Pimp your Browser

[Dog Pants]

I'm finding my confidence in Firefox to be waning. Their rapid release schedule seems to bring hit-and-miss reliability, and I've had a few iterations which crashed constantly and had annoying bugs (like a black bar where the tab titles should be and missing GUI graphics). What browsers do you bummers use, and why should I use it? I like Firefox because it's uncluttered and has loads of plugins (script blocking is a must), but I'm really getting tired of it.

[Grimmie]

I'm an avid Chrome user ever since it got the web store for plugins. Most FF developers have made a Chrome version of their plugins, or someone's made something similar. It seems faster, and 8 times out of 10 if something in a tab crashes you only lose that tab, rather than the whole browser. It opens each tab as a separate process and closes them individually - there's even a chrome task manager if you right click on the tabs, and you can see which ones are using the most memory.

Web store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/apps
Some anti-script apps: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/search/noscript
Adblock plus: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/sear ... ock%20plus

Extensions and Apps I quite like
Chrome to Phone, with one click it sends your current web page to your android phone.
Feedly, just a neat little RSS reader
Invisible hand, pretty sure FF has this too, but it tells you if different shops have something cheaper if you're on a product page.
ScrewAds, YouTube ads? What YouTube ads?
Speed Dial 2, Just a better "new tab" window
Youtube Ratings preview, tells you if a Youtube video's going to be shit or not with a little green/red bar

[Dog Pants]

Nice. What's the difference between Chrome on my PC and Chrome on my phone. I use the native browser on my phone but should probably use Chrome.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I'm pretty fine with Firefox, but saying that I don't upgrade it more than every 6 months or so, it's more a matter of disliking change more than anything though, if chrome looked like Firefox, I'd use that.

Mobile wise, I tend to use dolphin browser for general internetting, Firefox for adult specialist sites, chrome for stuff that doesn't work on dolphin, and reddit is fun to reddit.

I'm an indecisive bastard, apparently.

[deject]

I have to say that Firefox itself hasn't had any instability or bugs that I've noticed in a long time. As usual, I'm betting that whatever Pantsu has been experiencing has been caused by a misbehaving extension. Almost every time it's not Firefox's fault, really.

[Dog Pants]

Well I only have four installed (Google ad opt-out, NoScript, Dictionary, SOE launcher), but it's a fair comment.

[TezzRexx]

I have to say that Firefox itself hasn't had any instability or bugs that I've noticed in a long time. As usual, I'm betting that whatever Pantsu has been experiencing has been caused by a misbehaving extension. Almost every time it's not Firefox's fault, really.

^ This.

Chrome seems slower to me at times and has crashed more often doing basic things (Youtube, anything flash based) in more recent times, so I've ditched it. Only really use it when testing a new CSS / new application.

[ProfHawking]

I use FireFox, in a clean state it is plenty fast and reliable if you ask me.
I do use a load gumph for webdev on top of the standard stuff: 22 active plugins and 10 active extensions apparently. This does seem to slow it down a bit compared to chrome, but I still use it as I still think (perhaps in a mistakenly out of date opinion) it is more flexible than chrome.

I guess its always going to be a Speed vs functionality trade off

[fabyak]

I've been feeling similar to DP and have now just shifted to Chrome despite the fact that there is a certain... how do you say... 'I don't know what' about it that I don't really like but it already seems quicker

[deject]

I've been feeling similar to DP and have now just shifted to Chrome despite the fact that there is a certain... how do you say... 'I don't know what' about it that I don't really like but it already seems quicker

I think Chrome's javascript engine is faster by some margin than Firefox's but it's definitely not as bad as it used to be. I haven't seen any numbers on Webkit vs. Gecko but I doubt there's a big gap there either.

Chrome is definitely interesting, I have just gotten used to my Firefox setup and I haven't found an analog that quite does what I want exactly in Chrome. The #1 Firefox feature that I can't find a similar feature for in Chrome is the Firefox Live Bookmarks method of handling RSS feeds. I don't want a separate RSS reader, whether it be an app or a website. With the Live Bookmarks, I can just click a button on my tool bar and see what new articles are available. Especially now that Google Reader is dead I don't know of any good way to get RSS feeds in Chrome.