Let me say there are two major reasons I use Firefox (and I've used it for nearly 3 years):
- Stability
- Security
Firefox doesn't support ActiveX and that's the number one security vulnerability in IE. When I was using IE full time I would disable ActiveX. 99% of all websites run just fine without ActiveX. Anyone who designs a decent site is smart enough to detect whether the browser uses activeX or not.
I know a lot of IT people who use IE with either ActiveX disabled or - even more extreme - the Internet Zone security set to High (which disables all ActiveX and Java, as well as javascript). Believe it or not, 99% of all websites are still viewable at this setting, and as a bonus you don't get annoying Flash ads. They use the Trusted Zone to enter websites they trust to load ActiveX or scripts.
I prefer to use Firefox, though, because it gives you more control. With FlashBlock installed I can block all Flash but by clicking a button that acts as a place holder for every flash object, I still have the option of running Flash SELECTIVELY. So when I go to a site with a video in a Flash player I can just play the video without also running all the annoying Flash ads.
Steve Gibson talked about this in his weekly Security Now! podcast that he does with TechTv's Leo Laporte last week when they talked about browser security. Gibson happens to use IE himself (he doesn't like Firefox) but he uses high security in the Internet zone (excellent podcast BTW:
http://grc.com/securitynow.htm). He explains in detail how Microsoft went wrong with ActiveX in IE.
For ease of use I prefer to use Firefox as my primary browser and leave IE security set to normal so that if I have to go to a website that uses ActiveX to troubleshoot a problem for a client, I don't have to dick around with security settings.
As for stability, I've found IE6 to be a cranky app. Doesn't take much for a bad Java script on a website to crash it (then you wind up with dozens of copies of IE running in the background until you kill them all manually in task manager). Firefox is a bit more robust, although it too has issues. Firefox has a habit of crashing with some flash video players.
I've also found Firefox to be faster than IE6 (I haven't tried IE7). As an example try this very large animated GIF:
Firefox plays this GIF just fine. IE lags while playing it - it not only lags IE it lags the WHOLE Windows OS while it's running. On my P3 800 laptop it's particularly noticeable, but I even notice it on my high-end Athlon64 4000+ system. Firefox plays it at it's correct framerate, but IE can barely chug along. I noticed this because a friend of mine on Red-Eye LAN uses it as his sig.
Try it in Firefox after you view it in IE and see the difference. You can see it slowing down the page scrolling when it's running.
Yeah, I know, you guys would probably prefer the SLOW piroutte in IE anyway....
aid:
All I have ever used is IE and have yet to have any of the problems that others have mentioned. Maybe its just cool to dog M$? And yet most of you use MS products.....hmmm Yes Augix, IE 7 seems to run a little faster, than v6 and Firefox.
