What’s your Browser of Choice ? [Poll]

Welcome to the first Make Use Of Poll. From now on once every 2-3 days we plan to run a quick poll asking you about your favorite web apps and software.

Not only will this help some of the readers discover a cool website or software they didn’t know about, but it may also provide us with some article ideas. For instance, if at one point 70% of readers say they don’t use a feed reader (for example), this would signal to us to run an introductory post on feedreaders and why people should use them.

So please do us a huge a favor and vote ;-) .

So here is the first one:

Here at Make Use Of, with the exception of a few Safari users, we all love Firefox. How about you?

Feel free to share your thoughts below. Are you an Opera user? Don’t like Firefox? …. Tell everyone why.

Tagged: •

Aibek Esengulov

The guy behind MakeUseOf.com. Follow him and MakeUseOf on Twitter @MakeUseOf. For more details check out MakeUseOf about page.

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  • Brainaic

    Firefox Rocks, IE sucks. Period

  • http://www.betterthantherapy.net Mark O’Neill

    Until you told me Aibek, I didn’t realise anyone used Firefox without extensions. I mean, that’s like going into a brothel and asking for just a hug! LOL.

    I occasionally use Opera and Safari for comparison purposes but my main default browser is Firefox – WITH extensions!

    • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

      ..I didn’t realise anyone used Firefox without extensions. I mean, that’s like going into a brothel and asking for just a hug! LOL.

      I know. I find it weird as well. By the way, my girlfriend is one of such people. :-)

    • FekketCantenel

      Wait. So if you use Firefox without extensions, you won’t get a bunch of STDs and possibly arrested? I fail to understand the metaphor.

      • http://www.betterthantherapy.net Mark O’Neill

        what I mean is, you have the opportunity to use a wide range of goodies but you just use the basic package. I mean, what’s the point? You may as well stick with Internet Explorer. The whole point of using Firefox IS the extensions!

  • http://nxqd3051990.blogspot.com Nxqd3051990

    Firefox with extension and Opera :) I love both :)

  • http://www.adarshcha.blogspot.com Adi

    Hey guyz IE isn’t that bad either. Of course, I use both IE and Firefox (with extensions) but to vote to one of them was difficult for me.

    • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

      Are you referring to IE 7 or IE 6 ? Just curious.

      • http://www.adarshcha.blogspot.com Adi

        I could go with anyone of them but for tabs I would go with IE7
        You know its something very religious :–> just kiddin

  • Famf

    I use Firefox 2 with extensions. Firefox 3 looks like it’s going to be great but I can’t live without some of my extensions right now that aren’t compatible yet.

    If you use Firefox without extensions, you should really look into other browsers. Like Opera, but I really want to recommend K-meleon because it’s super lightweight.

    • Robin Birdsong

      Same here! i actually tried the latest Firefox 3 beta, but there just too many extensions that I couldn’t live without! I can hardly wait for it to get out of beta! Tried Opera, didn’t like it, hate IE!

      • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

        Same here. I tied it, but it didn’t support some of my must-haves. So I am back on FF2

    • http://blog.shopwiki.com Renee

      I tried out 3 for about 3 weeks and had to go back to 2. I had some issues when uploading files and it was hard to live without the extensions. I reported the bugs I could and then switched back.

  • http://www.thepinkc.net Ellie

    I am a Firefox girl! I would, however, like to use Opera, but I can’t figure out how to get the same functionality that I get from Firefox with extensions. :)

  • http://mangodurian.blogspot.com mango the fruitarian

    I used to use FF until I discovered Flock.. Flock is so neat, allowing me to update my blog easily, uploads pictures at the touch of a button,keeps track of my RSS feeds and much more…
    pretty much all my software is portable too, and runs from a USB drive..

    regards,
    Mango the Fruitarian

  • Mike

    Would preferred to use Opera if it was able with most of my favorite extensions like StartAid, Jeteye, Gspace, etc……..

  • Inferno

    I’m using swiftweasel (pretty much a version of firefox) for Ubuntu. If you are running Linux and haven’t tried it, you really have to, much better speeds.

  • cherries

    IE!!! (7)

  • http://wlmtips.com Eric

    I would have to agree with the very first comment. While I have tried Opera, Safari, Konqueror, Netscape and even IE, I always find myself coming back to Firefox WITH some extensions.

    I do however understand why some people would not want to use extensions as too many of them can make Firefox bloated.

    • http://makeuseof.com Aibek

      That’s very true, I have been using Firefox for ages and got only 4 active extensions.

  • Jack Ash (yes, really)

    Opera is the AOL of browsers.

    Other is too obscure.

    Internet Explorer is too insecure.

    Firefox without extensions is Netscape Navigator.

    Safari is just a long trip to nowhere.

  • Althaf Hameez

    81% for firefox.
    Firefox is great!

  • FekketCantenel

    “Opera is the AOL of browsers.” Wow, nice job insulting 9% (currently) of your fellow readers. You can go suck a lemon.

    I’m glad this poll is being held. I’d really like to see some Opera-centric articles (and am getting pretty tired of ‘Firefox this, Firefox that’).

    • http://www.betterthantherapy.net Mark O’Neill

      Well that is a reader’s opinion, not the opinion of Make Use Of!

      I can tell you now that some Opera articles are now being planned! We can see from this poll that the interest in Opera is there! So stay tuned! :-)

  • http://hardiannazief.com dian

    Noscript and Firebug, thats the two main reason why i use firefox

  • Manoj

    Opera for life.

  • Manoj

    “I’m glad this poll is being held. I’d really like to see some Opera-centric articles (and am getting pretty tired of ‘Firefox this, Firefox that’).”

    Ya, I agree.

  • http://www.readyartbrut.com PeterD

    I loved Opera on Windows, I love Opera on Ubuntu, i even have Opera on my phone, for me it just does everything I want without being any trouble. I have used Firefox (without extensions) in the past, but I always go back to Opera.

  • rogun

    Happy Firefox user and I have no interest in using anything else. Though I do admit to using Konqueror every now and then, including to write this post here. I’ll also use Lynx and IE, when the situation demands it, but that’s not very often.

  • http://notwavingbutdrowning.com Laurence John

    Laurence likes IE7!

  • EW

    I am a faithful maxthon (1 and 2) user for five years, and have it fully customized with 30 plugins to my needs.
    and yes, I do realize, you are, as the million other ff users, probably just don’t recognize its value, just because you all think its “just” an addon for IE .
    For me (and I can at least claim, I have tried FF, while many who just start to dismiss maxthon, because its not having a multi million dollar ad campaign backing it up) a barebone firefox is plain awful to use.
    so is plain basic maxthon version. or the plain basic IE 6 and 7.
    with maxthon AND all my plug ins, I can fully claim, I am up to par with any FF user anytime.

    and really, what does FF have for a market share in China ?!? lol, 1 or 2 %?
    Maxthon has nearly 20 or 30 % in China, and as long as Firefox doesn’t give me a killer feature, that is suppose to make it superior to all other browsers, I see no personally use it.

    long before FF came (or IE7 was developed), I knew what tabbed browsing is, was crash recovery of all tabs was, what ad blocking features one can have, and what plug ins meant.

    don’t get me wrong, I am tryig to turn this into a philosphical discussion which browser is *better*. Better is a subjective term.
    also its not about *security*, and OH HOW so superior and safer FF is compared to IE (with or without addons), as so many FF users claim.

    I am talking purely about usability , and it that, I cannot see, what advantages FF can give me over a something, that I have used for 5 years (no, actually its 6 years now).

    • L.L. Moorloch

      I disagree with EW about Maxthon on only one point. He says it needs plug-ins. Maxthon 2, just as it comes in a download without any add-ons, beats anything else out there. Without plugins you can still:

      * Send a page as email,
      * Capture a Web page or part of one as a .bmp file
      * Fill forms automatically as Roboform does
      * Drag a tabbed page out of Maxthon to have a life of its own somewhere else on the screen
      * Create groups of web pages you can save and then later restore as a whole
      * Sniff out the filenames of video and other media for downloading
      * Perform searches using multiple search engines
      * Navigate the Web using mouse gestures
      * Call up pages using short, easy to type aliases
      * Split the screen to show two pages at the same time
      * Display weather any place in the world
      * Subscribe and play RSS feeds
      * Manage downloads
      * Customize the keyboard
      * Add snatches of Web pages to a collection you can later read and reuse
      * Click on a floating icon to easily enlarge the picture it’s floating next to
      * Restore tabs that are accidentally closed.

      Then explore the hundreds of skins and plug-ins for Maxthon, and you’ll be able to fashion a Maxthon that is the browser you’ve always wished you could have.

  • http://the-goddess.org/blog/index.html Morgaine

    My favorite by far is Safari – once you get used to its speed, anything else is torture. Also, I love being able to select a word, hit two keys and see its definition or find a synonym for it. My second favorite is SeaMonkey, which is similar to FireFox but actually works and isn’t as slow. I hate FireFox. I HATE IE. If a manufacturer or a website wants to lose my business for good, just make you programs automatically open IE, or only IE compatible. Why anyone uses that crap is beyond me.

  • lester

    IE7 rulz…no bettr way to save flash video files u hav watched to ur pc than jus copying thm frm the temporary files folder…in firefox u wud hav to use orbit downloader or any othr such thing for doing the same thing….u can use about:cache in firefox….but u wud hav to download the same video again from the url

  • Sufi

    I use K-Meleon. I’ve tried all the browsers listed above and some others, including all the IE wrappers and nothing beats K-Meleon.

  • Neanderthal

    None of the browsers mentioned have, even half, of the customization features of Maxthon. I prefer the 1.0 version over the 2.0 build because of the ability to have other programs at the click of a button. I can run as many utilities as I need, I even have Solitaire at my finger tips (or mouse pointer). The content blocker in Maxthon is unrivialed and the pop-up blocker is the best I’ve tested. I’ve not found a test that can identify any holes, vulnerabilities, or open ports that can be explotiated. As for IE7, I have it on my ‘puter, but it doesn’t work … I really messed it up accidentialy and have found no reason to fix it. I have tried FF and Opera, but they simply do not have the features I desire, but apparently, I’m just too backwards to know a good browsers. I was going to try K-Meleon and Safari, but they are FF in a different wrapper.

  • BloodChen

    Talking about Maxthon, there are usually several wrong statements:

    1. “Maxthon is a browser skin”. I don’t know what others define ‘skin’. But what I think a ‘skin’ means only some graphic changes of a program, consists of some picture files(.jpg,.png) , like WinAmp skin, Media Player skin. If this is what people usually think, Maxthon is much much more different than a skin. Below sentences are true technically.

    Maxthon is a program that uses Trident render engine.
    Internet Explorer is a program that uses Trident render engine.
    FireFox is a program that uses Gecko render engine.

    That’s why we call Maxthon a browser or a browser shell, not a skin.

    2. ‘Maxthon cannot be safer, faster than IE’. I believe guys make such statement know little about programing, not to mention browser technology. If your anti virus program can make your OS safer and some program(like google web accelerator) can make your browser faster, there is no way can prevent Maxthon does the same thing. Maxthon actually has several features, from preventing code injection from web, to accelerate the speed of browser. Plenty of people have proved that Maxthon IS safer and faster.

    My message to some firefox users: “Defending firefox is your rights, but don’t do it by attacking other browsers especially spreading false statements” .

    CTO of Maxthon browser

    http://www.maxthon.com
    http://forum.maxthon.com
    http://blog.maxthon.com

  • http://www.maxthon.com BloodChen

    You shall include Maxthon as an option. Million of users are using it, without Maxthon, the list is not complete.

    • http://www.betterthantherapy.net Mark O’Neill

      We can’t list every single browser! We have to have a cut-off point somewhere. So that’s why we decided to list the “big ones” – IE, Firefox, Opera and Safari and then lump all the others under “other”. If we didn’t do that, we’d end up with a long and unwieldy list.

  • Jason Mayoff

    For the commenters who didn’t want to try FF3 beta because they’d lose their extensions, there’s an extension called Nightly Tester Tools that comes with an option called Make All Compatible. It will make most of your non-compatible extensions, compatible. I’m using FF3b5 as my regular browser now and only one of my 9 extensions doesn’t work (the imageshack uploader.)

    • http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com Mackenzie

      It does NOT make them compatible. It makes FF ignore the fact that their installers say they are incompatible and try to run them anyway. Some extensions will work, yay. Some will fail to go at all, and in that case you’re still lucky. Some will crash your Firefox at random. Force Firefox to ignore compatibility at your own risk.

  • neanderthal

    I can’t imagine that any amount of words will make a FF user switch to Maxthon. What I really get tired of is the bragging about how much better FF is than any other browser. It’s not. Anyone who brags about FF, but doesn’t try Maxthon, customized to their liking, is simply not being truthful to themselves and that’s a real shame.

  • rgawenda

    I’ve been using KDE’s konqueror for some years as my only browser, no IE or firefox installed. But now I’m using ffx 3.0b5 since last week, with 30+ extensions, and loving it!

  • magnoliasouth

    Very serious Firefox lover here, but I have to use IE every now and then with crap sites that refuse to use standards. Mark O’Neill’s comment about the brothel just about cracked me up. :P

  • EW

    @: L.L. Moorloch
    I disagree with EW about Maxthon on only one point. He says it needs plug-ins. Maxthon 2, just as it comes in a download without any add-ons, beats anything else out there. Without

    I think, you misunderstood me, moorloch.
    I just meant ( i am female, btw) ,that i am so use to all the plugins that i have installed over the years, that a barebone maxthon (both 1 and 2) feels crippled to me, as would FF.
    I am sure, for newbies who migrate from IE 6 or7 to maxthon, even without the plugins, they will be impressed.

  • amit

    >>>>>>> Mozilla Firefox <<<<<<