IE vs. Firefox vs. Opera
Discussion
I never thought I'd say this but i think i've decided to abandon IE! I never really liked Firefox's interface. It's too messy and not fast enough for my liking, however my friend recommended Opera.
I laughed and said it's expensive but now they've released a new version which is completely free of charge and runs like a dream!
It's fast, handles downloads brilliantly and the interface is very clean and efficient. Plus it also emulates the IE signature so no sites will refuse it entry for any reason. You can also make sites think you're running Firefox! Clever stuff.
It also handles mail within the same client window which is great if you just want to check your mail from work like I do and handles RSS feeds very well. Additionally it also handles CSS 2.1 which IE doesn't.
Top marks for Opera as a very simple but very fast HTTP client. Top stuff!
I laughed and said it's expensive but now they've released a new version which is completely free of charge and runs like a dream!
It's fast, handles downloads brilliantly and the interface is very clean and efficient. Plus it also emulates the IE signature so no sites will refuse it entry for any reason. You can also make sites think you're running Firefox! Clever stuff.
It also handles mail within the same client window which is great if you just want to check your mail from work like I do and handles RSS feeds very well. Additionally it also handles CSS 2.1 which IE doesn't.
Top marks for Opera as a very simple but very fast HTTP client. Top stuff!
I tried it when it went free, but couldnt get it to work with www.rbsdigital.com which was a show-stopper for me 
beanbag said:
Plus it also emulates the IE signature so no sites will refuse it entry for any reason. You can also make sites think you're running Firefox! Clever stuff.
The downside to this is when a site has IE specific style sheets as workarounds to for some of the interesting 'variations' in the way IE interprets CSS. These then render incorrectly in Opera (or to be exact: correctly but not as intended).
Still, it is a good browser; I use it on my Pocket PC - Pocket IE just fails miserably with pure CSS layouts.
The only downside is that it still crashes on a few sites like my e-banking so I still grdugingly have to use IE occasionally.I've always thought Opera was a great browser. Firefox came along lately with it's big upstart ideas like mouse gestures and tabbed browsing, and everyone went crazy, but as far as I recall it, Opera already did all that stuff (albeit with annoying ads showing).
Now that there is a free, ad-free version it's great, but I do think they've missed the boat as so many users have defected to firefox.
I use both, Opera for serious stuff and firefox for fun.
Now that there is a free, ad-free version it's great, but I do think they've missed the boat as so many users have defected to firefox.
I use both, Opera for serious stuff and firefox for fun.
I used to use Opera years ago, when it was rip snortingly fast in comparison to IE, but it bacame big and bloated just like IE, so any advantages seemed to be outweighed by being potentially non-standard. Yes, I define standard as being IE compliant, along with 95% of the rest of the world - tough if you don't agree.
victormeldrew said:
I used to use Opera years ago, when it was rip snortingly fast in comparison to IE, but it bacame big and bloated just like IE, so any advantages seemed to be outweighed by being potentially non-standard. Yes, I define standard as being IE compliant, along with 95% of the rest of the world - tough if you don't agree.
Wrong attitude, given that up to 20% or possibly more of internet users DO NOT use Internet Explorer. 95% of the rest of the world? I doubt it.
Calling IE "standard" is dangerously inaccurate. The internet is built on standards and to champion a product which ignores these seems utterly ridiculous to me, but I guess that's "tough" since I don't agree with you.
>> Edited by _dobbo_ on Monday 27th February 10:15
victormeldrew said:
I used to use Opera years ago, when it was rip snortingly fast in comparison to IE, but it bacame big and bloated just like IE, so any advantages seemed to be outweighed by being potentially non-standard. Yes, I define standard as being IE compliant, along with 95% of the rest of the world - tough if you don't agree.
Question for you: who or what do you consider your site's most important visitor? What "browser" does it use?
I hope you can now see why your point of view is so terribly, painfully small-minded and short-sighted.
zaktoo said:Are you meaning search engines?
Question for you: who or what do you consider your site's most important visitor? What "browser" does it use?
I thought that most of the non-standards compliance of IE referred to layout, style sheet compatibility, etc., and I can't see how that would affect search engine indexing.
Could clarify what you mean, and perhaps give some examples? I'd find that helpful.
FF has about 25% of the market, IE has about 70% and 5% is shared amongst the rest, mainly Opera.
I tend to use all three, I particularly like Operas automatic crash recovery, though I have specced FF to the same with add ins, I tend to use FF at work due to the extra plugins which are quite useful, at home I have no real need for them and have used Opera at home for years now so can'tbe bothered reorganising all my links. Operas RSS fee is rather crap compared to the FF drop down menu though, my main annoyance with it.
I tend to use all three, I particularly like Operas automatic crash recovery, though I have specced FF to the same with add ins, I tend to use FF at work due to the extra plugins which are quite useful, at home I have no real need for them and have used Opera at home for years now so can'tbe bothered reorganising all my links. Operas RSS fee is rather crap compared to the FF drop down menu though, my main annoyance with it.
Indeed. 
jamieboy said:
Question for you: who or what do you consider your site's most important visitor? What "browser" does it use?
I thought that most of the non-standards compliance of IE referred to layout, style sheet compatibility, etc., and I can't see how that would affect search engine indexing.
Could clarify what you mean, and perhaps give some examples? I'd find that helpful.
Actually, it was meant to be looked at from 2 angles. Yes, search engine bots are very important and designing sites that break standard html[1] (usually done in conjunction with the next point, but not always) tend to trip them up. Some websites also restrict access based on the browser string and if it's not set to IE serve up a page saying that the site has been designed with only IE in mind so come back when you've got that - or words to that effect. Admittedly I haven't seen one of those in a while, not sure if that's because the idea has lost favour or I visit fewer sites these days though.
The other is how do you know who is looking at your site with what platform and software and for what purpose? For example, I use quite a few sites regularly for research, which in turn is viewed by hundreds of thousands each month. If these sites make it hard for me to find and use information, their information may not get published by me as soon as some other information. So in a way, the site that has locked its information away has lost potentially thousands of referred visitors. It's a rather if-but kind of situation in this particular example, to be sure, but it illustrates the folly of delivering non-standard compliant content - or more specifically, "IE-compliant" content (when it breaks other browsers) when the delivery content in a way that is standards-compliant is fairly easy.
1: For example, recoding <a href="abc.html"> as <a href="#" onclick="window.open('abc.html')'"> and other such foppery.
Edit: Here's an example: www.kweafrica.co.za/
Works _only_ in IE as far as I can see, and there's no point in having done it that way... but since it's "IE-compliant", that should be fine, right?
>> Edited by zaktoo on Monday 27th February 12:40
zaktoo said:doh! This was a question about BROWSERS, not web site design. What have MY web sites got to do with it? Hands up all those with an axe to grind!
I used to use Opera years ago, when it was rip snortingly fast in comparison to IE, but it bacame big and bloated just like IE, so any advantages seemed to be outweighed by being potentially non-standard. Yes, I define standard as being IE compliant, along with 95% of the rest of the world - tough if you don't agree.
Question for you: who or what do you consider your site's most important visitor? What "browser" does it use?
I hope you can now see why your point of view is so terribly, painfully small-minded and short-sighted.
Silly bleeders. I just checked one of my websites stats:
IE 80.77%
Mozilla 9.62%
Netscape 5.77%
Google Robot 1.92%
Opera 1.92%
Thats for http://interweb4u.com/griff500 BTW.
Any websites I write are cross browser compliant, however a lot of what I do is corporate, and I stand by the 95% there anyway (and for most of my customers that would be on the low side given that they have standardised on IE!)
People get real excited about Microsoft don't they!
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