Web Browsers…Which One’s Right For You?

So, It’s Occured To Me How Many Web Browsers There Are And How People Compare Them In Terms Of Which One They Use As Their Default Browser, When Hanging Round Geek Sites Like I Do You Often Find Some ‘Noob’ Post Comments Such As “FIREFOX RULES” And ” [Insert Web Browser Other Tha FireFox Here] Sucks”, Which Isn’t Helping Anyone, Infact, Saying This Kind Of Thing Isn’t Helping Firefox At All Because It’s Showing The Users Up For What Small Minded, Petty People They Really Are, Which Of Course Most Aren’t, It’s Just That 5% Of The User Base That Always Seem To Get Everywhere…
The Way I See It Is That Every Good Geek (Or Indeed Anyone Wanting A Good Internet Experience) Should Have At least Two Or Three Browsers Installed. One Browser May Be Good Enough To Tackle General Everyday Browsing And Security Risks But The Chances Are That Even That Web Browser Won’t Be Able To Handle Everything. Here’s My Guide In What Browser To Get Depending On What You’re Doing…

Internet Explorer 7 - Decent For The Everyday User, However, In My Opinion Should ONLY Be Used If Check ing Hotmail Or Unless ABSOLUTELY NECESARY (No Other Browser Will Do The Job)

Internet Explorer 6 - The Pinacle Of IE, Will Be Good For Most Users On XP, However You May Want To Upgrade If You Want Some Of The More Advanced Features You Get In Another Browser, e.g. Tabs, Advanced Security, Tabbed Browsing And Plugins.)

Internet Explorer 8 - Don’t Even Go There, No One Should Touch This Unless You Know What Your Doing Or Really Must Try It. It Won’t Even Layout Hotmail Right, I’ve Got It Running In IE7 EMulate Mode To Run Properly.

Firefox 2.x - Well, The Mainstream Of Alternative Web Browsers..If You Get What I Mean. This Is Probably The Second Most Used Browser In The World, Behind IE Of Course. For Any Self Respecting Geek, This Is A Must Have With It’s Plugins And Stability. Eventhough I Don’t Use It For Normal Web Browsing I Recommend It For Adobe Flash, The Flash Performance IS Second To None.

Firefox 3.x - Still In BETA, Best Stick With Firefox 2 For Now, Unless You Want To Try It Of Course, But I Can’t See Many Advances, It Is Faster Though.

Safari 3.x - Mac OS X = Must Have, Windows = Weird. If You Use This On Mac OS X Chances Are You Won’t Need To Switch Unless You Want The More Advanced Stuff That Other Browsers Offer. However, On Windows I Reccomend You Try To Use Another As The Default If Possible Due To The Risks Of Still Being In BETA. Nice To Try But Annoying To Keep.
NB - On My Mac mini, Safari Crashes 5-10 Times A Night Which Is Just Annoying. So I Switched To Firefox For A Day Or Two, But Then Safari 3.1 Was Realeased And It Seems To Have Fixed The Issue

Opera 9.2x - My Browser Of Choice For General Viwing. A Mesh Of All The Web Browsers Above, Good For General Web Viewing. On Windows It’s The Fastest Browser, However On Mac OS X It Really Takes A Speed Hit, Coming At Nearlly 5x Slower According To My Test But That Could Just Be Me. It Can Be Skinned To Add The Custom Feel. It Also Sports Advanced Inbuilt Features Such As BitTorrent Client, FTP Client, IRC, And RSS Feeds. If Your Planning To Watch Lots Of YouTube Videos Or Play Lots Of Flash Video Stuff, Use Firefox. Flash Games Or Anything Else, Opera Should Do Fine.

So, I Hope I May Have Given You An Idea to Go Out And Try Another Web Browser, Even If You;re Just Going To Uninstall It Again Afterwards. I Installed An Obscure Web Browser Off A CD Three Years Ago And I’m Still Using It Today So…Give Them A Go.

Links
Internet Explorer 7

Internet Explorer 8 BETA

Firefox (Latest Stable) 

Firefox 3 BETA 

Safari 

Opera