You only need one web browser.

And it isn't Internet Explorer 7.

by AC - permalink

I downloaded Internet Explorer 7 beta 2 a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't install it. The first "final" beta broke my ISP's proprietary software, which pretty much made a new web browser pointless. But I decided to give the new beta a try anyway a few days ago, just before the release of IE7 beta 3. Oh, well.

Beta 2 didn't break my dialer software, so that was a plus, but I still have a major problem with it, and it's the same issue I have with Opera 9: it isn't Firefox.

I'm not saying IE7 and Opera aren't capable browsers, because they are. They're loaded with features and have useful interfaces. Their respective developers clearly have spent a lot of time studying what makes Firefox so appealing, particularly in Internet Explorer's case. From an end-user perspective, IE7 feels like Firefox inexplicably modded to include a lot of old IE6 design choices. But it still works. The problem I have with IE7 and Opera is that they lack what, at the end of the day, makes Firefox great: customization.

Firefox is open-source and extensible. Which means if it lacks a feature, or has a feature you like but with less-than-optimal integration, you can write an extension to make Firefox what you want it to be. What I'm getting at is AdBlock. I want to filter out web ads. I use Avant Browser as my secondary browser over IE7 and Opera because it sports integrated, customizable ad blocking. It's not quite as good as Firefox's AdBlock extension, but it's still there. I like Opera's style and the Opera dev team's commitment to creating a capable browser with its own identity, but I hate being force-fed gaudy, bandwidth-hogging ads on every site on the goddamn web.

Firefox and Avant give me a degree of control over the web content I access. Another Firefox extension, Sage, is the best RSS reader I've ever used. It's miles ahead of Opera's feed management, and it's only one of a number of RSS options you get thanks to Firefox's extension system.

Ever since Firefox started hacking away at IE's user base (which was, of course, pretty much everyone), the standard excuse for continuing to use IE has been, "So-and-so won't render properly in such-and-such browser, so I have to use Internet Explorer." Not anymore. Accepted web standards are here, and even the IE team has noticed. There's no longer any reason to use a web browser that isn't simply the best one. And Firefox is the best browser.

One quick disclaimer: as much as I like Apple and appreciate Mac OSX, I don't have a Mac, and I've never used Safari for more than a couple of minutes. If Apple found the time to port Safari for x86 platforms, I'd be first in line to download it. It could be the most revolutionary browser since Mosaic, but I'm way too much into PC gaming to buy a Mac just for the web browser.