1 post tagged “firefox”

I recently switched out my WinXP box for a for a cobbled-together Vista machine. I am, surprisingly, not hating this very much. I've been with Windows machines for much of my life and Vista just isn't all that different. It's annoying not to be able to open .doc files without Office (which I just installed), and it doesn't have the level of driver support I've grown accustomed to, but other than that it's pretty gosh-darn user friendly.

Whenever I switch computers (or just hard drives) I don't send over my settings from the last machine. I take the opportunity to test new (free) products to meet my needs, or I see how Windows does it natively. I've learned that Windows Media Player isn't nearly so awful as it once was, though it doesn't play m4a files, which is lame. I've also been trying out three different browsers - Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Opera.

Back in the day, I just used IE. Firefox tended to be an annoying roadblock to fixing whatever computer I happened to be trying to fix on the job. IE was simply faster and it worked with more stuff. But at some point while I wasn't looking, that stopped being true. A friend convinced me to give Firefox another try, and I was mostly pleased with the results. Firefox takes a little longer to start up, but seems to load pages faster once it gets going. I don't like that the drop down menu to the URL bar stays fixed with what websites I typed in chronological order while IE shows me the sites I visit in order of when I last visited them. In other words, I use the IE URL bar drop down as a quick list of my favorite sites, while with Firefox I have to slog through my Bookmarks or just remember where I go. It's a very small thing.

Now that I'm on Vista, I figured I'd give Opera a shot. Opera is quick, but it makes a lot of sites look ugly, if it loads them at all. But its URL bar drop down acts like IE, which is great. Opera also has the best new tab feature - it brings up something called Speed Dial, which is 9 little windows with 9 pictures of websites, set by the user. It's literally just 9 giant buttons for the 9 sites I want quick access to. Opera also loads up with the last sites I had open, while Firefox annoys me with "Restore Session" or "Start New Session" every time I load it up, since I usually don't x out before I shut down.

All in all, I think I prefer Firefox, since it's got all those fun add-ons and skins. IE is definitely viable, but Opera needs some work.

What do you think?