Browser wars Firefox, Chrome, IE and the rest

[rodw]

Forget the rest, just go with Chrome. I have told quite a few people this and they never go back so maybe it is my fault that it is growing so fast

Personally, I think email clients are old hat these days and don't bother even installing Outlook anymore. My email client of choice is Gmail via Google Apps for business. Cost $50 per account per year but $100 for me and my wife is well spent.

Having said all that, I still use IE and Outlook at work because we are very much into bed with Microsoft on our network.

[ameerat42]

...Forget the rest, just go with Chrome. I have told quite a few people this and they never go back so maybe it is my fault that it is growing so fast

Personally, I think email clients are old hat these days and don't bother even installing Outlook anymore. My email client of choice is Gmail via Google Apps for business. Cost $50 per account per year but $100 for me and my wife is well spent...

Rod, such blanket statements (wet blankets for non-Chrome users) often benefit from the addition of a few "Y"s. This is one to start you off.
As for "well spent" money for those Gmail accounts, is my unlimited, free Yahoo mail a waste of money (in some negative sense)? I even didn't bother to change over to Moz. T'bird for mail.
m.

[Xenedis]

Forget the rest, just go with Chrome.

Nah. I looked at it once, and it didn't impress me.

Personally, I think email clients are old hat these days

Why do you think email clients are old-hat?

[Kym]

12-18 months ago Chrome did not render AP very well.
It had a few glitches. That put me off.
What use is speed if it won't stay on the road?
It works well now but I guess I'm used to Firefox and have it tuned how I want it.
It's very quick (v12) and stable.

I only test AP work with IE8&9 and Firefox.

Please note in a couple of months IE < 8 will not be supported and these old versions will not render AP correctly, in fact I'm sure IE6 is already failing.


April stats for AP

Firefox 38.7 %
MS Internet Explorer 22.8 % (1.6% IE 6 but this is likely to be 'bots try to hack us)
Google Chrome 19.6 %
Safari 15.4 %
Opera 1.2 % (Ving )
Android browser (PDA/Phone browser) 0.7 %
Unknown 0.6 % (Tapatalk, Forumrunner etc. I think)

[Xenedis]

I stopped running Firefox a while back and switched to Safari.

I run a Mac, and having my browser bookmarks almost effortlessly synced across three Apple devices is a big must for me.

The user experience and page rendering of both browsers is very much the same. I didn't want to run two different browsers, though.

It's good to see, though, that Internet Exploiter isn't the number one browser around here.

[arthurking83]

I much prefer an email client to sort through my archived emails, rather than a web based email system.

I archive all of my important emails, attachments and stuff.
Have done so for over 10 years, switched between Outlook, Eudora and Outlook and Tbird a few times, and for various reasons ... Outlook only to connect with my personal portable devices .. PDA phone etc.

For connectivity Outlook was the best, but the program itself was bloated beyond belief!

All my software purchased through online sources with emailed activation codes are safe saved onto my PC and triple archived so that when i need to get back to that activation code or serial number it's a 10sec job to do a quick search via Tbird.

Nup! I like email clients.. easy to set up for almost all email types(hotmail make it hard but it still gets through) and easy to manage on your own terms .. even when the world eventually gets disconnected by the US state department!

I also set myself up with a Google account to have access to an online calendar planner .. but compared to Tbirds calendar thingy(forgot what's it called now .. something like Lightning or something) Google's calendar planning tool is less flexible when required.

Also tried Chrome, mainly for this apparent 'extra speed' on my tablet .. but I found no difference other than I was not familiar with it. No reason to change from FF, so I also dumped it.

[Mary Anne]

I have been using FF must be 6 years, anyway since I got my first new computer and I like it.
*My first was 2nd hand had IE on it* not sure though I dont think FF was around then.
Had Gmail since it first came out years back and having so problems with that either and its free.
Using FF on my Macbook pro to..

[rodw]

Why do you think email clients are old-hat?

I don't just use one computer and move around. With Google apps, emails come with me to my Android 4g phone, to my IPad, my laptop if I actually bother to turn it on and to my work pc if I am in the office. google apps gives me 25 gb of storage and in 2 years I'm only using about 3% so far, I have the full power of Google to search my emails and the way that gmail works, you can establish rules to file your emails as they arrive. That means when you archive an email from your in box (instead of deleting it), it gets filed in the folder you set it up. Plus Postini's spam control and daily spam email digest and Google's virus checking are really great things.

I also use Google apps to share documents and it works well as it gives me access on my iPad and from anywhere.

So all in all, I like the email system I use a lot. This is also why I first decided to try Chrome. Today, it is very robust and is continually upgraded and you can configure it to remember your favorites etc regardless of which PC you use it from. There is only one site I have found that won't work with Chrome and that is an internal system at work. Google apps may not be for everybody but for me, it is well worth the $50 a year as in addition to the things above, it saves me from running my own mail server for my domain.

[Xenedis]

I don't just use one computer and move around. With Google apps, emails come with me to my Android 4g phone, to my IPad, my laptop if I actually bother to turn it on and to my work pc if I am in the office. google apps gives me 25 gb of storage and in 2 years I'm only using about 3% so far, I have the full power of Google to search my emails and the way that gmail works, you can establish rules to file your emails as they arrive. That means when you archive an email from your in box (instead of deleting it), it gets filed in the folder you set it up. Plus Postini's spam control and daily spam email digest and Google's virus checking are really great things.

I'm quite familiar with Gmail, and it's great; but you're not restricted to using a Web interface.

It fully supports IMAP (I use it), so you can leave your email on its servers, as well as access it locally or on a mobile device using a mail client.

It also supports POP3, but that's less useful than IMAP.

I have email dating back to 1996, and I've used quite a few email clients since then. Of those 16 years worth of email, the last 12ish are online and easily accessible from my MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPad.

I also use Google apps to share documents and it works well as it gives me access on my iPad and from anywhere.

The mail client on the iPhone/iPad works very well with Gmail.

So all in all, I like the email system I use a lot. This is also why I first decided to try Chrome. Today, it is very robust and is continually upgraded and you can configure it to remember your favorites etc regardless of which PC you use it from. There is only one site I have found that won't work with Chrome and that is an internal system at work. Google apps may not be for everybody but for me, it is well worth the $50 a year as in addition to the things above, it saves me from running my own mail server for my domain.

I've not looked at Chrome since it was fairly new, and while it may have improved considerably since then, I have three Apple devices which all run the same browser and which behave the same way; and there's really no need to change. Ditto for mail and calendar.

Whatever works for you (or anyone) works for you.

I was just curious as to why you considered email clients old-hat, given they allow the sort of functionality you want and need, and integrate quite well with online mail providers.

[rodw]

And gmail will also collect emails from others like bigpond or any other POP3 or IMAP Server. Mail clients imply you need to collect you email onto a PC which is fine if you always work from me site.

[Xenedis]

Mail clients imply you need to collect you email onto a PC

Not if you're using some server-based protocol such as IMAP4. The iPhone/iPad/Mac mail client does so very well, so you're not confined to a given device.

[ApolloLXII]

I won't use IE simply because that's the browser all the hackers who want to infect your computer with Trojans and Viruses target. I tried Google Chrome for a while but it won't allow me to download PDF files so I stick with Firefox simply because it has all of the functionality and features that I need.

[rodw]

I won't use IE simply because that's the browser all the hackers who want to infect your computer with Trojans and Viruses target. I tried Google Chrome for a while but it won't allow me to download PDF files so I stick with Firefox simply because it has all of the functionality and features that I need.

Strange, it works for me. If a site Pops up a new window with a PDF file in it, like my accounting software, you need to create an exception to the rule that stops all popups opening that is enabled by default.

[ApolloLXII]

Strange, it works for me. If a site Pops up a new window with a PDF file in it, like my accounting software, you need to create an exception to the rule that stops all popups opening that is enabled by default.

It has nothing to do with new windows popping up. Chrome won't allow me to download PDF files if I click on the designated download link. I've never had to make any such exceptions with Firefox.

This thread is very much like discussing camera brands and I follow the same principle with those as I do with browsers. Just use the one that does the job that you want it to do.

[Jcas]

I have been using Firefox for years now, still love it and the extensions one can get for it.

I tried IE over the years as my sister is an IE fanatic and kept telling me i was mad not to try it, don't know why i just didn't like it after FF.

I haven't tried any of the newer ones out apart from one i have on my Toshiba tab whose names totally escapes me...