I will say this, I (am?) was a huge FireFox fan. I still really am. However after beta testing IE7(yes, it's look and appearances mimic FF) I can see myself shifting back to IE7. The one thing, that I really kept an eye out for is Memory! If anyone on this forum disagree's with me, then you haven't paid attention to the amount of RAM that FF sucks up. FireFox is absolutely horrible at memory management. I'm tired of looking at my processes to see that FF is consuming well in excess of 125mb of ram. IE7 thus far has NOT had this problem. And because of this, and other more minor features, I will definately switch to IE7. IE7 has the same features as FF, imo. I will say, that IE7 security is a concern(because of past history) however, I'm willing to take that chance. I see MS, making advances in security, finally, so I'm coming to terms with it.
j.
-jazper
I am waiting for the argument that "IE components are preloaded with windows". This is the argument firefox/opera fanboys tend to use against IE. However, I am not certain they realize that the iexplore.exe process consumes far less ram (even with 17 windows open (for ie6) compared to 17 tabs in firefox) than firefox.exe. Yes, microsoft is slow, and I know they are always bashed because of their abusing their monopoly, but if it werent for windows, pc's wouldnt be as widespread and used as much as they are nowadays. We wouldnt have some of the great pieces of software or games that we do if it werent for microsoft being the big business that they are.
To the poster above, "Firefox sometimes has ram issues", do you not use but one or two extensions? I leave firefox open at night, and last night when I went to bed it was consuming 80MB of ram for 17 tabs (reasonable), but when I opened it this morning, it is using 160MB. Tell me, how can a browser double its ram usage while doing nothing? Also, extensions are a moot point with IE. You have been able to customize IE far more and for far longer than you have Firefox. There are so many addon programs for IE (the equivelant of extensions) its not funny. Also, microsoft probably doesnt allow you to DIRECTLY extend the browser like you can firefox for the sheer fact that if one extension came out with an exploit, it would tarnish the name of IE (as the greasemonkey incident did to firefox) and people would think microsoft responsible for not checking each and every extension. Also please, dont use the "its only 1.x" excuse. The mozilla team has known about the memory issues for some time yet everytime I've seen someone visit #firefox on irc.mozilla.org or post about them on the boards the "Devs" and "Mods" claim that they dont experience the issues and say it is a none-issue. 90% of complaints I see in #firefox are users complaining about memory usage yet the firefox dev team fails to address those issues. Firefox users seem to have a denial complex about them where they A. cant admit something is wrong with their browser, B. If they do admit to a flaw, they try and poke at other browsers by saying "Hey look, this browser still has X number of flaws open", and C. the userbase tends to flame anyone who goes against the past two entries.
Now, I am not a microsoft zealot, I use firefox as my default browser and enjoy it (although it is still very unstable), but I dont think its the best possible browser. Opera has that choice for me. The only reason I dont use it is that they dont allow third party integration (no, it doesnt have to be extensions). They dont allow me to use tools I've paid for and grown accustomed to that work in every other browser on the windows platform, instead forcing me to use stuff that the dev's feel like adding, and after they do, leave to stagnate. This is where a 3rd party API would allow for greater expandability of opera.
Anyways, microsoft has done some things right, yes they have a monopoly and often abuse it, but dont forget we wouldnt be where we are now if it werent for them.