What browser(s) do you use?
 

Discuss all Internet browsers here!
Here are some questions to spark your discussion:

What browser(s) do you use? Which one is your main?
Do you use different browsers on different devices?
What do you do on the different browsers?
Why did you decide to download this/these browsers?

:p-grin: . :p-cute:

I am currently using Opera, Chrome, and Intenet Explorer. I had to transfer my main browser from IE to Opera because IE kept crashing. I use IE as my main on my tablet, though I did download Chrome on there for when I need to check sites from my main and mule at the same time. I had Dolphin Browser on my old tablet. It had such a cute name and could be customized purple. My husband and I share a phone, so we kept the regular IE browser on there.

There's no reason not to use Safari on iPad. Apple requires that all web browsers on iOS have to use the same backend -- the WebKit renderer bundled with iOS. And until iOS 8, Safari was in a privileged position of being the only browser on iOS that was ALLOWED to use a particular optimization technique to speed up websites with interactive content. So you're fine there. :P

On desktop, I personally use Chrome. I stuck with Safari for a long time, but it gradually became clear that Safari was the reason my computer was performing badly, so I had to switch. I used Firefox back in Firefox's early days, but it had a really bad memory leak some time after 1.5 and before 4.0 that didn't get properly fixed for YEARS.

Chrome and sometimes Firefox.

I used to use Opera back before they updated it -- it had a really nice "Hide" function that'd minimize the browser so it wouldn't even show up in the taskbar, useful for whenever my parents randomly appeared. It would still be running, and all the tabs were saved, though; it just hid itself in the "hidden icons" section of the taskbar instead of the taskbar proper.

I generally use Chrome now, though, since I'm mostly away from home, and my parents don't really scrutinize my laptop so closely anymore... It's pretty fast and easy to work with.

When I obtained this Macbook Air 2012 (it came from my mom's office), it had Chrome installed on it and have found the performance to be sublime so I switched my Acer laptop and even my older HP from Firefox.

Back in it's day, Firefox was the best but the last time I was using it, on the Acer, I experienced frequently non-response and crash episodes. This might have been related to the Acer's age, at the time it was 4 years old but when I switched it to Chrome I noticed significantly less of these issues.

So yeah, I'm a chrome person. I also have it on my phone though I rarely use the internet on my phone. There are certain things I'm not comfortable with on the smaller screen.

I am slowly moving from Chrome to Firefox. Largely because of the increasing problems of Chrome with flash/Java sites I enjoy.

a mix between Firefox and chrome. Firefox for most of my gaming, chrome for my work related issues.

That's intentional, from what I can tell; Chrome is trying to make plugin-based content harder for sites to use to encourage transitioning away from the clumsier, less-secure, less-stable plugins to faster, more modern technologies.

That's not a problem with the software, Chrome is electing to no longer support Java. Coda seems to have the deets.
Although this has recently caused something of a road block for me at Pogo.com, that's not such an issue for me. Overall I don't use many java/flash sites.

I probably should clarify - by problem I mean finding ways to work around that limitation.

Gotcha. If you figure it out let me in on it.

Chrome and Firefox.Firefox used to be my main browser, but the resolutions for some things on Firefox don't change no matter how much I zoom in.

Let's see... I started internet with Netscape navigator way back when that was the THING to do. Switched to Internet Explorer for quite a few years... then went to Firefox when I started having issues with IE on my old desktop... Ran Firefox on the current computer for years before it started acting up with the non-responsive and crashing issues, so I switched to Chrome, and have had fewer problems since then.

I can't run a lot of my old games on my computer, but that's just because my computer's so old now (6 years this September).

That last part is confusing...unless your computer is about to kick the bucket. With emulators, virtual machines, and all I have been able to get 1990's games to run on Windows 7.

Though graphics can cause trouble, new or old. :P

I used to be 100% Firefox, but I was having trouble with some viruses and looked up the safest browser and at the time, from what I could find, it was Chrome so I switched. But Chrome is a butt and uses a lot of memory for no reason. But I still use it. I have yet to find a better browser. I may switch back to Firefox at some point..not sure.

Firefox uses lots of memory too. In fact, both browsers will happily consume as much memory as they can get their hands on in order to try to make things faster -- they'll hold pages you've navigated away from in RAM for a while so the back button is faster (and in fact some pages have code on them that REQUIRE the browser does that) and speculatively preload stuff that they think you're GOING to look at soon.

For Chrome, I recommend "The Great Suspender" extension if you want to change that behavior. The extension makes tabs you haven't looked at in a few minutes unload themselves so they're not using up much memory or any CPU time. You can click on the suspend notice in any tab to make it reload itself back to where you were before. For pages that do live updates (Twitter, for example) you'll want to whitelist them so they can keep running in the background.

Netscape was my first browser outside of IE as well. Back in 2004 when I shared a Dell Laptop with my mother, we each had our own accounts on Windows XP and for some reason, while my mother could open IE on her account, I could not on mine. I'd always end up with a "This program has encountered a problem and must shut down" pop-up. I remember, at first, my mother didn't believe me when I told her this since she could open it.
She learned since then that I don't lie.

This was before I'd known of Firefox. That didn't happen until April 2005 when my father bought HP desktops for my mother and I and my cousin/uncle(yeah weird situation there) took it upon himself while setting mine up in my bedroom to put Firefox on it. From that point, I swore by it for years, it was excellent.
See my OP for why I ended up switching to Chrome a few years ago. To add to that, even though my Acer laptop was up there in age as it experienced problems with Firefox I'd been reading that Firefox had recently been known for an increasing amount of crashing incidents.

I use firefox exclusively, with the layout heavily modified.

On the PC, my default is Pale Moon, which is a FF clone. I also use FF and Chrome and only use IE when I absolutely have to.

On the Mac, it's Safari and Chrome. ;-)

I use Firefox, because for whatever reason, running Chrome randomly crashes my laptop. Anywhere from a few seconds to several hours after I open it. No idea what the cause is.

I use Google Chrome, unless I need to double something, like my dA, when I also use Firefox.

Firefox is the best option for me!

I use both Firefox and Chrome. They have a huge collection of extensions that help me to do my work.

They are best browsers of all time.

Well I learned the basics of surfin' on good ol' IE. Like Bookmarks, Favorite Pages, and of course, how to delete Browser History before mom sees everything.

But then I switched to Chrome and never looked back.

I use Google Chrome. Mozilla Firefox crashes every few minutes for me.

I recently had to pull out MS Edge again for a site that was trying to get too fancy in Chrome (I didn't dig into it too far but my guess is that it was trying to do stuff for iOS Safari and caught Chrome by mistake) and I'm pleasantly surprised how much better Edge 13 is than IE 11.

It's still not good enough for me to switch away from Chrome for day-to-day use, mostly because all of my habits are centered around Chrome's UI, but Edge is a surprisingly respectable browser now.

But thinking about browsers has me reflecting back on the days of the Browser Wars. From IE2 to IE4, the battle between IE and Netscape (a Mozilla browser, Firefox's ancestor) was really heated, and which browser was better largely depended on which sites you were visiting because they were optimizing in different directions. But when IE 5.5 was released, it was FANTASTIC compared to Netscape.

I use Safari on iphone because it's there. Otherwise, on my laptop I use Chrome with Edge as a backup. In my coding course I bounced between the two just to check things, and on occasion an odd little glitch would come up where new coding changes refused to show up in Chrome, but would appear in Edge. Never did figure out why, since Chrome would eventually fix itself and it wouldn't be a problem again.

Considering Safari is the ONLY browser available for iPhone, you don't really have a choice. :P Even iOS Chrome is just Safari with a little wrapper on it.

As for your coding course, that's just your web cache. Edge is somewhat more aggressive about reloading while Chrome is trying to keep normal (non-developer) use fast. You can disable Chrome's cache for development with a checkbox in the developer console.

I use Chrome mostly. Firefox for some games that don't work on chrome, but Firefox causes weird problems and crashes, especially on reddit, or anywhere I click a lot of links and stuff,so I stick with chrome. On my phone I use Chrome, too.

Chrome, Firefox, and Vivaldi.
Chrome for most things because the interface is nice and tiny.
Firefox for youtube and stuff that Chrome turns super slow.
Vivaldi only when I've opened too many tabs and want a separate browser to separate things.

I used to just strictly use FireFox, but then I started using Chrome for duel browsing when I wanted to use two accounts on one site I used to be on. Now it's pretty much the other way around with Chrome being my primary and only for a couple things do I still use FF.

Once upon a time, I was known to occasionally view websites by assembling an HTTP request manually and reading the data as it came back.

Very few websites keep their HTML readable enough to make that feasible now for anything beyond debugging the protocol stack.

I've also been known to send and read e-mails that way, and I still occasionally do it for IRC chats.