Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Which browser?

With the new release of Firefox 4 (RC2 presently and the final releasing today), I thought I will just type this in...

I use all three browsers - IE, Chrome and Firefox regularly, on Windows as well as Linux (obv. no IE there) and on all kinds of Internet speeds. The thing that's got me completely back into FF4 is its blazing speed - it's just suddenly gotten so much faster than itself and more than the other competitors too! I hated installing the Addons, as they used to hog m resources, but with FF4, it's just no longer an issue.

IE - just don't understand why it exists, besides that it comes pre-installed with Windows. Micro-so-soft release IE9 finally, but they make it uninstallable on my XP (and probably the first general use software to do so) - definitely not my choice if I have to stick to a browser. With Newer technology on the Web upcoming, I'd stick with FF or Chrome, but somehow, as a regular user as well as a Web addict and a techie, FF gives me a perspective that is independent of the web and the OS and that become very important.

I use Chrome very often, but the way it handles my privacy scares me. I don't mind the world knowing that I exist and knowing what I do, but I am scared of it using that information to come up with conclusions on "who" I am. I would rather have my picture drawn by me in front of the world than someone concluding it based on certain rules that they defined. Well, the same - Google intrudes with my custom likes and choices by deciding things on itself. Chrome has a nice New Tab interface, but FF has substantial add-ons to do that for me. The new FF interface is just as clean.

So now that it's my choice to go with Firefox, what would I like more:
- Integrated new tab with the FF base itself as a setting - add-ons have some issues all the time.
- the Awesomebar needs more work - I love the Prospector add-ons from Mozilla labs (mozillalabs.com) though.
- the skinning and theming is cool, but need an easy control of menu and toolbar, and their font sizes.
- Pinning (App tabs) is the best, but someone needs to work on utilizing it better - like unread mails from GMail or other websites could become their favicons. (GMail labs has something that half works and there's some add-on, but someone needs to work on that)

I hope the world gets rid of FLASH! Or Adobe gets its head running wrt the crazy crashes that Flash keeps having all the time :(

Rest I will wait for. I will keep "using Chrome" and "avoiding IE" as much as I need and can, but with MS ruling OSes and Google, the internet, I like to have someone else interfacing the two.

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