Why did you switch from IE?

[SkyBell]

Were you forced to switch becuase it was no longer supported? OR was there some other reason? If so, please tell.

EDIT: Forgot to add, what browser do you currently use?

For me, I switched because it never worked! When I first got internet, it was dial-up on Windows XP. For some reason, IE never worked. So I used MSN Browser, until I got high speed, and the browser didn't work anymore (This was when You had to have an MSN account to use the browser) Luckily, I had heard about Firefox, and gave it a try. It is now my main browser. (I'm temporairly on a stock iMac G3 233 MHz, so for now I use iCab.)

 

[Eidorian]

1. Tabs my Netscape days.
2. Not Microsoft?

I currently use Safari.

 

[Nermal]

I never used IE in the first place. I'm currently using Safari at home and Bugfox at work.

 

[Chundles]

I've never used IE all that much.

I favoured Netscape for ages, then Mozilla, then Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox, the to the Mac and Safari.

Never really liked IE. I guess the question should be, why are you still using it?

 

[Lixivial]

1. Tabs my Netscape days.
2. Not Microsoft?

I currently use Safari.

On Windows, it goes something like that for me. I played with Mozilla and only tolerated it because it had tabbed browsing. Played with Phoenix, and loved it because it reminded me of the days of old when Netscape just produced a Navigator component.

Been hooked with Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox all the way up to 1.5, where I've had notable crashing/bugs. Switched to Opera after the freebie switch. Isn't that remarkable?

On Macintosh, I loved IE 4 and 5 for Mac, but I hated its quirky way of rendering CSS, so I jumped to Safari when the beta featuring tabbed browsing was leaked. After Opera went free, I jumped ship.

 

[thedude110]

Back in my OS 9 days I used IE. Or, I tried to use IE, but it failed to render just about everything. I switched over to iCab and was mildly less frustrated.

Today I'm a Camino/Safari person. Shiira once in a while, and iCab if I feel like reliving the days when my Mac just couldn't surf the web.

 

[zap2]

I used it on my PC when I was younger(mostly because I was young and didn't now about other choices)


I came to Mac, and my brother said get FireFox, I did and I love it. I'd moved around from FF 1 to Camino to Bon Echo(which was recently upgrade to FF 2) and on my iBook I've used Camino and Safari...now I'm back to FireFox.


After using tabbed browsering it made me hate IE...I can't stand using it at school!

 

[pianoman]

never used IE. currently using Safari on my MBP but Camino works better on my PPC Mac mini.

 

[roadapple]

When I bought my first mac, IE (along with office) was one reassuring apps that I used, plus it came with OSX. But sometime around 10.2 - 10.3 I lost interest and switched, maybe to netscape, maybe to firefox, not sure. But IE was a great comfort, miss it I do.

 

[SkyBell]

I've never used IE all that much.

I favoured Netscape for ages, then Mozilla, then Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox, the to the Mac and Safari.

Never really liked IE. I guess the question should be, why are you still using it?

Uh.. I don't use IE. Not even at school. (Boot Firefox from a flash drive )

 

[Sirus The Virus]

Because IE sucks, and it's slow.

 

[vniow]

Because its a crap browser?

 

[roadapple]

Because IE sucks, and it's slow.

But it was good in it's time...even if now it's not usable.

 

[bousozoku]

Since there wasn't an Internet Exploder when I started browsing the web, I didn't switch from it.

I used Mosaic first, as I'm sure a lot of early adopters did. When Netscape came along, they had something that could actually display a lot of what was beginning to appear. Somewhere along the way, I tried IE for Mac, version 4.5.x and then, 5.x on Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X. It was so bad. Even on Windows, IE was so bad. Opera was better but the advertising got in the way of the speed.

Anyway, Firefox works just fine for me on Mac OS X and I used it on Windows XP as well but it seemed to work against me there. IE 6.x and down has been a security problem waiting to happen and has been compromised more times than McDonald's has served. IE 7.x looks much better but it still includes ActiveX.

 

[solvs]

IE was pissing me off. I had used Netscape back in the day, but had issues with early versions of FF. When one of the 0.9 versions came out a little more stable, I switched full time and never looked back. Safari was ok, but I got FF for Macs as soon as I could. IE for Mac has always kinda sucked, but it was faster than Netscape and only crashed about half as much.

Has anyone seen IE7 lately? Ugh, it looks so bad. So, so bad. Can MS do anything right?

Edit: You like the way IE7 looks? Really? Do you mind if I ask why?

 

[srf4real]

Last time I used IE was five years ago when I was forced to use my landlord's pc to check the surf forecast before we set up my imac for ethernet from his cable modem. Only time I ever found it neccessary. Of course, this worm a couple weeks ago shut down the pager system at my office's network because it relies on IE. Finally got the pagers back on today, after TWO WEEKS DOWN!

Anything else is a better browser, as long as it's on a mac.

 

[GFLPraxis]

I switched when I got my figurative fingers on Mozilla FireBird 0.6

 

[210]

Internet Explorer

The people who say they hated Internet Explorer compared to the other browsers they have used, can you tell me why you hated it and why the other browers are better? Some people have mentioned tabbed browsing - what was wrong on Internet Explorer? I only use Safari and sometimes Firefox at home on my iMac. Unfortunately, I have to use Internet Explorer at work as no one has even heard of Firefox there.

 

[Grakkle]

Never used it. I wouldn't use a stone axe these days either.

 

[OwlsAndApples]

I use Firefox on my PC because it seemed so much faster than IE on a 56k modem. Now that I have broadband, there is little difference however firefox just looks so much groovier.
On my mac I use Safari just because it looks swish, but I do use Firefox2 when I need to use myspace (for looking at new bands).

 

[Applespider]

Some people have mentioned tabbed browsing - what was wrong on Internet Explorer?

That until the new IE 7, it didn't have it!

I use IE (still on 6) at work because I have to. I like being able to click the drop down in the address bar and seeing where I've been. It's easier than using the bookmarks in IE.

I don't like having to use multiple windows, I don't like how it handles opening things in a new window (taking focus away), I don't like that I can't use spell check in it, I don't like how it opens non-maximised windows all across the screen, I don't like how it remembers other hyperlinks (to documents) in the address bar dropdown, I don't like the lack of a search engine

 

[RacerX]

I used OmniWeb on NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP, Rhapsody and finally Mac OS X because it was the only browser for these platforms originally. I used Netscape Communicator 4.x on Mac OS 8/9 until the release of Internet Explorer 5.x (which was actually better than Communicator... and better than IE on Windows at the time). The IE 5 Beta on Mac OS X was painfully buggy and slow, so I never started using it, and like I said, I was already an OmniWeb user of many years by then.

The only significant break from OmniWeb that I've had since 1998 was after Safari was first released... and even then I was still using OmniWeb 4.1/4.2 for certain work related things (it was still a great way to write/modify and preview HTML). The lack of click-n-hold support for contextual menus (something that was there for most Mac browsers back in the Mac OS 8/9 days) in Safari was very annoying, so when OmniWeb 4.5 was released, I was very happy to return to it as my primary browser.

I have other browsers on my systems, but only to check out compatibility with sites I've made.

On Mac OS 8/9, I stopped using IE for a majority of my browsing with the release of Netscape 7 (which was a relief as Communicator 4.x was getting too old, IE 5.x wasn't being supported and Netscape 6.x was buggy beyond belief). Netscape 7.02 in Mac OS 8.6 is able to deal with pretty much most of the pages on the net these days, so it is my default on my Macs that can't use OmniWeb.

On my SGI and Sun* systems I use Netscape Communicator 4.x as my browser.


* Note: I have one Sun running Solaris 7, one running OPENSTEP 4.2 and another which isn't running currently. On the Solaris 7 system I use Netscape 4.x, on the OPENSTEP system I use OmniWeb 3.1.

 

[dpaanlka]

Because Microsoft told me so:



My Mac OS 7 systems all run Netscape 4.8.

My Mac OS X systems all run Safari.

I do not own a PC.

For me, I switched because it never worked! When I first got internet, it was dial-up on Windows XP. For some reason, IE never worked. So I used MSN Browser, until I got high speed, and the browser didn't work anymore (This was when You had to have an MSN account to use the browser) Luckily, I had heard about Firefox, and gave it a try. It is now my main browser. (I'm temporairly on a stock iMac G3 233 MHz, so for now I use iCab.)

You'll probably want to use Apple Safari once you get an OS X Mac. It scores significantly faster than any Mozilla browser in every single comprehensive benchmark I've ever seen. Firefox on a Mac is not very pretty as it looks like a Windows app. Camino is more Mac-like. Safari is where it's at though.

 

[BengalDuck]

I fell in love with Mozilla Firefox and its tab browsing. Then I got a Mac and I figured that Safari works well enough, I've never explored other browsers on this computer.

 

[tobefirst ⚽️]

I switched because Safari came out. And I'm currently using Firefox.