Internet Explorer 7 v Firefox 2.0

The comparison between the two browsers was OK as far as it went, but what I'd really liked to have seen was a test to see how each browser rendered a variety of different websites. We all know that IE6 sucks with regards to web standards, what would have been good would be to compare how IE7 renders W3C certified pages compared to IE6 and Firefox.

Originally Posted by rupbert
QFT.

I think most people would prefer IE's way of handling tabs, as it's more convenient.

Safari style close buttons?
I believe you mean Opera style close buttons.

In fact, nearly every feature there Opera has done first and has continued to do it better.
I know what browser I'm going to use when Vista comes out, and it sure as hell isn't Firefox or IE7.

IE is much better now :D i think i will give it a spin once i can get my hands on a non beta version :D.

I'm still a little baffled why you'd use FireFox or IE when Opera is now free?

Originally Posted by JADS
I'm still a little baffled why you'd use FireFox or IE when Opera is now free?

Freedom. Of. Choice.

Everyone has different views and needs. Hence why there is not one car design for everyone. There are hundreds of options.

Originally Posted by DougEdey
Freedom. Of. Choice.

Everyone has different views and needs. Hence why there is not one car design for everyone. There are hundreds of options.

The analogy fails because browsers are on the whole pretty similar unlike cars. Opera does everything that FireFlea, Safari, Konqueror and IE does, but err equal or better... Still I have a few of those installed.

Ok ok I know there are a few features unique to each browser ;)

Nice to see microsoft finally making some improvements to their browser.

I imagine I'll stick with FF just because of the extensions though. If it weren't for them I think IE7 would be quite comparable with regards to how I use FF. Most of the things I use and do in FF have been pretty much copied in IE7 which some would say is a bad thing but personally I like it because I feel they are the best way of doing things. E.g. use of the middle button for opening new tabs and closing existing ones.

As for the tab bar I keep it there all the time because although I appreciate that if you only have 1 tab open it looks better without the tab bar the way the bar appears and disappears annoys me somehow. Truth is it's a non issue given that I never have only 1 tab open

Originally Posted by Renoir
Nice to see microsoft finally making some improvements to their browser.

I imagine I'll stick with FF just because of the extensions though. If it weren't for them I think IE7 would be quite comparable with regards to how I use FF.

But you can get add-ons in IE...

Originally Posted by ElThomsono
Duog: Yeah, that works.

Why would you want a new tab anyway? The only time you ever need a fresh tasty blank tab is to enter a URL manually, so you're already on the keys to hit ctrl+t, right...

The rest of the time it's middle clicking.

ugh middle clicking opens the link in a new tab, I can't believe I didnt know that...

Originally Posted by Lazlow
Good article, with only one issue from me:

I think many prefer Firefox's way of handling tabs - as if you only browse one site at a time, your interface isn't clogged up by an extra, empty bar. As soon as you open a second tab, the bar appears.

I agree with you, I like the extra screen space.

Originally Posted by rupbert
QFT.

Until I looked that up I'd only seen the ruder explanation of QFT and thought you meant that.

Originally Posted by EK-MDi
Well there you go then... Internet Explorer is more secure (but not for too long :(), faster, and a whole lot more convenient for browsing the interweb, than Firefox. What about standards compliance?

More secure than a beta with some security only partly activated

Originally Posted by Ramble
Safari style close buttons?
I believe you mean Opera style close buttons.

In fact, nearly every feature there Opera has done first and has continued to do it better.
I know what browser I'm going to use when Vista comes out, and it sure as hell isn't Firefox or IE7.

Either way I dislike those close buttons (hit a few by mistake when selecting tabs).
Oddly enough though, I just might try Opera for fun.

I've loaded IE7 @ work and must say it's a HUGE improvement over IE6 but NOT over FF1.5. It's Macro$loth finally catching up. I think they've done a good job at it though and quite frankly have made up enough ground that many of the reasons to switch are now gone. I haven't loaded FF2 yet though because of the one thing I love / hate about it: extensions. I love the extensions when they work and they keep me coming back to FF. But I hate it when a new version breaks them.

for the beelt in spel cheque, two miny forms & forums I baddly kneed dat four.

Originally Posted by JADS
The analogy fails because browsers are on the whole pretty similar unlike cars. Opera does everything that FireFlea, Safari, Konqueror and IE does, but err equal or better... Still I have a few of those installed.

Ok ok I know there are a few features unique to each browser ;)

Ok, the analogy was flawed.


BUT it doesn't change the fact that I personally don't like Operas interface and I don't want to spend time fiddling around theming it.

I don't like IEs interface with its constant tab section and I rarely need such a long address bar.

I like FireFox and I don't want to waste my time fiddling around looking for another browser when I have one that works to my needs.

"if it works dont try to fix it"

if it sucks, FIX IT!!!!!!

"It looks just like Firefox!", I exclaim at the screen, after viewing the first few images in the article.

Don't get me wrong; IE7 looks like a brilliant improvement over IE6 and will hopefully become an improvement in over-all web security. But really, you can't get carried away with the scale of improvement. IE6 is just really bad.

Microsoft's engineers have been working hard to get IE7 up to the standard already set by Firefox, Safari, Opera etc. It's good that they've done it, but come-on; IE7 should have been out in the early part of this year. Vista should be shipping with 7.5 or something.

That said, I do think Firefox isn't quite deserved of the coveted "2.0" just yet. 1.6 does seem more appropriate.

Though if you think about it, and going back to my original point, the browser devs seem to have hit a wall of engenuity. How many radical features can you keep coming up with? Sure there are improvements to be made, but they're not always going to be awe-inspiring.

I'm really quite happy the Internet Explorer team have caught-up, but unless they begin to excel the other browsers, I'll quite happily stick with whatever version of Firefox is released.

I do hope they give an option to toggle having a close button per tab, to having one single one. I just use my middle-mouse button -- it's much more intuitive than having a lot of red squares :)

Let's wait for the final versions of each eh? :)

Over 60% of bit-tech's readers are now logging on with Open Sauce

hmmmm, sauce :D

i really dont like the cluttered look of IE7 at all. im very much so a minimalist. everything i need nothing i dont when it comest to my browser. everything on my browser (FireFox) is on one line, not having the tabs open by default is nice. it just takes more away from the viewable space. as far as the spell check not working, ive never had a problem with it.

what about the recovery feature of firefox and that it is still a beta. im kinda a fanboy just because IE6 and before were that bad. i was never a fan of mozilla or netscape. but i did cross over when they released phoenix though, then firefox after that. ive concidered opera, but if it aint broke dont fix it

Originally Posted by EK-MDi
But you can get add-ons in IE...

Tbh I haven't looked into add ons for IE because FF has just the ones I want. Looking back at my post I realise I hastily wrote it without mentioning that I also appreciate the added security (I don't seem to get any spyware anymore where as I did with IE6) FF brings. I guess we'll have to see how secure IE7 is when it's been out in the wild for a while.

I'd like to echo the points made about how if it's not broke don't fix it. With that in mind I think it's gonna require something quite compelling for me to switch away from FF.

I've been using IE7 at work since the first beta (Still FF at home though). I have to say, it was a bit of a change getting used to the new layout, but I have to say. I am very pleased with this new version. Once I got used to the new layout of everything, I think I have to say that I might switch back to IE at home too, once the final release is finished.

One thing I do have to mention about IE7 though. The memory consumption is way higher than in previous versions. At times I saw it using somewhere around 300MB of active memory, and 200MB of swap space. This was with Beta 2 though. Since I've installed Beta 3, the memory management seems to be much better.

As for the people who miss the old style menus, I believe that you can configure the browser to show them....or for the one time selection, hit ALT.

can i scroll through tabs with the mouse wheel in ie7? if not i dont care how much better it is than firefox, im not using it :p

i also am a fan of the "no tab bar with 1 page open", i have the close tab button on the tab itself turned off too

Originally Posted by Drexial
i really dont like the cluttered look of IE7 at all. im very much so a minimalist. everything i need nothing i dont when it comest to my browser. everything on my browser (FireFox) is on one line, not having the tabs open by default is nice. it just takes more away from the viewable space. as far as the spell check not working, ive never had a problem with it.
< la snippe >

Ahaha hah haha hah <whipes tear> hah
Sorry, couldn't resist.

Go FF for standards compliance!

Meh, I don't see any useful features that Opera hasn't had for ages. It'll take a lot for me to change from Opera as my prefered browser.

Atleast get the latest version of Firefox maybe?

Firefox looks substantially the same in version 2.0.

http://www.jonsully.co.uk/images/new_theme.png
There is the new theme. (which they seem to change with each nightly :p) You should also note that you are viewing IE7 in Vista, it looks bloody awful everywhere else. (IMO) One of the reasons the Firefox people are going to MS (it's a trap!) is because they want to make Firefox look good in Vista.

Firefox still lacks a button on the main toolbar to open a new tab, by default - requiring you to manually change the options or head into the menu bar. This doesn't really help n00b adoption of Firefox -

Links that open in a new window open in a new tab by default in Firefox, and you can also add a "New Tab" button if you so feel like it.

http://www.jonsully.co.uk/images/new_tab.png

It's also in 1.5 and earlier if you look.

although Microsoft claims you can promote your own site search engine with a script call.

It's called OpenSearch, and yes it's also supported in Firefox 2.0, along with microsummaries.

http://www.jonsully.co.uk/images/opensearch.png

Bizarrely, other people on the net appear to have it working, so we couldn't for the life of us work out what was wrong. Bad speelong sucks.

Maybe you're not l33t enough? But seriously, you should probably get the latest beta. :P
http://www.jonsully.co.uk/images/learntospell.png

There are also a few things you missed too, for one,Firefox remembers your sessions when you crash. You can also set it so it will remember what you had open next time you open it again.

http://www.jonsully.co.uk/images/sessiony.png

Originally Posted by Darv
Meh, I don't see any useful features that Opera hasn't had for ages. It'll take a lot for me to change from Opera as my preferred browser.

Opera isn't as pretty as Firefox. :D

Oh, and btw, are you now raking it in with all these articles you're getting on digg? I've been wondering why there has been a sudden increase in article activity recently. Where are the articles about ponies? :'(

does anyone else think IE7 looks very similar to Safari on OS X?

Does it have mouse guestures ?

I can't live without them now.

Originally Posted by ElThomsono
Why would you want a new tab anyway? The only time you ever need a fresh tasty blank tab is to enter a URL manually, so you're already on the keys to hit ctrl+t, right...

The rest of the time it's middle clicking.

I very rarely want a new blank tab, I very often want a duplicate tab so I can keep that page handy and back-arrow to where I came from, one of the nicer features of my Firefox. Middle-clicking on the tab bar re-opens the page I didn't mean to shut.

After a lot of customising and extension selection, I've got Firefox reacting just as I like, to me its main strength. But it's also its main weakness, out of the box I don't agree with many of the default settings, and it takes a fair bit of study to find out just what tricks this dog-fox can do. Not n00b friendly. Take Search Engines. 8523 available, but check out how long it takes you to find what's on offer in, say, the UK, starting at 'Add Engines'.

• Add Engines
• Scroll right down to Additional Resources, spot "Browse through more search engines at mycroft.mozdev.org."
• Spot "You can use the Advanced Search to browse the categories and search by country or language."
• Click on that, Bingo!

Now you're on the page "Add Engines" should have pointed at in the first place. It still lists the most popular (perhaps no.6 shows the typical Firefox user's morals off, can't quite see MS offering that... )

Microsoft have a massive advantage when it comes to designing a user interface for non-geeky customers, they actually consider the n00b and research what defaults suit most and annoy least. A decent IE7 interface will just stop n00bs even investigating Firefox. :(