Mozilla Firefox 3.5 V.S. Internet Explorer 8

Before getting my Tablet PC, I always used Mozilla Firefox. I just liked it better. I found it to be more stable and faster.

Now, with the tablet PC and windows 7 on hand, I tried using the Internet explorer 8. But I still like Mozilla Firefox. Check out some of the apps for Mozilla such as Cooliris.

With that being said, what do Tablet PC users usually prefer. Internet explorer or Mozilla Firefox (or something else)? And why?

Care to share your thoughts/experience/opinion?

 

I prefer chrome on my Tablet. Chrome has a much smaller interface, which allows me to fit more on the screen. Combined with being fast, I wouldn't go back to firefox on my tablet.

 

You can customize the interface for firefox as well. In fact, some of the addins let you have a full screen.

 

This is probably left to user opinion, but for the average non-enthusiast browser, I'd say Chrome milks the most of all browsers in terms of performance returns.

Firefox offers versatility that the others have yet to support. Which, are the plugin extensions - none of the others can come close to this, although Chromium (not Chrome, mind you) has some dabble in this but it's not the same. However this is completely based on user opinion as some don't need the functionality of that.

 

Agreed.

Purpose of the forum was to see if people bother with looking around and see which one is good for them or do they just go with the default Internet Explorer.

So far I guess Firefox is getting good hits.

 

Voted +1 for Opera

It has Mouse-gesture and panning mode out-of-the-box. Which are IMO essential for tablet navigation.

 

lol.... what's funny is that even opera has got more hits than Internet explorer. I throught Internet explorer was specifically made for the TABLET PC.

I didn't like opera becuase I foudn it to be slow. But that was when I tested it on my old laptop. Can anyone else, who uses opera shed some light on their experience with Tablet PC?

 

Opera is the perfect browser for a tablet PC, because of the easy and fully customizable UI and the perfectly working and easy to customize mouse gestures. This allows you to maximize the working area while still having access to all features.
It's my main browser and I prefer it over Firefox, because FF is slow and you have to install a lot of plugins to get everything Opera already has included. Internet Explorer, well, I use it sometimes for some IE specific webpages like msn skydrive. Else it's a rather slow browser with almost no features.
Chrome, I've never used it and never will. 1.) It's made by Google and spies you with the default settings 2.) It's fast, but that's all. And a browser needs more than just to be fast.

And if Opera 10.1 isn't fast enough for you, then try the latest Opera Alpha which uses a new JS engine which should be really really fast, it also uses the Chrome style with the title bar, which gives you even more usable area.

 

What Opera version? I've also noticed Opera started to become sluggish in version 9.xx, but later on version 10 they introduced Presto 2.2, which they claimed to be 30% faster, I don't have any idea quantitatively, but as far as I concern it's faster. The newest pre-alpha (10.5) is equipped with new JS engine, Carakan. Currently it is the fastest engine, beating V8 (Chrom(e)(ium)/Safari) and TraceMonkey (FF) in Sunspider benchmark. You might want to try that, but mind you it's pre-alpha.

Opera is a secure browser, standard compliant, loaded with features that normally only available via extension in FF but maintaining Chrome-like fluidity.

When you're in tablet mode, you'll be both keyboard and mouse-less. It's annoying when you have to right click or navigate through drop-down menu just to do some simple tasks, whereas you can usually do them by a simple keystrokes and/or mouse-click combination.

In this kind of situation Opera's array of GUI buttons and mouse (ermm.. pen?) gesture will come, really really handy.

Also, it has fit-to-width mode button that will save you the hassle of horizontal scrolling.

However, I believe no Opera user will deny that the main problem they will often encounter when using Opera is the site compatibility. Opera is strictly following W3C standard, whereas unfortunately not all webdevs do that. Not to mention Opera user base wasn't that large in the past, so many webdev didn't bother to check whether their site works on Opera. (Well, if I'm a webdev, I wouldn't bother too)

They do try to fix incompatible site from their side though, with a configuration file called browser.js. Anyhow you'll find major websites nowadays will not have any problem with Opera.


I believe it's better if you just try it by yourself.

Iron serves the sole purpose of not including Google tracking code.

and no, the latest version (10.5) isn't even an alpha release, it's pre-alpha. Wouldn't recommend anyone to install it for productivity purpose. but I must admit 10.5 is worth to try, it introduced Windows 7 jumplist, chrome-style private browsing (per window settings and per tab!)

 

No. 3 for Opera. I use this browser since x-years on every device i have (Desktop PC, Netbook, Win Mobile, Symbian..). For me it´s the best browser

 

Firefox, because it has Zotero as a plugin, which is my primary PDF organization software.

Firefox is a crappy browser that loses to all the others, until you've found a plugin that you can't live without, after which you're stuck with it for life and nothing else compares.

 

I'd been using Firefox, and also Minefield (the Firefox pre-alphas).

However, I recently discovered the dev channel versions of Chrome better support the TIP, and also discovered the ChromeTouch extension (a Grab&Drag replacement), which means that all of a sudden Chrome fits my needs a whole lot better, which means I've been testing it for the past few days and it's working pretty well so far. I just wish that the Adblock extensions for it would prevent ads from downloading instead of preventing ads from displaying.

 

i primarily use FF, but i also have ie8, chrome and opera. i like opera, but it is not as intuitive or easy to use - for example, trying to get a mass downloader to work has proven a challenge. chrome has been a little buggy and the lack of extensions has been annoying, but they're rolling them out quicker now. ie8 runs sloooooooow.

i'm perfectly happy w/ FF, but if you open and close a lot of tabs it does not release the memory. i generally do not turn my tablet off, just hibernate it, or FF for days up to a week or two. FF begins to use mass amounts of memory and if i close it and restart it back to where i left off, using session manager, it takes up a lot less memory, sometimes as much as 50% less.

 

I use Firefox simply because of certain add-ons, not because the browser is anything spectacular. Be aware that Firefox uses a lot of resources and makes laptops run hotter because of this.

 

Hey how are we all doin
I normally use Firefox it is much faster than when i have to use IE8. I wish I could find the panning hand in IE8 perhaps i would use it more. Its just not there and Microsoft support and the web haven't been able to help ( sigh ) life can be so cruel sometimes (smile) I have also just begun trying Opera and it is much more light weight I like they pen moments better

Thanks

 

It is there. I've replied to your question Your thread

Btw I've just figured that I can't find panning hand on my XP IE8 (non-tablet edition), but it is there on my Vista/7 Installation. Since you were asking on Windows 7 forum, so it supposed to be available on your IE8.

 

I believe no Opera user will deny that the main problem they will often encounter when using Opera is the site compatibility. Opera is strictly following W3C standard, whereas unfortunately not all webdevs do that. Not to mention Opera user base wasn't that large in the past, so many webdev didn't bother to check whether their site works on Opera.

 

Umm.. any explanation why part of my post got copy-pasted into your post @Adrien?

or perhaps @tabbedout who has done the editing?

 

chrome on my tablet!

with tablet every space counts, less board much better

 

For me personally, the reason I stopped using Firefox isn't because it's a bad browser, but because it's a sluggish memory hog if you like to keep it open in the background for a while.

One of my tablets only has 1.5GB, so an app that's taking 700MB of RAM at times won't work for me.