Internet Explorer 7 VS. Mozilla Firefox 2

Which one do you prefer?
I prefer Internet Explorer and still cant understand why Firefox is more popular. What better in Firefox please explain to me so that I know I'm not missing out on anything.

 

FF allows for extensions, has better security and speelll cheeckkk

 

FireFox has a lot less security (publicly) known holes which make it safer than IE. FF also uses a sandbox security setup. FireFox has a better extension base than IE and new code is written everyday for the browser. Then theres API. Better phishing protection than IE7. Large number of ad-ons that add function to FF. better spyware protection.

 

But I've noticed that IE is lighter on memory and browsing is a little faster

 

With most people having more than >1GB of RAM these days -- FireFox using 20mb more than IE is nothing worth worrying about.

 

I use IE7 most of the time. I have FF2 on all my systems but rarely ever use it.

 

I don't know if this has been fixed but I know there is a way to screw people using IE7.

If they are logged into, say, a bank account, then minimize and forget about it...Then they move to a site where the site was designed to access secure data from the bank account! Excellent for phishing. There are a few ways to trick IE7 into thinking the site is "safe" -- but the same tricks can't trick the newest FireFox. I'm not going to explain how they work here.

 

Firefox 2 is better than IE7. On some websites I frequent IE7 actually crashes, where Firefox remains stable. Also, there are a ton more options - hundreds of themes and addons to choose from.

 

Honestly, is this a joke? Firefox is the web browser. There is no alternative!!! (Opera is Firefox's ignored cousin. )

Matt

 

Is there a way to contact M$ and sell them your security exploits?

 

Lol. I doubt they would buy them from you...

 

FF2 has so many issues with viewing content on websites!! The only way i can justify it is the extension i have for FF2 that allows you to render a page in IE, while in a tab of FF. I often find about 1/3 of my open tabs are rendered in IE b/c firefox wont display the media/plugin on the page

 

They should. I can trick the most recent IE7 into believing the site is safe. Phishing IE7 isn't hard. And also forcing activeX is a joke. And some other things.

Edit: Found what I needed. M$ & buddies are paying out $8 grand per exploit in Vista and IE7. How do I guarantee I get my money? Maybe get an attorney? The exact rules simply say: Most recent official updates only, no alpha or pre releases, $8000 per exploit, maximum of 6 exploits per person, first person to submit exploit gets the $8000.

I have at least 10 exploits my friends and I have been working on with IE7 alone.

 

Even if there isn't anything else worth reporting about FF2.0, its worth using just for spell check. Saves me time, makes my writing look better, and probably helps ease the modding job (hopefully other check their spelling??)

 

Extensions. Nothing more or less.
It's a decent browser, and it generally renders pages more correctly than IE7. But it's still not exactly amazing in itself. It's sloooooow at loading big pages, and it uses more memory than IE, iirc.

But it has a few interface advantages. The search functionality is much better than in other browsers (may be an odd thing to highlight, but hey, I like it), and its source-code viewer is a hell of a lot better than IE's opening pages in Notepad.

But the main thing is the extensions. With a few extensions, you can get anything from a new download manager (showing downloads in a statusbar at the bottom of the window, to the ability to automatically resize the built-in searchbar, to a Javascript/HTML/CSS debugger, or one automatically converts urls into proper links you can click on, allows saving Youtube videos directly or anything else you can imagine. Until another browser offers similar flexibility, I have to stick with Firefox, regardless of the disadvantages.

 

It depends on the setup, the person, and the server(s), etc etc.

About FireFox being slow, sure, it is slightly slower than IE. But big deal.

Do you really need to get to those porno pictures 2-3 seconds faster? ;-)

edit: lets not forget FF is better for developers to work with now.

 

Looks= IE7
Performance= Firefox

 

The looks of FireFox can be improved using themes.

A customized FF looks better than IE7 IMO.

 

IE only appears lighter on memory because it's hidden in other processes like Explorer.exe and some of the other services (see this for an explanation of how the memory usage you see in the task manager isn't correct).

Another note: Fresh start, Firefox going to my customized google homepage uses 18MB of VM space (that's the actual memory it's allocated and is using.) IE? It's sitting at 26MB on the exact same page, from a completely clean start.

And as for why IE is faster? Enjoy . Gotta love anticompetitive behavior. They've probably got other things going on in there, too.

See this as well.

 

Not even an IE thing. Reading is fundamental. Gotta love how they put the correction in small print at the bottom of the page, rather than in the actual accusations and innuendoes of the text. But then the truth always seems to not sell as well as conspiracies.

 

Hey, they still screwed it up. Period. Standards non-compliance in the main network stack is just as bad as it is in an application. It still showed preference for IIS servers, which is wrong.

 

Yup. Back in NT 4.0 before the turn of the century. Can you please provide a more current article on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista displaying the same behavior?

 

FF all the way.

 

ooo its gettin kinda hot in here

 

One word:
customizability (and sex appeal)

You can tweak and change anything and everything about your firefox to make it exactly the way you want. It's definitely not slower than IE7 either. It might be by default, but you can enable pipelining and tweak other connection settings; mine is blazing fast.

Also, IE7 is ugly as hell IMO, and you can't really do anything about it.
And firefox is actually remotely close to being standards-compliant, unlike IE. FF3 passes the acid2 test finally.

 

I use IE7 most of the time, but I have not tried the new FF. I will give it a shot. Is is that much better than FF1.5?

 

Not really. The main improvement is the spell-checker.
Oh, and phishing protection if you're dumb enough to fall for that sort of thing.

 

Firefox, but that's mainly because I have to stick with IE6 for work reasons and I can't stand using one browser window at a time.

Plus spell checker is actually nice, it's definitely improving my spelling.

 

I prefer FireFox.

Why?

I feel it is more secure and with a couple of tweaks and the No Script extension it is virtually impenetrable.

Reasons why it is better than I.E.
-Customizable Themes
-Useful Extensions
-Fast
-Simple and to the point
-And a whole bunch of more useful features.

 

So true FF can be customized till your blue in the face. IE7 i like but it the layout is kinda outta whack for me.

 

I like Firefox because they got tabs before IE (okay, maybe Opera had it too, but Firefox was better ). Even though IE7 has tabs, I guess I'm sticking to Firefox for now. IE7 is too Vista-looking for my taste, until I actually get Vista.

 

Yes. I love this new feature. If it weren't for this, I'd look like a complete idiot. Well, at least a bad speller.

I disagree. IE7 doesn't look like Vista... it looks... like a kids browser. It looks like a joke, really.

 

I went back to IE6. IE7 did not work well at all. A resource hog that did not work on many sites that used video clips or games. I also did not care for the tab system and hidden buttons. Going to the C/net download site, there seems to be a lot of dissatisfaction with the latest version. So IE6 should be a choice in the poll.

 

I actually prefer Internet Explorer 7 when I'm running Windows XP.
But in linux, i use firefox 2.0.

 

IE7 is a major improvement over IE6 for the most part. They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so lets ignore the fact that the uninitiated will think Microsoft have introduced "pioneering new features" I like the new style. Nice touch with alt to hide the navigation tool bar, but not sure really whether there's a point to it. Unless some one is now going to tell me I need to tick a box some where, I don't like how new tabs open immediately to the right, pushing other open tabs along. I want it to go at the end! I can see why it has been done like that, but I guess I'm used to the "other way"

What I don't like is the new menu system. Not intuitive at all. When I first tried FF 1.5 just to see what the fuss was about, I could use it just like that. We're at FF 2 and it is still just as intuitive to use. I get lost through IE7's menu system. Several false turns and detours before I'm at the right place. What was wrong with "tweaking" IE6?

FF > IE7 mainly because of adblock, no-script and the many other extensions available

 

Yup, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I do liked tabbed browsing, which was pioneered in 1997 in Netcaptor.

 

FireFox all the way!!

 

It's a tough question for me. IE7 is undoubtedly a massive improvement over IE6, but I have to go with FF2 for one simple reason. User experience. It's just a more intuitive browser in my opinion. It's cleaner, it's simpler, it's easier to tweak and to navigate. IE7 has tabbed browsing now, cool, but lacks FF2's bookmark toolbar, which I consider to be an awesome feature. And this may not seem like a big deal, but FF's options menu is greater than IE's to the power of a million. IT's just so well laid out and clean and accessible, even to a relative tech n00b like myself (don't let my post count fool you, 99% of my posts are questions, not answers!). I don't really go in for extensions and add-ons much, especially as I found that Foxytunes was corrupting iTunes and nuking my internet connection for some reason (possibly a Vista bug?). But on the whole, I just find Firefox to be a more enjoyable and intuitive browser, for many, many more reasons than I've explained in this post.

The only thing I'd say for IE7 over FF2, is the Windows Media player plugin. A lot of websites display video through embedded WMP, and FF2 cannot install it as an extension, which is kind of annoying. So if I ever want to view an embedded video in site X, I'm forced to use IE7, although I remember reading somewhere that you can open up an IE7 tab in FF2??? Anyway, I like them both really. IE7 is a giant leap over 6. But FF2 is still the better of the two in my opinion. So that's where my vote goes.

 

"My husband used to beat me, all the time, but he's different now, I swear! He only hits me in the torso instead of the face!"

I don't trust Microsoft software because they have repeatedly shown that they don't have the consumer's best interests at heart. That is one example, the antitrust ruling, WGA phoning home even on canceling the process... the list goes on. Just because the behavior isn't the exact same doesn't mean it's still not bad.

 

Well soon enough more and more developers will be designing things around FireFox as the main browser.

In time IE IMO will be properly faded out.

 

Another great thing about Firefox is that it's non-proprietary. It's open source. Therefore free. Which means the developers are not doing it for money. Which brings us to the conclusion that they care about would the consumer thinks.

 

In order of preference
1) Opera
2) FireFox
3) IE7

Opera works outta the box (as far as how I use a browser). With Firefox, I need to download extensions to get it set up correctly.

Still, FF is great (using it right now), but I prefer Opera...

 

Exactly what is going on.

 

Thats not true, firefox works great out of the box, you only need the extensions if you want more functionality!

 

I doubt it. As long as IE is installed by default in windows, it will be the most popular browser.

 

I hear Netscape screaming right now.

Screaming. Screaming.

"I am no longer number one".

 

Firefox is all I use. If something doesn't work you can make it work, the extensions are amazing and help with practically every aspect of surfing the net, and tons of themes can make it look fantastic (even though I don't use any...I really couldn't care how spiffy it looks).

 

Dare I say it, I think I want to change my vote. Spurred on by this thread, I undertake the "IE7 24hr challenge". I've been using it for the last day or so....and am coming to the conclusion that it is actually BETTER than FF2! I never use extensions. I'm just a search and browse kind of guy, so I don't miss FF's functionality in that way. But, unless my senses deceive me, IE7 seems significantly faster, more stable, more responsive, and displays pictures better. Never thought I'd say that about IE7, but there you go. I'm getting none of the page hangs that I've been getting with FF2 the last couple of weeks or so. I think MS have finally sorted it.....

 

Yeah...I didn't explain myself well

What I meant was...to get Firefox up to the same level of usability for me as a freshly installed Opera, I need to download extensions etc to do so.

That said, it's no big deal to download extensions, but there are still some features missing from Firefox that I've grown accustomed to in Opera over the years (Some of which I can not find a working extension for).

Not bashing firefox. I don't have a love/hate relationship with software, OSs etc...just saying I prefer opera for the way I work

 

I can't stand IE7. I think it's just plain ugly, for one thing, and it doesn't seem to improve on 6 as far as intuitive use. I was pretty excited about it at first, noticing that it had adopted a lot of good new features, but the features just seemed to complicate my browsing. I don't think taking a "24 Hour Challenge" would change my mind, since I've had to use it quite a bit. I love Firefox. I am a big fan of extensions the bookmarks toolbar is probably my favorite thing ever. I do not exaggerate, open source software makes my life better.