Chrome
Pros-Fast
Cons-No support, even with both of my windows xp machines
Firefox
Pros-Fast, secure,pluggins, portable version
cons- Slow start up speed, pluggins can still be malicious
Opera
Pros-Secure
Cons-I'm not sure I have not ever used it except for on my wii
Maxthon
Heard it's better than Firefox and Chrome
Safari
Pros- Somewhat fast
Cons- Not that good for downloading
Avant
I have only heard of it
Internet Explorer
Pros-Comes with windows, Give download destinations unlike firefox
Cons-Downloads even what you don't want, very slow, easily effected by spy ware
AOL
Went through enough trouble ending it.
How are malicious plugins a con for Firefox? That's like knocking Seagate hard drives because they can hold malware. A malicious plugin will affect any browser that hosts it.
Firefox does not start up slowly. I have 70+ extensions enabled and it opens within 5 seconds. A stock Firefox should open within 2.
Give download destinations
Huh?
Cons-I'm not sure I have not ever used it except for on my wii
How is that a con?
Vintage!
Well, when I say malicious I mean all files that are dangerous for your computer.(spyware viruses malware adware). I'm not sure if there are actually pluggins with malicious code, mozilla said to only install add-ons that you trust.
Here is mine:
Also, you can set up Firefox to ask the download place on Tools > Options, and checking "Always ask where to save downloads", or setup a different place to save downloads.
I've already tried all of the ones you said (except Maxton, but I know enough to review it, and I never tried even to know what the hell is the AOL browser, I only know it is baaaaaaad). So here is my opinion on all of them.
Blue is everything.
Well yeah but... I'm pretty sure you can tweak firefox to go faster? And it has many features that other browsers don't have which slows it down. Like sessionstore. So if you tweak it up a bit and disable sessionstore it will be the fastest browser.
I am not talking about that kind of fast, I am talking about the rendering and javascript speed. Until Firefox 3.1 with their new tracemonkey Javascript engine comes out (similar to Chrome's V8), its javascript rendering time will be longer than other browsers one for example, lots of optimizations need to be done to old gecko, what I think it is sad, because it is an engine with so much potential...
This is not a kind of speed the human mind will be able to notice unless on really heavy pages.
Blue is everything.
Safari
Pros: Fast, secure (uses Chrome's engine, Webkit)
Cons: No Mac or Linux version, no addon support, freaking ugly on Windows
Actually Safari is a Mac Browser ported by apple to windows and i agree it is freaking ugly.
My bad, I was looking at Chrome cons when writing
Blue is everything.
The official Google Chrome for Mac is still in development.
But you can use CrossOver Chromium for those who can't wait.?
Google Chrome:
Pros: Fast, simple, clean
Cons: Lack of features (like RSS), no Adblocking (you can with privoxy)
(You can also use Chromium or Iron)
Firefox:
Pros: Fast, simple, addons
Cons: Memory, startup time
Opera:
Pros: Fast, many features, widgets(useless)
Cons: Cluttered toolbar, no adblocking (you can use fanboy.nz adblocking list), useless widgets
Maxthon:
Pros: Faster than IE
Cons: Trident Engine, Made in China
Safari:
Pros: Good in Mac
Cons: Bad in Windows
IE:
Pros: Website friendly
Cons: SLOW!!
IE isn't website friendly, the only thing that happened is that users made websites specifically for it on the old days, currently everybody uses the same wrong techniques and they sort of work on it because newer versions are afraid to break. For the new millennium's common web developer IE is a nightmare to develop to.
Blue is everything.
MSFT has a bad habit of creating their own standards...
IE isn't website friendly
Before it was friendly but not anymore
I think Opera is the most Web Friendly if only they did not used wrong standards. Maybe thats why opera does not support some websites because it uses the standards.
MINIMO (firefox)
Pros: Great idea, support for many web based sites, tabbed
Cons: the most bloated browser for Win CE, Resource hog, unstable, no longer active, no support
Opera PocketPC
Pros: fast light and effecient PocketPC browser, Tabbed, works with most sites, stable
Cons; shareware, Costs $$
Opera 9.5 Beta
Pros; fast and effecent, upgradable, mostly stable
cons: ugly, Beta
IE mobile (windows Mobile 5)
Pros; very light, effecent, highly stable
Cons; based on the IE5.5 interface so some sites will not work, insecure, not upgradeable without upgrading the OS itself or even the whole device
Firefox
Pros: Can block every ad on the Net
...topic over. (At least for me. If the lack of an ad blocker ain't a deal breaker for you, carry on.)
What a glee to browse without those stupid ads! It's Adblock Plus that makes Firefox irreplaceable.
You can also use proxy like Privoxy, modifying the hosts file but ADP blocks more ads and is very comfortable to use.
I know it's obsolite and based upon Firefox 2.0.0.13, but Adblock Plus for Firefox 2 works on Netscape Navigator 9.
"Variables won't; constants aren't."
I never used Netscape before.
Isn't netscape dead????
iLike Macs, iPwn, However you put it... Apple is better ^_^
"Claiming that your operating system is the best in the world because more people use it is like saying McDonalds makes the best food in the world..."
I wonder why tracking(like Google Analytics) still shows the number of users who uses netscape in the browser.
because obviously someone still uses netscape.
IE7Pro enables ad blocking in IE. I actually the default configuration of IE over Firefox, but I like tweaking.
cowsay Moo
cowthink 'Dude, why are you staring at me.'
I forgot about IEPro but still IE sucks..
Exactly!
Blue is everything.
ABP and NoScript, which is the best XSS filter around imo. IE's own XSS filter makes it vulnerable.
SWAG
IE has that too:
SimpleAdblock
Firefox
Cons: Many people like it because they think it's the right thing to do, or they think it some how makes them cool.
Never been a fan of Firefox. I give it a try every time they push down a new version. Iron's the best I've found.
Nerdy Redneck
Well, you can never make a perfect solution, but I strongly believe that currently Firefox is the optimal one.
While Webkit isn't capable of using XUL and doesn't have a complete alternative to the Mozilla proprietary CSS -moz-appearance (and other proprietary ones) I think Gecko based browsers (like Firefox) are the best ones.
Blue is everything.
Sure, you can never make a perfect solution, but if you were, how would you go about doing it? Here's where I'd start:
1. It'd have to be open-source and the company who makes it would have to foster a community of hackers and tweakers to keep up with it, to dynamically develop it to accommodate the ever-changing face of the web browser and to face security challenges which change every day.
2. It'd have to have an architecture to accept plug-in code, so as to work seamlessly with a media player, a portable document reader (PDF), your browser enhancers (Flash, Shockwave, Silverlight, Air, Gears, etc.), and applets people would make to extend the functionality to do what a few people, but not the majority, would want.
3. It would have to be responsive and fast.
4. It would have to be known for its security features.
5. And it would need a cool name.
Sound like any browser you know? Yeah, I'd say Mozilla is off to a good start.
I think that the Mozilla team and the Webkit team should join themselves.
Mozilla has an extensible engine (it can use XUL).
Webkit has a fast engine (much more optimized).
If both engines were modified with some stuff from the other in the end we would have the most amazing engine, that could natively support addons very easy to make, make webapps look like system apps by applying the widget styling to them (search for -moz-appearance), and a very fast engine that would work with very few bugs.
Also, a good name for a Mozilla based browser: Lizard (Mozilla's engine is Gecko ).
Blue is everything.
Also, don't forget guys, that even though it's all open-source (eg. developed by the community) it still has some pretty serious costs sustaining it and considering that they offer it all for free - who's paying the bills?
Not the advertising industry. *looks suspiciously up at Redmond*