5 ms·

Why not choose a different browser?

com2kid 13y ago
I use a variety of browsers, but some websites work best in some browsers. I've seen sites not work in FF or IE that work great in Opera, sites that fail in IE and work fine in FF, and it is not to uncommon to find sites posted here that only work in Chrome. FF leaks memory, or at least the plugins that make FF great leak memory. (If I kill Reddit Enhancement Suite and AdBlock+ FF tends to stay alive for more than a few hours). I'm opposed to Chrome, I prefer a browser that isn't designed to track everything I do. (Although Google already tracks everything that I do, so I'm really not winning much of that battle.) On my Windows 7 machine, IE is my browser that has no plugins installed. It is really fast, light, and insanely stable. FF is my plugin laden browser, as such it tends to go down in flames with some frequency. I am annoyed with the IE team for taking a dependency upon DirectX, annoyed with DirectX for taking a dependency upon video card drivers, and annoyed with HP for not updating their drivers. (To be fair, there is a very short list of Laptops that the particular DirectX update doesn't work with, mine just so happens to be on that list!)
- driverdan 13y ago
  Open FF in privacy mode without plugins enabled. Or disable Chrome's "tracking" mechanisms (there aren't many). Problem solved.
  - com2kid 13y ago
    > Open FF in privacy mode without plugins enabled. Then the internet is a much worse experience! I have those plugins installed for a reason; Flash, AdBlock+ and Reddit Enhancement Suite.
    - driverdan 13y ago
      I mean as an alternative to IE. FF with no plugins is better than IE.
    - Rumudiez 13y ago
      You're making your own problems, it seems... Purchasing from HP in the last six years was a good way to start off on that foot, at least!
      - com2kid 13y ago
        HP was the only laptop manufacturer at the time offering a laptop with a dedicated graphics card of reasonable performance and a 1080p screen in a 14" form factor. They were quite literally my only choice at the time. Aside from having shipped with bad sticks of RAM, and the current stale video card issues, the machine is rock solid stable and after putting an SSD in there, lightening fast.
        csmuk 13y ago
        Lenovo ThinkPad. Nothing good ever came from buying HP.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
  I would love to know which sites work great in Opera but not at all in FF. Seriously, as a web dev, that would be very useful research material - please post some reference URLs if you can.
  - com2kid 13y ago
    Pandora.com! The scroll wheel for the station selector works best in Opera. It is buggy and slow in Chrome, or at least it was a couple of months ago when I last checked across all browsers. Even better, Pandora's station selector is 50 types of borked in IE9 and 10. I gave them a bug report complete with a video capture repro a couple of months ago, nothing has changed. In Firefox the scroll wheel just doesn't do anything at all. It is hilarious, this has worked for literally YEARS and then they broke it a few months ago. To continue the oddness, Pandora works with pure HTML5 (e.g. no Flash) in IE but demands Flash when using Firefox. Joy!

I use a variety of browsers, but some websites work best in some browsers. I've seen sites not work in FF or IE that work great in Opera, sites that fail in IE and work fine in FF, and it is not to uncommon to find sites posted here that only work in Chrome. FF leaks memory, or at least the plugins that make FF great leak memory. (If I kill Reddit Enhancement Suite and AdBlock+ FF tends to stay alive for more than a few hours). I'm opposed to Chrome, I prefer a browser that isn't designed to track everything I do. (Although Google already tracks everything that I do, so I'm really not winning much of that battle.) On my Windows 7 machine, IE is my browser that has no plugins installed. It is really fast, light, and insanely stable. FF is my plugin laden browser, as such it tends to go down in flames with some frequency. I am annoyed with the IE team for taking a dependency upon DirectX, annoyed with DirectX for taking a dependency upon video card drivers, and annoyed with HP for not updating their drivers. (To be fair, there is a very short list of Laptops that the particular DirectX update doesn't work with, mine just so happens to be on that list!)

driverdan 13y ago
Open FF in privacy mode without plugins enabled. Or disable Chrome's "tracking" mechanisms (there aren't many). Problem solved.
- com2kid 13y ago
  > Open FF in privacy mode without plugins enabled. Then the internet is a much worse experience! I have those plugins installed for a reason; Flash, AdBlock+ and Reddit Enhancement Suite.
  - driverdan 13y ago
    I mean as an alternative to IE. FF with no plugins is better than IE.
  - Rumudiez 13y ago
    You're making your own problems, it seems... Purchasing from HP in the last six years was a good way to start off on that foot, at least!
    - com2kid 13y ago
      HP was the only laptop manufacturer at the time offering a laptop with a dedicated graphics card of reasonable performance and a 1080p screen in a 14" form factor. They were quite literally my only choice at the time. Aside from having shipped with bad sticks of RAM, and the current stale video card issues, the machine is rock solid stable and after putting an SSD in there, lightening fast.
      - csmuk 13y ago
        Lenovo ThinkPad. Nothing good ever came from buying HP.
oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
I would love to know which sites work great in Opera but not at all in FF. Seriously, as a web dev, that would be very useful research material - please post some reference URLs if you can.
- com2kid 13y ago
  Pandora.com! The scroll wheel for the station selector works best in Opera. It is buggy and slow in Chrome, or at least it was a couple of months ago when I last checked across all browsers. Even better, Pandora's station selector is 50 types of borked in IE9 and 10. I gave them a bug report complete with a video capture repro a couple of months ago, nothing has changed. In Firefox the scroll wheel just doesn't do anything at all. It is hilarious, this has worked for literally YEARS and then they broke it a few months ago. To continue the oddness, Pandora works with pure HTML5 (e.g. no Flash) in IE but demands Flash when using Firefox. Joy!