10,000 contributors over a shadowed Firefox logo. The ad asks the reader, "Are you fed up with your Web browser? You're not alone. We want you to know there is an alternative." On the right page, it featured, "Introducing Mozilla Firefox 1.0" in bold type, followed by quotes from satisfied users and the advantages of Firefox, such as speed and browsing free of pop-ups and spyware. "Find out what 10 million users from around the world already know: there is an alternative." Unfortunately, the Times ad is not printable in this space due to size constraints, although you can see it at the Spread Firefox Web site.

There also was hunger for better security. On the Windows side, it seemed that IE was once invincible. However, IE's security problems pushed millions of users and countless organizations out to the far edge of the plank; Firefox was the nudge that made them jump ship in droves.

For most people, however, the reason to move to Firefox was its features. They ate up the tabbed browsing, better standards support, integrated search, a user-friendly plugin management system, easy installation and removal procedures and, of course, better security. The latter was possible, because Firefox lacks the deep hooks into the operating system as is the situation with IE, which therefore suffers greater impact from flaws.
Firefox 1.5

During 2005, Firefox gained 10% of global market share from its rivals, a feat that the proprietary Netscape could not muster after falling behind Internet Explorer. The success train continued to roll down the tracks, and Mozilla released Firefox 1.5 on November 29, 2005.

In Firefox 1.5, the Mozilla development team added new features, such as even speedier page loading, drag-and-drop search, integrated RSS reader, tab re-ordering, better pop-up blocking, binary patching for upgrades, clearing of personal data with a single button and partial SVG 1.1 support,not to mention all the new extensions that continue to accumulate, which leave practically no limit to what you can do with Firefox.

Despite the increased complexity of version 1.5, the Firefox development team continued to prove itself more worthy than its rivals, not only attending to serious flaws but also avoiding them in the first place.
Firefox 2.0

We need another metaphor for inertia, because Firefox 2.0 has it too. As we sit on the verge of version 3.0, we can see that Firefox 2.0 has carved out another 8% of market share to reach 18%, according to Net Applications. This translates into approximately 170 million users worldwide.

For features, the 2.0 release added Google's anti-phishing software, Live Titles for bookmarks, spell-checking, improved UI and improved support for SVG and JavaScript 1.7.
Firefox 3.0

{This article was written prior to the release of FF3

 

[Atomicnumber86]

I found the most awesome one

Opera

this is some neat shit... mouse shortcuts, a 'speed dial' of your 9 most frequented pages, all around better than IE


Whats so great about FF anyway?
FF hates me

YES! opera fucking rocks.. and you can increase the pages of the speed dial, one of my friends has 45 or something like that It is insane..

 

[CosmicSpork]

There's nothing that Opera can do that Firefox can't in my opinion. I am a hardcore Firefox user because although Opera has improved greatly in the last few versions, it used to display webpages badly, and had some funny quirks.

Firefox has all the best web development tools which is vital to someone like me. Firebug ftw. Like with others it does have its quirks but the benefits far outweigh the pitfalls.

Chrome although having been officially released, is not finished imo, which is why they have so quickly started developing Chrome 2.0 rather than finishing up 1.0. I'm not a big webkit fan, so Safari is also out.

IE will always and forever be a useless bag of crap until Microsoft get their heads out of their arses and actually use the proper standards and try to keep up, and they also need to open it up for better addon support.

 

[COMMUNIST FLISK]

There's nothing that Opera can do that Firefox can't in my opinion. I am a hardcore Firefox user because although Opera has improved greatly in the last few versions, it used to display webpages badly, and had some funny quirks.

Firefox has all the best web development tools which is vital to someone like me. Firebug ftw. Like with others it does have its quirks but the benefits far outweigh the pitfalls.

Chrome although having been officially released, is not finished imo, which is why they have so quickly started developing Chrome 2.0 rather than finishing up 1.0. I'm not a big webkit fan, so Safari is also out.

IE will always and forever be a useless bag of crap until Microsoft get their heads out of their arses and actually use the proper standards and try to keep up, and they also need to open it up for better addon support.

exactly right in everything there FF FTW

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I'm already on Chrome, even though it is technically still in "Beta". It is the browser that most suits me: fast, clean, doesn't do a bunch.

 

[Zerosix]

I use Safari when using OSX. FF when using Windows

Tried using Opera but wasn't really impressed compared to Safari. May have to give it another go though.


No one should still be using IE or Chrome! The amount of security holes in those browsers is ridiculous!

 

[Josan]

I'm already on Chrome, even though it is technically still in "Beta". It is the browser that most suits me: fast, clean, doesn't do a bunch.

Ditto.

 

[CosmicSpork]

Chrome 1.0 isn't strictly in beta any longer, if it were, I'd be more forgiving of it's problems... there is a 'beta' version which is the development version or 'unstable' version... it's a bit of a mislabel if you ask me to call it a beta after it's had a proper major version release...

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Chrome 1.0 isn't strictly in beta any longer, if it were, I'd be more forgiving of it's problems... there is a 'beta' version which is the development version or 'unstable' version... it's a bit of a mislabel if you ask me to call it a beta after it's had a proper major version release...

There are problems?

 

[Ozymandyus]

I love Chrome personally. It's what I use - hasn't caused me any problems.

I occasionally break out firefox and try out some fancy add-on gizmos and whatzits... but that's pretty rare nowadays. I like to keep it simple =).

 

[Daealis]

Before our house had a computer, I associated "internet" with IE. Throughout the time when when 56kbps modem was all to surf with, I didn't know I had a choice(so I used text-based BBS-services instead of browsing interwebs). I was fed up with IE from the start, I hated it when I went to school and their computers didn't have other alternatives than Netscape....and anyone who ever tried that can propably agree that really isn't an alternative.

So after I left home to study I got acquainted with a buddy who had been using Opera for a while and school computers had Firefox. So I tried both. I ended up with FF for the addons. Few of these addons I use make FF behave more like Opera(TreeStyle Tabs, MouseGestures) and the rest just make the surfing more pleasant, like Adblock plus with a few block-lists. I like that I can get new features if I need them.

 

[Zerric14]

Gentlemen... Use Google chrome

Its pretty light on features now, but they promise Add-ons like FF soon, and its the fastest from what Iv'e seen. I use as default

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Gentlemen... Use Google chrome

Its pretty light on features now, but they promise Add-ons like FF soon, and its the fastest from what Iv'e seen. I use as default

We did a speed test on Chrome, IE, and FF in my CompTIA A+ Certification class last year as part of an assignment. We used matching PCs with fresh installs of Windows XP, and all went to the same websites on all three browsers. Chrome smokes the other two, hands down.

ETA: what about the ladies? Can they use it too?

 

[enterman]

Gentlemen... Use Google chrome

Its pretty light on features now, but they promise Add-ons like FF soon, and its the fastest from what Iv'e seen. I use as default

So basically, because of future promises we should just use chrome now, thus losing all of our nice add-ons we all love? I think I'll stick with Firefox, thanks. Using a simple tweak like this you will be loading pages faster than Chrome anyways :roll:

Here's something for broadband people that will really speed Firefox up:
1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:
network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.
2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.
3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.
If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!

This thread should be turned into a poll considering there are about 4 mainstream browsers used mainly (sorry users of the lesser known browsers).