Chosing a web browser

[Peasant Phill]

For some reason, windows chose today as the day to enact on the European order and give me a choice between its Internet explorer and a few other web browsers.
As the computer layman that I am, I have absolutly no clue which browser to take. My main criteria are user-friendlyness and security.

So do any of you have a recommendation?

Thanks in advance.

[Pannonian]

Firefox. With the range of add-ons available, it's an easy to way to virtually make your own browser. My current add-ons:

Noscript: Javascript switched off by default, but you can enable it for individual sites. This cuts out one of the most common causes of nastiness, unless you actively let them in.
Adblock: Can block individual objects such as images, or entire ranges, such as anything from http://spamstuff.com/*.
Flashblock: Disables flash by default, unless you enable individual objects. No more memory leakage from flash unless you actively decide to let it.
Menu Editor: Easy way to manage overlong menus, both on the toolbar and context menus. Remove the items you don't want, and arrange the ones you do want so it's tidier.

Most IE and other browser functions are replicable with one add-on or another.

[Tellos Athenaios]

I use Opera myself, in preference to Firefox. Reasons why you might choose Opera:

• Speeddial. Bookmarks but *much* better; as the name implies you get “hotkeys” for the first 9 items in speeddial.
• Password management that I can make heads and tails of. Firefox has it, too, except that the part where automatic log in is supposed to come into play doesn't work as nicely. (Ctrl + Enter in Opera if you've selected the relevant form/textbox.) Actually Opera's entire personal details -> automatic filling in of forms works pretty smoothly.
• Fine grained control over things like cookies (you can set preferences on a website-by-website basis).
• Search using keywords. For instance typing “g hello world” in the address bar is a google search; “w hello world” a wikipedia search and so on.
• Download manager that can resume broken downloads, re-download etc..
• Built in mail client for IMAP/POP3 type mail; built in IRC client.
• Built in mechanism to block whatever content/site you don't want to see.
• 3rd party extensions like the kill button to zap adverts if you don't want to use the built in blocking mechanism. http://operawiki.info/PowerButtons
• Support for SVG (scalable graphics), MathML (mathematics markup language, useful if you are doing/reading Math a lot), (experimental) HTML 5, (experimental) CSS 3.
• It is fast, and I find its “Turbo” feature quite useful (compressed websites with reduced image quality and plugins disabled [you have to manually click a lego brick for each plugin item you do want to play] when I'm on a slower network.
• Standards compliant; which is mainly useful to know. Passes Acid3 test with 100% score; i.e. pixel perfect rendering.

[drone]

IE FTW!



I use Firefox with AdBlock and NoScript add-ons. AdBlock is pure win just by itself. NoScript keeps you safe, although it can be a bit of a pain getting some websites to work when they have multi-domain content.

[Peasant Phill]

I had a feeling it would go between Opera and Firefox.
All those add-ons are all nice and all but quite frankly I'm to lazy and don't care enough to look for good add-ons or change settings when on a different website.
I can see myself making extensive use of the search keywords though.

Are these two browser vastly different from explorer in terms of use? And if so are they intuitive enough to get the hang of it quickly enough?

[Pannonian]

I had a feeling it would go between Opera and Firefox.
All those add-ons are all nice and all but quite frankly I'm to lazy and don't care enough to look for good add-ons or change settings when on a different website.
I can see myself making extensive use of the search keywords though.

Are these two browser vastly different from explorer in terms of use? And if so are they intuitive enough to get the hang of it quickly enough?

All browsers are broadly similar, with the exception of Google Chrome, which is very different in design. Of Firefox and Opera, Firefox is probably closer to IE in design.

And about add-ons: they don't require much effort to find. You can use the vanilla browser if you don't want to add anything. Then if you want additional functionality, find an appropriate add-on. Once it's installed, you don't need to do anything else, unless you want to further customise it. What marks out Firefox is its potential. You can use as much or as little of it as you want.

[Subotan]

Firefox, both for the sweet, sweet Adblock and the impregnable fortress that is Firefox's security. Once you get comfortable with that, you may decide to get other addons to totally customise your browsing experience.

I have no experience with Opera, so I can't comment, but Chrome is like a streamlined, fast Firefox, without the Adbloc, so that's my secondary browser (Incognito is useful as well....) You should definitely dump Internet Explorer though. You'll be continually asking yourself why you didn't do it earlier.