Internet Explorer or Firefox? Lets have a constructive argument.

[Woad-Warrier]

Firefox!

[Shaun]

Firefox!

[dan101]

Firefox

[Aristocrat]

I'm going to report you all to PETA.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Internet Explorer, because I'm too lazy to set firefox up again right now, and as IE7 I don't notice any difference...Microsoft's ability to copy is astounding.

[Freddie]

I like IE 7's new look but I'm too use to using Firefox now to change back. Even thought I use Firefox day in and day out I find Firefox to be resource hungry, to slow to start up from cold and isn't as safe as it was first made out to be.

Either way my favourite is Opera.

[Legio XX]

Still Firefox is much safer than IE. Downside to Firefox is that you still have to spend space on your drives for IE (If you are a Windows user that is) and that some webprogrammers don't optimize pages for Firefox. Im going to stick with Firefox anyway...

[iudas]

Firefox. I got used to it, but it's actually faster and simpler than IE. Safer, too. And with better features.

[Freddie]

Firefox. I got used to it, but it's actually faster and simpler than IE. Safer, too. And with better features.

I would agree with most of that apart from faster. When I started using Firefox I kept on using it not for any one reason but several i.e. highlight > Right Click and Search, Google Search bar in the top right, tab browsing etc. Also I have some plug-ins which have reduced virtually all pop ups and banner ads, but I have disabled it for TWC as I want to keep the site running.

Click those damm ads’s people!

[Scorch]

I can have the weather appear in the the top right hand corner of my screen in Firefox. Can Internet Explorer tell me it's now Sunny and 16 degrees?

[Juno]

Weatherbug can. ;p

Anyways, I think this issue should be cleared up. Opera>*

[Pnutmaster]

Firefox.

The addons (AdBlock Plus, No Script, PDF Downloader, Video Downloader) really make it shine.

[Simetrical]

Firefox. I especially hate IE as a Web developer: their lack of standards support is holding back Web page design by five years or more. Likewise I love Firefox as a Web developer: extensions like Firebug and Tamper Data are utterly indispensable.

Firefox isn't much faster than IE, though, alas, if it's faster at all. If you want fast, go for Opera, or possibly Safari (I don't know if their Windows version is as fast as their Mac version is reputed to be). Firefox probably has the biggest feature base by far if you count all the extensions, Opera's the fastest for PC and has a better built-in feature base. Anything is more secure than IE6, but I'm not specifically aware of major glaring deficiencies in IE7's security (though they may exist).

[Justinian]

Neither, Opera.

[spartan_phalanx]

Firefox for everday and IE7 only when I run into a troublesome site. I have opera for web dev testing and it's the fastest of the three. Firefox can be tweaked easily from default settings to be faster if you have a broadband connection or use the Fasterfox extention. It does create extra load on web-servers though.

[westy159]

I am also an Opera man.
Its used by more people that I thought it seems.

[SirLoinalot]

Internet explorer is a pile of junk. It doesn't comply to W3C standards so you don't get an accurate representation of the web designers page and it has a broken box model (page elements are sometimes incorrectly situated).

AAAAaaaaaaarrrrrgh, I hate Internet explorer.

Is it too much to ask that IE8 will be standards compliant?

[iudas]

I would agree with most of that apart from faster. When I started using Firefox I kept on using it not for any one reason but several i.e. highlight > Right Click and Search, Google Search bar in the top right, tab browsing etc. Also I have some plug-ins which have reduced virtually all pop ups and banner ads, but I have disabled it for TWC as I want to keep the site running.

Click those damm ads’s people!

I was referring to the speed pages load at. It's much faster from this point of view than IE, at least for me.

[sapi]

Firefox.

The browser itself is nice; the extensions are fantastic.

I mean, IE won't let me:

• easily block ads
• mark locations in a page for further reading
• view the status of my downloads within the browser window
• spell check in aussie english
• search many, many history fields
• use a decent built in ftp client
• block scripting
• choose what to do with pdf files
• autoreload a page
• download videos of youtube etc

...and if it doesn't work in ff, ietab's got it

[Roman Clone]

FireFox.

[Simetrical]

Firefox can be tweaked easily from default settings to be faster if you have a broadband connection

This can break some sites. As a general rule, configuration changes to consumer software will not greatly accelerate things without causing some kind of problem. Otherwise they'd be set by default. (There are, obviously, always exceptions.) You can vote for bug 264354 (registration required) to track the progress of enabling pipelining by default.

or use the Fasterfox extention. It does create extra load on web-servers though.

Prefetching is selfish and damaging, especially on dynamically-generated sites. It sacrifices everyone else's viewing experience for yours. Besides, given that most Web pages nowadays are dynamically generated, it means that the pages you see may well be outdated by the time you actually view them.

Internet explorer is a pile of junk. It doesn't comply to W3C standards so you don't get an accurate representation of the web designers page and it has a broken box model (page elements are sometimes incorrectly situated).

Not really true. You do get an accurate representation of the Web designer's page, the Web designer just has to bend over backwards to do it and may have to sacrifice some functionality. SVGs are a case in point: they would be handy for all sorts of things, but IE doesn't support them (and support in other browsers is, admittedly, imperfect). For simple layout, IE just has to be worked around, to a greater extent than other browsers. The box model was fixed in IE7, and just has to be worked around for IE6 when it would cause problems.

Is it too much to ask that IE8 will be standards compliant?

Yes, but hopefully it's not too much to ask that it be marginal and entirely superseded by superior browsers. Of course, with Windows' revenue behind it, it will quite possibly be the best thing since sliced bread, crushing Firefox once more on its merits just as it crushed it (in the guise of Netscape) several years back, but you'd have thought the same about IE7, I guess, and that didn't pan out.

I was referring to the speed pages load at. It's much faster from this point of view than IE, at least for me.

Pages themselves load at the same speed regardless of browser. Some browsers may render them slightly faster, but overall I notice no difference in page load times in any browser. It's responsiveness where Firefox/IE really suck compared to Opera.