Let's talk browsers: Why do you use the ones you do?

[multimediocrity]

Ha ha ha... Mosaic was the first. I think the first one I used was in '94 and it was AOL. I had no idea what the internet was back then, but it pretty much wasn't worth using until Google's creation in '98.

[opifex]

Right... Mosaic was first...???
Samba was first for Mac ('92), Cello was first for Windows (Spring '93), Line-mode was first for UNIX and M$ DOS ('91) and Erwise, ViolaWWW and Midas were all released for UNIX (Spring/Summer '92) before Mosaic development even started in December of '92. First UNIX release of Mosaic was Feb '93 and Mac and Windows releases were right before Christmas of '93.
Oh for the good old days of SGML and HTML 1.0!
I was running 386/IX and Windows 3.1 at the house on PC clones in those days.

(Of course WorldWideWeb was first for NeXT ('91) followed by libwww written in C ('91).... history class is over.)

[aj_nsc]

I've recently found Chrome to be fantastic. I normally use Firefox, but Chrome is much simpler and, because of that, is faster. I always of course use Firefox with the webdev toolbar plugin (as well as testing in every other browser available) during development, but for normal everyday browsing, chrome is the way to go.

[Dark Dragon]

I have to admit that for quite awhile I used IE because i was familiar with it but as I went to other sites I noticed some of them did not display well and found out that IE sometimes makes choppy display whereas, for example, the end cap of a header graphic would be displayed beneath the image or if there were graphics with text under it, the images would be shifted so the text underneath did not match. SO..I switched to FireFox and am quite happy with it. I tried Opera but could never get it to work even if I used the 'Connect To' window then activated the browser afterwards. Besides, FireFox updates load faster and the program itself is less bulky than IE and you can choose the Add-Ons you want.

[multimediocrity]

I used to use IE regularly, but now I'm a FireFox guy. I like the extensions, as it really helps with my work. (Seriously, it saves me a lot of time.) I still use IE when I use other computers, though.

[Nihiliste]

Mainly I'm using Firefox, for all web dev plugins available, and links for command line browsing.

For Chrome on Linux, it seems available. While I was reading this thread, I checked in portage tree (I'm a Gentoo linux user) and it was there, with an url pointing to the google site. But I find it quite heavy for a light browser... 120M of source download.

[6StringGeek]

I use FF and Chrome. I don't really care what browser i use as long as it works. I do like the add ons you can get for FF though.

[KDLA]

It depends on the website I'm visiting. My gaming site only works in IE; Facebook (chat) works best in Chrome; my work-related web apps. only work in IE; the rest I try to use Firefox or Chrome.

[multimediocrity]

KDLA, that's funny that you use so many different browsers. I understand this, as I used to do this for certain sites. It was a pain. Perhaps someone should try developing a browser that does all of these?

[KDLA]

KDLA, that's funny that you use so many different browsers. I understand this, as I used to do this for certain sites. It was a pain. Perhaps someone should try developing a browser that does all of these?

OR programmers could actually try to develop cross-browser applications....

[ssystems]

OR programmers could actually try to develop cross-browser applications....

Lol I agree. But one must agree that this is relatively painful. I even remember the IE / Netscape days.

I use all that I am aware of. IE, for most browser based games that I've been to. For development, I use multi profile Firefox. For high ajax call sites I usually go Chrome. Sorry can't give technical reason for this except that I notice that it runs a lil bit smoother here. For high graphic content sites I use Safari.

[multimediocrity]

OR programmers could actually try to develop cross-browser applications....

Yes, but unfortunately this is not always possible. I guess that's why browsers stay in business. They all do something the other's can't. However, the work I do is almost always cross-browser compatible.

[matthewjumpsoff]

I regularly use Firefox 3.5, mainly because of all the excellent extensions (web developer, firebug, colorzilla, measureit, foxytunes, xmarks, adblock)

Of course I also have IE6/7/8, Safari, Opera and Chrome installed for testing purposes, but I cant live without my FFox extensions

[davidthompson]

i use firefox and i like it because of its many cool add-ons.