Topic: What is your default browser?

[Cools!]

My browser history: IE -> Phoenix -> Firefox -> Safari (when I switched to Mac and Firefox was very slow) -> Chrome (because of some bugs in Safari).

[idolminds]

Netscape > Mozilla > Phoenix > Firefox

I use Firefox now because I need several addons to make the internet suck less on my connection. Even though other browsers have addons they don't seem to have the features I need.

[Quemaqua]

Netscape -> IE -> Firefox -> Firefox/Opera

I still like Firefox and it's got great support, but too many annoying bugs and bloat now. Opera works better. If it wasn't for addon support, Opera would be my default.

[Cools!]

Yeah, I still use Firefox when I'm doing web development because of all the awesome add-ons.

[Xessive]

Netscape -> IE -> Neoplanet -> Maxthon -> Mozilla -> Opera -> Firefox -> Chrome

Neoplanet was more like an IE shell but I'm listing it anyway

I've also played around with Flock but never really got into it. It felt a lot like that MSN Browser Microsoft was trying to push back in the day.

There was a lot of jumping back and forth between Opera and Firefox for me. It was mainly a battle to see which could handle and retain my bookmarks more reliably and across multiple platforms, eventually Chrome showed up and won. Opera fell out because it slowly became strange to me, the way it scrolls pages felt weird and out-of-sync, it was more of a preference thing. I had varying reasons for leaving Firefox.

Initially, I hated Chrome. It was bulky, ugly, and hogged a lot of resources unnecessarily, and it was not customizable at all. In time, it was refined and took over as my default.

Firefox I always loved because how customizable it is; it gave me a lot of liberty in managing its appearance and its functionality, however, I learned the hard way that you can't truly rely on 3rd party plugins to back up bookmarks. Xmarks worked really well for a while but one time, when I was uninstalling Firefox, I selected to remove Firefox completely and and apparently since the bookmarks were synced with Xmarks everything got deleted from the cloud too. It was kinda counter-intuitive but lesson learned. By the time Firefox had implemented FirefoxSync, it was too late. I had already moved on and Chrome had slimmed down its interface to the bare essentials (just the way I like it).

EDIT:
Amended with -> instead of > in agreement with Cobra

[Cools!]

Yeah, I didn't like Chrome at first either. What really annoyed me was that there wasn't a Mac client when it was initially released even though it was built on an existing framework (WebKit) which already ran on the Mac (for example, Safari). I finally switched over to it when I got tired of dealing with some Safari issues and Firefox always felt very resource heavy and slow on the Mac (though it has improved in the last couple of years). At this point with sync, it's hard to move to anything else, and yes, even with Firefox sync.

My bookmarks are still a mess and I can't say I like one particular browser for managing them. At some point I plan on writing my own little web service for it.

[idolminds]

I stopped installing Chrome because GoogleUpdate.exe wants to run at the worst times. And that thing updates constantly.

One funny thing. An addon I consider essential is ImgLikeOpera. Opera had a great feature that was a toggle button that could easily switch images off, on, or cached-only on a per-tab basis. Someone posted that function to a Firefox addon. And now Opera switched its codebase over to Chromium and that feature is gone.

[Cools!]

Chrome's autoupdates can indeed be annoying. I've had a few cases in the past where Chrome would update their own internal Flash player and suddenly the Flash streams (SC2 tournaments) would stop working. Oh, right, Chrome update...

[Xessive]

I forget how much I take for granted with a constant internet connection. I'd likely pay a lot more attention to stuff like that if bandwidth was an issue.

Remember when the browser was just a browser? Only used to display websites and little else? Sure, a download manager helps too. With a lot of the web-based and cloud functionality we really don't need the browser doing the bulk of the work anymore.

[scottws]

Netscape > IE > Firebird/Firefox

I hate Chrome.

[Quemaqua]

I still hate Chrome. Mostly because I still hate Google. Opera always felt nicer to me.

[Cobra951]

Netscape -> IE -> Firefox.  (Note that I used "->" and not ">".  That confused the heck out of me at first, until I read the OP more carefully.  It seemed everyone was saying that Netscape was the best browser ever, and FF among the worst.)  I hate googleupdate.exe, so anything that uses it is also reviled.  No googleupdate runs on this system ever.  I'm still trying to exorcise it from Sandy's laptops.

[Pugnate]

Netscape -> IE -> Firefox.  (Note that I used "->" and not ">".  That confused the heck out of me at first, until I read the OP more carefully.  It seemed everyone was saying that Netscape was the best browser ever, and FF among the worst.)  I hate googleupdate.exe, so anything that uses it is also reviled.  No googleupdate runs on this system ever.  I'm still trying to exorcise it from Sandy's laptops.

hahahaha same...

[Cools!]

Fixed!

[Cobra951]

Ahaha!  I've started a trend!

[Quemaqua]

Haha, I thought the same thing too, at first. Too much math class.

[Cools!]

I was just being lazy.

[idolminds]

I'm leaving mine because Netscape was the bomb, yo.

[Cools!]

'96 was a good year:

[Quemaqua]

I really did love Netscape. I used that for a long time. The old Quake and Quake 2 days.

[MysterD]

Comodo Dragon.

[ren]

Firefox on Mac, Opera on Android

[Xessive]

Figured I'd resurrect this old thread.

Opera just implemented a free VPN right into their browser. It's currently only in the developer edition but will likely make its way to the standard soon.

This lured me to check out Opera once again to experiment with this new feature. I had forgotten that Opera switched to Chromium and the last time I sued Opera was on the old engine. Damn is the "new" Opera browser awesome.

It basically gives me the best of Google Chrome (including full functionality with Chrome add-ons) but it's sleeker, runs smoother, and jam-packed with features.

It's certainly worth a look: http://www.opera.com
Developer edition: http://www.opera.com/developer

[MysterD]

Wow @ thread resurrection.

Right now, Vivaldi is my current browser.

[Quemaqua]

I've been using Opera since Firefox became a bloated mess that was unusable on my last rig. Opera, even prior to the switch to Chromium, was awesome, and I'm a big fan since it dispenses with the stuff about Chrome that I find really offensive. It's been a great experience then and now.

[scottws]

I still use Firefox as my main browser, but I use every major browser at least a little except for Safari.  Edge, Internet Explorer, Chrome... they all get some use.

[Xessive]

The main reason I'm sticking to Chrome is its direct sync with my devices, so I can resume browsing on whatever I'm using (PC, tablet, phone, etc.).

Interestingly enough, Opera synced directly with my Chrome data. That's probably attributed to the Chromium architecture, which made it seamless. I started using Opera as though it had been my default browser all along.

I guess my favourite aspect about the "new" Opera is that it tackled the one problem I had with it before (which was the reason I stopped using it): Opera now works with practically anything. If it works with Chrome, Firefox, or Safari, it will work with Opera. The dev team managed to successfully wipe away the age-old problem of "Oh crap, I need to download another browser?!"

Opera has always been the innovative browser. It was the first one to implement a built-in sync feature, the first to have a speed dial, it's the first browser to have tried a lot of things before others caught on.

I'm just thoroughly impressed with how far it has come and what the devs have made of it.

[scottws]

Modern Firefox syncs just like Chrome does (tabs, history, bookmarks, etc), including with Firefox Mobile. But it doesn't interoperate with Chrome data.

[Xessive]

Modern Firefox syncs just like Chrome does (tabs, history, bookmarks, etc), including with Firefox Mobile. But it doesn't interoperate with Chrome data.

Yeah, I was using it back when Firefox was my main browser. I also like the mobile version of Firefox, it runs very smoothly.

All things considered, I like Chrome (and Chromium based browsers). Which is a bit of a surprise because I hated Chrome when it first launched, what was it in 2008? I was gonna be a Firefox user for life!! Haha

I guess it just fell apart a few years ago when Firefox became less stable, it kept crashing, stuttering, not working with certain sites, I just couldn't tolerate the issues any longer so I switched to Opera and eventually Chrome (around 2011 or so). Firefox is pretty awesome now but I'm so far gone and ingrained in Chromium I don't really feel like switching back anymore.

[Quemaqua]

Yeah, I was a Firefox die-hard for forever, and I really didn't like Chrome early on, but Firefox is a slow, bloated piece of shit now. I wouldn't even consider going back. And I'm not okay with Google's general methodologies, so Opera is the obvious choice for me. Wish I'd found it years ago.