Firefox is not so bad…
Most of my friends know me as a bit of a M$ fanboy, and if you read some of my previous posts I don’t agree with some of the comments people make about IE… but IE8, Oh.. My.. God.. (to put it lightly)
I think they (you know, them) are right, IE8 could break the internet. I started using it when it was in Beta, and I have tried using the RC, and I still find it failing to do an adequate job.
So I had a choice, continue using IE and get used to the fact that my browsing experience may become a bit more brittle, or find another browser.
I have used Opera for a long time as an alternative browser. Its fast and easy to switch off all the javascript and “content” (i mean flash etc) which makes it very secure and quick webbrowser. But, Opera still feels to “alien”. I wanted an experience like IE, yet better. I want my tabs to open my homepage. I want the pages to actually look the same as they did in IE. (As I often found previously that pages not only rendered differently but fonts and various objects always looked different to me)
It just boiled down to the fact that I like IE. (Or the way IE does it without the crappy crashy bits)
Hmm… better be careful… this could turn into a moany whiney post :P
So I tried Firefox 3, and I was surprised at how quickly it felt so natural. It was quick, much quicker than my previous experiences of Firefox 2. Pages I frequently visited looked the same as they did in IE.
Not only that, I found add ons that reproduced various behaviours that I liked in IE.
Like Tab Mix, so my homepage loads in my new tab. How new tabs open next to my old one, how and when new tabs are opened from other tabs. Really sublte finicky things like that makes a really big difference to me.
But one of the nicest things I love in Firefox is the NoScript add on. Its really easy to block things on pages, I find that I have used Opera less and less to open pages that I don’t like the look of. NoScript blocks the scripts and content, and if I need to I will allow it in a simple click.
So it’s official, Firefox 3 has turned me into a convert!