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06-06-2009, 01:43 AM
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I hate Internet Exploiter, I've had to stop using Firefox (sent you another e-mail on that), and Chrome has errors sometimes on forms and checkboxes on websites. Are these my only options?
No, not quite. You have a few more options.


Suggested Browsers

Firefox is what I consider as the best, but some people either don't like it, or it runs slow. Firefox can be a bit of a memory hog. If you're having memory issues, you can always try version 7 (attached to this post); though "outdated", it's a memory-efficient version.

Pale Moon is an excellent browser that acts like Firefox, but is as lightweight as Chrome.

Google Chrome is usually good, but it has issues with various scripts, including a number of AJAX apps, including the WYSIWYG editor for the software powering this very forum (vBulletin). I mostly use Chrome only when I know it works well for that site or web application. Because it does not have a NoScript plugin, I don't use it for general browsing of new/unknown sites.

Seamonkey is an excellent alternative to Firefox, as it's lighter on resources. At the same time, it also has fully functional AJAX, making it a perfect balance of Firefox features and Chrome's light-weight/quick functionality. With the added NoScript plugin, this is now my browser of choice for "surfing" the web (research, clicking links in emails, etc).

Chromium is a Google Chrome clone. (Tecnically speaking, Chromium is the original program, and Chrome is the clone. Chromium is an open-source project by Google. Chrome is the official Google-branded release version of Chromium. Chromium only exists in beta format, and as source code.)


Decent / Okay Browsers

Opera is an option, although it's not very popular anymore, and I personally don't like it. Sometimes it renders sites poorly that would have worked fine in IE or Firefox (or K-Meleon, maybe even Chrome). Available at http://www.opera.com if you really want to try it.

Safari is Apple's own web browser. It's quite decent on a Mac, but a bit slow on Windows.

Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) is actually okay, worth using as a backup. Microsoft seems to have finally pulled it's head out of its butt, making a browser that is not only reasonably compliant with WWW standards, but has many features found in Firefox (tabs, for example). IE7 was almost good, but had all sorts of issues. IE6 and early were miserable to use or code for.


Not Suggested

Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) is a step backwards for Microsoft. Once again, website designers and developers have been forced to create new workaround coding because IE9 doesn't always behave properly. IE has become such a frustration that a number of websites no longer officially support even the "latest" versions anymore. IE's share of the browser market is small (10-15%) and is generally just not worth the effort. So by using IE, there's a good chance you'll be missing out on seeing/using sites as they were intended.

Flock is a now discontinued browser, which was almost identical to Firefox 3.6, even though it used Gecko and not Mozilla. It had some pretty serious memory issues, like Firefox, but ran decently if your system has plenty of CPU and RAM to spare (4GB or more, quad-core CPU), as performance degrades the longer it's open.

K-Meleon is a decent low-resource browser, but it has several of the same flaws as Chrome. Notably the AJAX issue.

Maxthon is yet another alternate browser, but it's essentially just an IE8 clone. In the old days, Maxthon was used to try to turn IE into a Mozilla-style browser, but IE8 does that on its own now. Maxthon is a relic, in my opinion.

Avant is another IE8 clone, like Maxthon. This one runs well enough, but is a bit bloated on unnecessary features (optional plugins would have been better), and the user interface is not "browser-like" sometimes, making it harder to use and customize.

SRWare Iron is another Chrome clone, based on Chromium. It's not a top browser suggestion because it tends to be a few versions behind Chrome and Chromium, and Chrome extensions don't alway work properly in Iron.

Sleipnir is a somewhat newer browser, which I first discovered through its iPad version. While the iPad version makes for a nice free alternative to Safari, with it's Chrome-like GUI, the computer version falls a bit flat. It's slow and is not very RAM efficient, meaning it will continue to suck your memory dry until the computer becomes unstable.


There are more -- and I'm aware of them -- but this list honestly seems exhaustive enough.

Hope that helps.


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Attached Files
File Type: rar Firefox 7 Setup.rar (13.39 MB, 0 downloads)
File Type: rar Flock 2.5.6 Setup.rar (12.76 MB, 0 downloads)

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Last edited by kpmedia; 01-31-2012 at 11:09 AM. Reason: Updated to reflect 2012 web browsers. -KP
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  #2  
01-19-2012, 09:34 PM
christiwilsonc christiwilsonc is offline
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I have been using SeaMonkey for the past few weeks. I really like it. FireFox was using an incredible amount of memory without plugins enabled, so I decided to check Seamonkey out.

Next browser I am going to check out is the Pale Moon. I am always on the lookout for new browsers to try. Thanks for the posts on different ones available.
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  #3  
01-31-2012, 11:13 AM
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I've again updated the first post with newer information.


This was an unanswered question or unresolved issue found during a site audit. It's hard to have an FAQ when the answers are missing, or final outcomes are unknown. At The Digital FAQ support forum, questions are never intentionally ignored, and may have been missed due to a forum glitch or human error. More details on the audit. (In some cases, threads have been edited/updated with newer information.)


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