Which internet browser do you use?

[Marcus Aurelius]

.

It brings considerable joy to my evil, castration-minded heart to be launching a Flash game and see an empty box wherein the game's shell was trying to serve me some ridiculous toilet paper advert with a gray background saying "Ads support your flash game developers. Turn off your ad blocker."

Ads.

Except of course, it is true. Without ads there would much less free internet services and sites. If a very significant percentage of people would start to use adblockers, the effects would be felt very soon with some sites closing right away and others switching to subscription or micro-payment model, and of course many of the latter two closing later as insufficient funds would be raised through those methods. Adblockers are morally highly dubious, because using them is basically mooching.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Except of course, it is true. Without ads there would much less free internet services and sites. If a very significant percentage of people would start to use adblockers, the effects would be felt very soon with some sites closing right away and others switching to subscription or micro-payment model, and of course many of the latter two closing later as insufficient funds would be raised through those methods. Adblockers are morally highly dubious, because using them is basically mooching.

This "dilemma", however, isn't new. It's no different to recording a show on a VCR and fast-forwarding through the ad-breaks. Personally, I have no qualms with telling the advertisers where to shove it. I'm not blind to where most sites get their revenue, but I also can't endorse rampant consumerism which has now made the use of an adblocker vital should you not want to go insane from product placement.

Most sites wouldn't dare start a subscription for something that other, less struggling sites would offer. Just look at the reactions about News Corporation's charging for The Times Online. People will go elsewhere, and the majority of users aren't savvy enough to find a way to block these ads on the whole.

[Dragon Angel]

Except of course, it is true. Without ads there would much less free internet services and sites. If a very significant percentage of people would start to use adblockers, the effects would be felt very soon with some sites closing right away and others switching to subscription or micro-payment model, and of course many of the latter two closing later as insufficient funds would be raised through those methods. Adblockers are morally highly dubious, because using them is basically mooching.

Morally dubious, perhaps it is. However, it is pretty well known that many types of malware (including the one that all of us have encountered at some point, know very well, and love: Virtumonde) are injected into ad networks through various means, and that by simply displaying an advertisement, any user could possibly become infected without their knowledge. No clicking, dialogue boxes, or any interaction may be required. And even if such an agent cannot find a security hole to squirm through, it could always utilize social engineering to bring itself onto a clueless user's system (i.e. "You have a virus! Please download our FREE scanner in order to clean your computer!").

(Here's a list of sources from Google in case anyone is interested.)

In a contest between my computer's security, and the site owner's revenue, I am sorry to say, but my security comes first. There are a few advertisement sources that I can trust, such as Google AdSense (it does not seem to leave much room for malware injection), but otherwise most of them are just too random for me to care.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Except of course, it is true. Without ads there would much less free internet services and sites. If a very significant percentage of people would start to use adblockers, the effects would be felt very soon with some sites closing right away and others switching to subscription or micro-payment model, and of course many of the latter two closing later as insufficient funds would be raised through those methods. Adblockers are morally highly dubious, because using them is basically mooching.

I don't particularly give a damn, though. Ads are aggravting, intrusive, annoying, and they spend time blocking me from getting to the content I want to. Do you see one of those aggrevating ads that scrolls up over half the screen you're trying to view and get a little burst of warmth from your gleeful consumerist heart that this little delay you're suffering got the guy who plugged it into his website some infitestimal amount of money? Or even worse, none at all because you of course don't care about buying whatever brand of toilet paper or feminine product they're trying to hock at you right now, and thus you didn't click it?

This "dilemma", however, isn't new. It's no different to recording a show on a VCR and fast-forwarding through the ad-breaks. Personally, I have no qualms with telling the advertisers where to shove it. I'm not blind to where most sites get their revenue, but I also can't endorse rampant consumerism which has now made the use of an adblocker vital should you not want to go insane from product placement.

Most of the time it's not even product placement, just random targeted advertisement triggered by words that appear on a page, and not even good product placement! Take this website for example, in N&P if they're talking about pretty much anything that any government does and the topic of regulation comes up, deregulation will come up, then people will start mocking Ayn Rand, and then the advert at the bottom of the page will try to sell you an Ayn Rand Book!

(Now watch and see if it doesn't happen to this thread. Let me see if I can feed that spider some more: John Galt, Who is John Galt?, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand, objectivist, objectivism, The Fountainhead, For the New Intellectual. That oughta do it.)

And worse, if it's in a Flash game, it quite often takes the form of a TV advert that you have to sit through. What in the hell makes anyone think that anybody who wants to play Tower Defense 55,051: The Defending From The Tower gives two shits about (already used TP and feminine hygene products) Husqvarna landscaping equipment? Ayn Rand. Or AARP auto insurance from the Hartford? (Wow, that targeted advert spider is going to have no fucking idea what the hell is going on in here. Ayn Rand.)

It's bad enough they want to force me to watch their damn advert, taking my time to do so, but they aren't even offering me anything remotely tangenital to my interests. I have no control over the brand of toilet tissue purchased in this household, and I am not sufficiently dissatisfied with the brand currently employed to make an issue of it. I am not (no matter what STARK and other EvE Online purists might say, (Ayn Rand)) a blubbering vagina, so I have no need of feminine hygene products. I am allergic to manual labor (James May: "That's not an allergy, that's bone idleness!" Ayn Rand,) and my uncle already owns plenty of power tools, so I have no need for Husqvarna equipment (Ayn Rand), or any other ridiculously not-even-remotely-tangenital schlock they're trying to hock on me.

None of which admittedly changes the fact that the developers of the flash game in question are trying to get some extra money with their adverts. The simple fact is, though, that I don't give enough of a shit to need the use of that Angel Soft toilet paper they keep trying to sell me. (Ayn Rand.) People made Flash games long before anyone got the idea of asking for money for their damn flash games. They will continue to do so for as long as Flash, as a medium, is around; if nothing else, it lets them hope a real developer sees their stuff and poaches them. They'll continue to do it because the websites themselves offer incentives to do so, and they have started to try and move to a microtransaction model. I, and I'm sure most of us, immediately roll our eyes and close the window of a Flash game that's trying to tell us to pay them money to get whatever bonus they want to hock onto us. I reserve unto myself the right to ignore adverts and to not have them intrude upon my browsing experience; just like in the years before effective adblockers, people's minds were mentally trained to ignore adverts. I, and everyone else who uses the adblock plugin, have gone one step further and had our computers actively disregard them.

It's no different from, as was said, fast-forwarding through recorded adverts.

Most sites wouldn't dare start a subscription for something that other, less struggling sites would offer. Just look at the reactions about News Corporation's charging for The Times Online. People will go elsewhere, and the majority of users aren't savvy enough to find a way to block these ads on the whole.

Exactly. Rupert Murdoch is a reality-disconnected dribbling cunt, and he's going to kil the Times Online (Ayn Rand) and his other brands by doing this, because CNN, the BBC; everybody else isn't going to follow suit. They're going to let the moron deprive himself of being seen, all the while laughing it up. The same will happen if, say, Newgrounds tries to go to a subscription scheme. I might, might, pay a one-time fee for access to a clearinghouse like Newgrounds, but that's it. If they try to gouge people like that, they'll just be very quickly rendered impotent.

Also, Ayn Rand.

[JointStrikeFighter]

Most people aren't such fat cunts cripplingly afraid of the big bad world that they need to hide behind a fucking adblock for fear of seeing the scary ads.

[ShadowDragon8685]

Most people aren't such fat cunts cripplingly afraid of the big bad world that they need to hide behind a fucking adblock for fear of seeing the scary ads.

Fear? HAH!

I "fear" adverts about the way I "fear" annoying paperwork. I simply do not feel a need to be bothered by adverts.

Also, it's advertising for a browser from Google instead of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand. (Disabled it for this page, just to see.)

[General Zod]

Most people aren't such fat cunts cripplingly afraid of the big bad world that they need to hide behind a fucking adblock for fear of seeing the scary ads.

Try harder. This is one of the most pathetically obvious troll attempts I've seen in months.

[phongn]

(Here's a list of sources from Google in case anyone is interested.)

A Google search does not in any way represent a "list of sources".

In a contest between my computer's security, and the site owner's revenue, I am sorry to say, but my security comes first. There are a few advertisement sources that I can trust, such as Google AdSense (it does not seem to leave much room for malware injection), but otherwise most of them are just too random for me to care.

Run NoScript if you're worried about malicious code.

[Dragon Angel]

A Google search does not in any way represent a "list of sources".

Okay, fine, it isn't much for "sources", I know that. Perhaps I should call them "examples", then? What word would you like to be used here?

I placed that link over there just in case anyone wanted to say something to the effect of "prove it that malware can exist in internet ads". This would not be the first time I had to try and convince others that this kind of a phenomenon exists - I still encounter people that flat-out refuse to believe it is even possible. A simple Google search is sometimes too hard for these people to do.

Run NoScript if you're worried about malicious code.

Uh, but I am?

AdBlock provides just another layer of security for me. Either way, the ads' counting tickers are usually powered by JavaScript, so I don't really know where you are going here.

[Stark]

Try harder. This is one of the most pathetically obvious troll attempts I've seen in months.

In a country of unlimited bandwidth, what reason is there to block ads aside from paranoia regarding EV0L ADZ that will take over your computer? Installing an ad blocking script = more time than I have ever spent looking at ads, making it a complete waste of time.

[General Zod]

Try harder. This is one of the most pathetically obvious troll attempts I've seen in months.

In a country of unlimited bandwidth, what reason is there to block ads aside from paranoia regarding EV0L ADZ that will take over your computer? Installing an ad blocking script = more time than I have ever spent looking at ads, making it a complete waste of time.

I'd rather take the time to install adblock than to have to worry about applets that automatically expand and make themselves a nuisance every time I go to a given site for places I visit often enough. Two clicks isn't that big of a deal if it means I don't have to put up with my content being blocked thanks to the ad. I don't really give a shit if they're unobtrusive and sit in a banner, but expanding ones and anything with embedded audio can go fuck off.

[salm]

Try harder. This is one of the most pathetically obvious troll attempts I've seen in months.

In a country of unlimited bandwidth, what reason is there to block ads aside from paranoia regarding EV0L ADZ that will take over your computer? Installing an ad blocking script = more time than I have ever spent looking at ads, making it a complete waste of time.

A lot of banners imbeded in websites are annoying, blinking and moving nuisances. I´ll happily invest three klicks to get rid of them.

[Isil`Zha]

So I decided to go back to a policy I haven't actually used since IE6 on Win98: disabling javascript for all but a handful of white-listed pages. Wow, what an improvement. The internet is fast again!

Some sites mysteriously break (I had to go to a payment gateway's website to try to find their documentation - a pain in the ass on the best of days - and their navigation bar just wasn't there. Apparently, it is script generated, for no actual reason. Sure, it is animated, but you could do animation on top of standard html. Stupid fucking retards deserve to fail.), but most work incredibly well.


Of course, if you are using a piece of shit like Firefox, this isn't an option for you without add-ons anyway, so carry on.

Why would you dis-count add-ons? I'm not even sure if that's true - I've never looked through all the options to check. I just use no-script, which disables all that shit.

[General Zod]

Why would you dis-count add-ons?

It is a difference in philosophy. Some people think an application should provide the bare minimum to function, and leave everything else to add-ons. This, they argue, keeps the core installation small and provides for easy customization. They can throw out numbers supporting that.

I don't buy it though. The way I see it, if a feature is legitimately useful, it should be built in. So if it isn't built in, it means either a) it isn't really useful (true for a lot of add-ons!) or b) the developer is a lazy idiot who can't or won't make good decisions for me, thus I have to waste my time doing his job.

I'd just prefer to stick to something that just works.

(This is why I didn't switch to Konqueror for a long time. I hate it out of the box. It took everything else becoming utterly unbearable before I felt it worth it to try customizing it. Better to have a customized less-sucky setup than an uncustomizable sucky setup, but better still to have an unsucky system without that extra effort from me.)


I like NoScript's logo though. It's cute.

Some addons can be "legitimately useful" but obviously not for everyone, so why tack on so much stuff if it's just going to make things messy? I've gotten a fair bit of mileage out of addons that let me download Youtube videos, or add-ons that let me download every single picture or file on a webpage at once. But would the average user have uses for those?

[Ace Pace]

Why would the average user be impacted from these add-ons? Opera has dozens of features I don't use. I also don't use them. A good user interface hides details that don't interest the user.

[Isil`Zha]

Why would you dis-count add-ons?

It is a difference in philosophy. Some people think an application should provide the bare minimum to function, and leave everything else to add-ons. This, they argue, keeps the core installation small and provides for easy customization. They can throw out numbers supporting that.

I don't buy it though. The way I see it, if a feature is legitimately useful, it should be built in. So if it isn't built in, it means either a) it isn't really useful (true for a lot of add-ons!) or b) the developer is a lazy idiot who can't or won't make good decisions for me, thus I have to waste my time doing his job.

I'd just prefer to stick to something that just works.

(This is why I didn't switch to Konqueror for a long time. I hate it out of the box. It took everything else becoming utterly unbearable before I felt it worth it to try customizing it. Better to have a customized less-sucky setup than an uncustomizable sucky setup, but better still to have an unsucky system without that extra effort from me.)


I like NoScript's logo though. It's cute.

Some addons can be "legitimately useful" but obviously not for everyone, so why tack on so much stuff if it's just going to make things messy? I've gotten a fair bit of mileage out of addons that let me download Youtube videos, or add-ons that let me download every single picture or file on a webpage at once. But would the average user have uses for those?

This is basically what I was going to say. What average user wants the ability to block javascript except for select sites?

The false dilemma was cute, though.

[General Zod]

Saving every picture on a webpage is something the browser does anyway as part of its normal operation; negligible once again to add the feature. (And I'm quite sure IE has had this built-in for ages too, if save as webpage complete does what I think it does. I'm not on Windows to check right now though.)

Grabbing an entire webpage is the stupid way of doing it. Downthemall lets me select all images, or only certain images and then click a button to download only the image files I want without having to worry about any junk data I don't need. In any case, I don't see the downside in allowing users to create add-ons for a browser that might wind up being implemented as a feature later.

[Guardsman Bass]

I use Firefox.

I occasionally use Chrome, but I tend to pick up a lot more cookies with it than with Firefox, for which I have a program that blocks them. Not to mention that it has an annoying issue with occasionally freezing, whereas Firefox usually just gets kludge-slow for me at worst.

[Resinence]

Umm chrome has cookie whitelisting, without having to install someones spaghetti code hack. It's under preference -> under the hood -> content settings -> cookies.

[Isil`Zha]

Umm chrome has cookie whitelisting, without having to install someones spaghetti code hack. It's under preference -> under the hood -> content settings -> cookies.

To be fair, he was referring to javascript white-listing, not cookie white-listing.

On the other hand, we're apparently ignoring that IE is terrible at complying with web standards (especially javascript, which takes over 6x longer than Firefox to render,) generally runs slower, crashes more often, and has various other annoyances not present in Firefox. IE still lacks a spell check, didn't have tabs for the longest time in any form, and most of all, has no where near the level of customization that Firefox has.

Yippee, a few obscure features that only a small user base will use come with IE (like javascript white-listing.)

Being able to add or remove plug-ins as I see fit works well for me. My home Firefox is quite a bit different from my Firefox at work.

...but somehow plug-ins don't count as features of a web browser (despite being the primary reason I use Firefox over Chrome.)

[Ryan Thunder]

I use Firefox for anything that works with it, and IE8 for anything that won't. Which isn't much.

The biggest problem FF has is memory leaking - if you have a lot of tabs, and leave your browser open for a while (usually days) it'll start running slow, and you'll see it eating up 250 - 500 MB of memory.

I've noticed that, but it's generally not enough to get me to try anything else.

I did try Chrome for a while but there was something off-putting about it.

[Isil`Zha]

On the other hand, we're apparently ignoring that IE is terrible at complying with web standards (especially javascript

Bullshit.

Acid3 web standards test:
IE8: 20/100
FF 3.6: 94/100
Chrome: 100/100

Sunspider Javascript benchmark:

Firefox: 1017ms
IE8: 6214.4ms (was up to 120x slower on certain functions, every time.)

It gets all that and used to be able to get faster scripts (Microsoft and Mozilla have finally caught up to Digital Mars in terms of javascript speed) if you're willing to use plug-ins.

Spell check
Tabs in IE6 (Of course, IE got built-in tabs at about the same time Firefox got a built in spell checker.)

Then I stand corrected in those regards. (Except overall customization, which you try to make out to be a bad thing at the end of your post.)

...but somehow plug-ins don't count as features of a web browser (despite being the primary reason you use Firefox over Chrome.)

...but somehow plug-ins don't count as features of a web browser (despite being the primary reason I use Firefox over Chrome.)

They don't by any meaningful definition of the term. Where would it stop? Firefox is open source, so I can add anything I want to it. Does that mean Firefox has all the features I can imagine? Of course not. Plug-ins are /exactly/ the same thing.

So being infinitely scalable is a bad thing? Way to contradict your previous statement by using my own words as the basis of you previous point. Just use whatever viewpoint is convenient for you, eh?

EDIT: Fixed quote tags and some grammar.

[Sarevok]

How is customization bad ? Are you saying I should shut up and accept what M$ offers me instead of pimping out my browser to suit my lifestyle ? I got everything I need from video savers to adblocking right into an interface with pretty themes I change whenever I want. Should I give up the flexibility and power and accept more limited features of IE because it is superior ?

[Isil`Zha]

Acid3 web standards test:
IE8: 20/100
FF 3.6: 94/100
Chrome: 100/100

Completely and utterly irrelevant. It focuses on useless shit nobody uses in the real world, and the test itself isn't even standards compliant, pulling things from unfinished drafts!

If I were wearing my tinfoil hat, I'd probably call it a marketing ploy by Google. They wrote the test (and half those unfinished drafts!) specifically so their browsers (Chrome, obviously, and Firefox, which they have a tight financial relationship with) look good, and Microsoft look bad.

So I provide test results after you call "bullshit" - so now you declare them "irrelevant" and then jump over to conspiracy theories? It also is quite noticeable in the real world. I constantly come across pages that render oddly or totally incorrect in IE. I get text boxes, like this one for posting, where you hit, for example, the URL tag to be entered - instead of entering it at my cursor, IE puts it at the end of the text box. (I don't know if it actually does this on this forum software, but I've had it happen in several other places.)

Firefox: 1017ms
IE8: 6214.4ms (was up to 120x slower on certain functions, every time.)

That sucks a bit, but has very little to do with the real world (like most synthetic benchmarks); the majority of websites aren't cranking javascript to do random shit non-stop. And if they are, those websites are either pure shit anyway and deserve to fail, or a very specialized application that can afford to be picky about what browser it supports.

I provide proof, and your only responses are to suddenly declare it irrelevant. Despite one of your earlier examples of a core feature was the ability to selectively block javascript? With how shitty IE runs it, I'd want to block it, too.

Oh, did I mention that IE crashed on me on the results page (after about a minute or so?)

Then I stand corrected in those regards. (Except overall customization, which you try to make out to be a bad thing at the end of your post.)

Customization is only necessary if the product sucks to begin with.

This makes no sense whatsoever, and is a really shitty attempt to disregard what everyone else sees as a positive thing. Use what you want, but being so desperate to call something you don't use "shitty" because... you don't use it, hardly discredits its strengths.

But hell, going by your standard, if someone has a custom Ferrari, it just means that the Ferrari is a piece of shit, right?

By your logic, IE has the features you mentioned as being killer firefox features. If you count plug-ins for one, you should count them everywhere and have a fair comparison. All browsers are pretty well equal, since you can extend any of them to do anything with plug-ins. (You could counter by saying Firefox's system is easier to use though.)

I reject this and stick only to the core.

Core that has a poor renderer, runs slower, crashes far more often, and has more security holes? You even said you had to disable javascript to get the "internet to run faster." So, enjoy! Far be it from me to change your irrational hatred of all things customizable.

[phongn]

On the other hand, we're apparently ignoring that IE is terrible at complying with web standards (especially javascript

Bullshit.

Oh come on! Even ignoring Acid, just look at quirksmode.org. It is decidedly noncompliant and those are not all edge cases on that site.

Hell, IE has had javascript whitelisting built in for ages! (But Firefox+NoScript gets the awards )

NoScript is fairly more sophisticated than IE's basic zone-based javascript whitelisting, though, hence its awards. It's easier to use, too.

Completely and utterly irrelevant. It focuses on useless shit nobody uses in the real world, and the test itself isn't even standards compliant, pulling things from unfinished drafts!

At any rate, IE9 PP3 has a score of 83/100 - fairly respectable (and completely passes the ECMAScript portion, which has been a fairly major annoyance of mine). There may be excuses for HTML/CSS (especially as there has been no rendering standard) but no excuse for failing ECMAScript tests.

If I were wearing my tinfoil hat, I'd probably call it a marketing ploy by Google. They wrote the test (and half those unfinished drafts!) specifically so their browsers (Chrome, obviously, and Firefox, which they have a tight financial relationship with) look good, and Microsoft look bad.

IE6 would absolutely look bad anyways even on non-edge-case tests.

That sucks a bit, but has very little to do with the real world (like most synthetic benchmarks); the majority of websites aren't cranking javascript to do random shit non-stop. And if they are, those websites are either pure shit anyway and deserve to fail, or a very specialized application that can afford to be picky about what browser it supports.

The idea is that we shouldn't have to be picky about a web browser. You should be able to take your pick and it just works. A faster JS engine makes more things usable and possible even if it's as simple (relatively speaking) as, say, Google Maps or Gmail or Outlook Web Access.

By your logic, IE has the features you mentioned as being killer firefox features. If you count plug-ins for one, you should count them everywhere and have a fair comparison. All browsers are pretty well equal, since you can extend any of them to do anything with plug-ins. (You could counter by saying Firefox's system is easier to use though.)

Uh, the extension system is fundamentally different than NPAPI or ActiveX. Mozilla's UI model permits things that are not (easily) possibly in other browsers.