Slashdot Mirror

Are there better browsers out there? Again, without question.

May I ask what are those other browsers you're talking about? I am aware of 4 major browsers other than Firefox. Let's have a look at them and how they compare with firefox.

IE7 - It finally got tabs and a search box but still has crappy html and css standards support. Actually it's a little worse than MyIE for IE6. I'll pass.
Safari - Has a lot the basic features of a good browser and is very simple. Respects HTML and CSS standards. Has crappy PNG support (gamma correction) and for some reason scrolls slowly even on fast machines. It's a fine browser but I prefer Camino.
Konqueror - Although I have limited experience with this one, it looks like a good browser/file manager, but I am un-aware of any features (appart from passing that ACID2 test) that make it better than Firefox.
Opera - The only browser that is at least feature-wise better than firefox. But for some people Open Source actually matters. Though even with that into the equation, I can't really say which one is the better browser.

So, while you can argue and I might accept that opera is better than firefox, what are the other browsers that I've been missing that are better than the "overrated" firefox? Oh, and preferably opensource.

http://www.myie2.com/index2.htm

I use 0.9.27.68 and I love it!- very customizable

BTW the exploit failed also (crashed)

Plugin Go Up is extremely useful

http://www.myie2.com/html_en/home.htm

The IE rendering engine with most of the features people get all gushy about in the Mozilla/Firefox browsers.

Yes it's quite a silly statement, I agree.

MyIE for instances lets IE have tabs. Whats wrong with this for tabs?

Answer:

Because this is not really a stand alone browser. It is a rip off version of IE. Just like irider and myie2/maxthon to name a couple

Ironically, as all of these browsers are "Internet Explorer with a plugin" and nothing actually new, they can be installed on any desktop that allows IE to be installed, even though they may be EVEN LESS secure that explorer (which isnt exactly secure to begin with)

MyIE2 has embedded Gecko browser and it seems to work ok. http://www.myie2.com/

For IE tabbed browsing, you can always download a browser extension such as Crazy Browser or MyIE2.

I am no developer so I dont know about the CSS compliance etc etc But IE is an extremely fast and good browser. But yeah it doesn't support tabbed browsing etc. Mozilla doesn't appeal me I just want a fast simple browser that works well on Windows. So I use a browser such as http://www.myie2.com/MYIE2 . Looking at all features in it, it seems to me that MSIE7 would nearly be the same as MYIE2

Actually, MYIE2 already does this. It's got an experimental feature where you can ask it to use Mozilla's Gecko rendering engine in place of the standard IE engine built into Windows.

I have been reading a lot about FireFox (and Opera, to be fair) here on Slashdot lately. Everyone who uses one of these alternative browsers has nothing but good things to say about them, and if someone says something bad about one then they are either attacked as being MS sheep or assaulted by a series of suggestions on how to fix the situation.

My question is this: aside from the obvious security-through-diversity advantage, and the fact that the IE HTML engine is a bit on the slow side, what are the benefits of using FireFox or Opera over, say, Slimbrowser, Crazybrowser, or MyIE2? These IE-based browsers have tabbed browsing, built-in pop-up blocking, mouse gestures, and a host of other features that they probably borrowed (read: stole) from the "geekier" browsers out there. I'm not saying that the 2 advantages I mentioned aren't enough, but if I'm running a firewall and antivirus program, and I don't notice the speed difference between them, why should I switch?

Hmm... now that you mention it...

=)

FireFox feels a lot clunkier. All the controls, scrolling, highlighting, etc. work just a bit more slowly than in IE, and thus it falls flat in responsiveness compared to something like MyIE2, which has all of Firefox's nice navigation features without any of the clunkiness. Plus, MyIE2 can use the Gecko engine, although support for that isn't perfect.

CrazyBrowser hasn't been updated since 2002, and the CrazyBrowser site is pushing their commercial popup blocker / adblocker. I was a CrazyBrowser user until I found MyIE2 (now renamed Maxthon to avoid potential trademark issues), which is has a very effective pop-up blocker, tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, Super Drag & Drop (very cool feature, recently implemented for Mozilla/Firefox in the Super Drag & Go extension), built-in search bar, skins, plug-in architecture...

Having said that, I've already switched to Firefox at home - with the right extensions, etc. it has all the features of MyIE2/Maxthon that I'm used to, so it was a very intuitive move, very little adaptation required. At work, we rely on some custom ActiveX controls and client-side VBscript for our intranet, so I'm still using Maxthon there - for an MSHTML-based browser, it's probably the best one out there.

Here you go!

Avant Browser and MyIE 2 are both programs that make use of IE for displaying and both contain tabbed browsing.

Ok, seriously... DON'T pull that FUCKING elitist Firefox bullshit on me. I've had enough of it over the past few weeks

That's great, since I use Opera. Hell, at least use MyIE.

I've had other apps pull the focus-stealing thing it on me too. Like Photoshop and Acrobat.

I've had Linux apps do the same thing (Gaim comes to mind). By default, that's not supposed to happen in the Win32 API--those apps are specifically pulling their apps to the top-level. It's either ignorant programming, or just purposely annoying programming.

Built with your Security in mind, Firefox keeps your computer safe from malicious spyware by not loading harmful ActiveX controls. A comprehensive set of privacy tools keep your online activity your business.

Files you download are automatically saved to your Desktop so they're easy to find. Fewer prompts mean files download quicker.

Firefox is the most customizable browser on the planet.

Firefox comes with a standard set of developer tools including a powerful JavaScript and CSS error/warning console, and an optional Document Inspector that gives unheard of insight into how your pages work.

You might want to consider using MyIE2. It's not at 1 either, unfortunately, but I have been very impressed.

Mozilla may not work, but you don't have to keep using IE. You might want to try MyIE 2 or Avant Browser a try. They both use IE's rendering engine, so they'd have a higher chance of working.

If you want all of that out of Internet Explorer it sounds like you should be using MyIE2.

No way man, MyIE2 is the best IE-based web browser.

Try MyIE2. It's awesome. All the features you want (including tabbed browsing) and then some.

MyIE2

I use it at work and it provides all those features and is 100% compatible with all websites and runs IE underneath.

My main point is that features don't win a war, and calling users "smallwited" (as the parent's reply was to) certainly doesn't help any cause. What everyone seems to forget is that most people don't really care or don't want to bother to learn. It's just not their bag of chips, people... you all probably work in technology (as do I), but most people struggle to turn a computer on (My mom still calls the monitor the computer and calls IM messages "email").

So why would I want something not IE, again? Because of whiz-bang tabs, mouse gestures, and it's OSS?

*blank stare*

Sorry, here's the link: MyIE2

Avant Browser

Crazy Browser

My IE2

Those are just a few off the top of my head.

Crazy Browser

My IE2

Those are just a few off the top of my head. IE can be hosted as a control inside any other application. You don't like IE? Fine, use the rendering engine in any application you want. Hey, make it open source if you want!

Crazy Browser

My IE2

Those are just a few off the top of my head. IE can be hosted as a control inside any other application. You don't like IE? Fine, use the rendering engine in any application you want. Hey, make it open source if you want...

Avant Browser

Crazy Browser

My IE2

Those are just a few off the top of my head. IE can be hosted as a control inside any other application. You don't like IE? Fine, use the rendering engine in any application you want. Hey, make it open source if you want.

Crazy Browser

My IE2

Those are just a few off the top of my head. IE can be hosted as a control inside any other application. You don't like IE? Fine, use the rendering engine in any application you want. Hey, make it open source if you want.

I agree about 7-Zip, except that it doesn't do multivolume archives - it'll extract RAR multivolume, but cannot create them.

As long as I'm posting, here goes my top 10

Windows (after all the patches, of course)

1. Firefox (or whatever it's name is during the week of the install) (also MyIE is sort of neat)
2. Latest version of Outlook (usually as part of Office - gotta have email, but GOTTA take the plunge and transition to a better email client...)
3. Putty
4. WinAmp
5. PowerDVD
6. Yahoo Messenger (it's sad, but I still like it better than GAIM et al...)
7. WinSCP
8. Windows Privacy Tools
9. Adobe Acrobat Reader
10. BNR2
11. EverQuest!

Linux

Nothing! RedHat (Fedora) comes with all I need. Though the programs I update right away (and use most often) are:

1. NMAP
2. Mozilla
3. Apache
4. SSH
5. SSL
6. PHP
7. TinyProxy (Essential for bypassing my employer's content filter)

Ok, so TinyProxy isn't part of the base install. Whatever.

That's about it. I don't really use Linux as a primary machine, and I rarely use the graphical interface on it. On the Windows box I will also usually install a better editor, though it changes about every install. WinVIM is my current choice. And of course, the latest codecs for QuickTime Alternative and XViD.

Out of the ( hundreds? ) of people I know who use Windows / IE, I can count the number of them that

- Don't use the Google, Yahoo, or some other toolbar, and

- Don't use an "enhanced" IE with a built in firefox type search box, like MyIE2, and

- Know enough about the internet in general to know that there are search engines besides MSN .. on one hand. That means 5% of all the potential Windows / IE users I know would have absolutely no use for this at all.

And unless I am living in some weird oasis, I doubt that my sampling is that far off from the general windows community at large.

In general, you're either a) The type of person who uses MSN for everything because you know nothing else, b) Savvy enough to download a search toolbar or enhanced browser, or c) Savvy enough to use Mozilla / Linux.

People in category (a) are not the type of people who type in URLs manually; they would never use this thing and it would be of little use to anyone. Maybe 5 years ago it would have been, but Amazon has missed the boat.

It would be pretty simple for them to have a local copy of the stylesheet and modify the HTML from the server to include this before rendering.

In most cases the microsoft toys are generally inferior in terms of features but superior in terms of quality. In order to compete, a piece of software must have both before someone is even willing to download it, let alone pay for it. So I agree that bundling all that stuff marginalizes the value of developing software for the thing. It sometimes amazes me that people will pay for Word when they get Wordpad for free, which is a word processor I would have died for in the Windows 3.11 days. Well, killed for maybe. But, it doesn't do a whole lot. Just enough for the casual word processor, such as a student. In fact Microsoft gives the average bozo enough applications to actually get some work done. There's even a scientific calculator in there. And a couple of scripting languages, and a couple forks of their own job control language. What a bargain. What a bargain for me. I think I will buy some.

But the fact is that Netscape got creamed not just because Microsoft got the majority of the web using IE-specific crap, but because Netscape sucked. After version 2 (some would say 3, I guess I could believe that) it just sort of went downhill until they finally gave up and gave it away, and now it's great again because of the Mozilla project. Meanwhile IE5 started to be pretty decent (except from a security standpoint) and IE6 is, I think, really a fantastic browser, again aside from a security standpoint. I know it does the wrong thing with CSS in most cases, but from the standpoint of user experience, it's quite pleasant. Oh yes, and you do need a popup blocker. It's very fast, and it looks pretty good. It's easy to use. I use MyIE2 which removes most of IE's shortcomings. I use Thunderbird for my email however, because lookout is a serious no no.

Anyway I am not a Microsoft playboy, I just don't think things are as simple as you make them out to be. Personally I hope all the people and companies that get jilted by Microsoft make their way to the Linux camp and become a wave (Join the Unix wave!) that sweeps over Microsoft. The only way in which Linux is really inferior to Windows these days is that the weight is behind Microsoft and the watershed line is still a long way ahead. That, and the lack of a unified package management database across all distributions :) Regardless of whether that happens or not, I am quite sure that alternatives will continue to exist.

my(ie)2 has these features already, whats the big deal?

> With the tab-based browsing in Mozilla (along with other features), IE is painful to use IMHO

Honestly, there's got to be about 3852985 different tab browsers for IE. This one happens to not suck: Here you go. Maybe the dev folks can mine some ideas from there.

MYIE2 installs a front end for the IE engine that does all of this. It also allows tabbed browsing. It is definitely worth a look.

It can't do tabbed browsing

you can't split the window into multiple frames to make ftp'ing and file management easier

if you visit a website you can't go recursively up the website's root tree

• For those of us using MSIE for one reason or another I can't recommend strongly enough MyIE2. A free shell for MSIE it adds another 2MB but in that include features like tabs, mouse gestures, various sorts of filtering including by string and by domain, and yes, trivially enabling & disabling Flash. There are other similar products but IMHO this is the smoothest.

• Next I'm betting the the Google Toolbar will be revved pretty quickly to counter this, they'd be fools not to. Indeed I'm betting nearly every pop-up blocker will be jumping on these. FWIW I use Norton Internet Security Pro and it's ad-filtering is pretty good once one undoes it's favored-partners exceptions.

• Finally there will indeed be a rush to block the offending IP's, unless the advertisers get crafty and start making their adverts appear to come from the content IP's, then it'll be ugly everywhere. Hopefully things won't come to that and over the next few days we'll start seeing handy "filter these" notices.

• And yes, there will be the flood of "Switch to Mozilla", "Use Linux" & "Use MacOS X & Safari" etc. postings. Thanks folks but most of us are well aware of those options and for one reason or another aren't taking advantage of 'em, or are but also using MSWin & MSIE too. Just deal with the fact that there are unenlightened or dissenting or locked-in folks and not be annoying proselytizers please. Oh, and MyIE2 is beta-ing Mozilla support for those wanting/needing to keep a foot in each camp.

MyIE2, which uses the IE engine but adds a lot of features (including tabbed browsing), released an update on Dec.14 to fix this bug.

http://www.myie2.com/html_en/update.htm

there are banners on slashdot?

*checks filter settings*
http://images.slashdot.org/banner/*

oh yeah.

w00t!

MYIE2 is a 3.3 MB download addon to Internet Explorer that adds pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, super drag and drop, customized searches from the address bar, aliases, and is highly customizable, so in a way, you already can get those things in IE.

I understand that it doesn't fix CSS or any of the security flaws, but it is a nice option for the hopelessly addicted IE user. Oh, and its free.

Actually, you can also simply install MYIE2 to internet explorer. Its an add-on to IE that includs pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, and slew of other features many of which are available no where else. And you still get the benefits of Internet Explorer, (doesn't take an hour to load). That's really the only benefit I can think of . . .

For tabbed browsing under Windows, grab MyIE2:
www.myie2.com/html_en/home.htm


Uses the IE rendering engine, but adds useful features like tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, etc. I've always found the Mozilla derivatives to be cumbersome under Windows and Opera's interface irritated me, so finally getting decent tabbed browsing was most excellent.

As for popup killing, either google toolbar (toolbar.google.com), which you should have on any Windows machine since it is just that useful. Simple, effective, clean.

MyIE2 is a wonderful addon to Internet Explorer that has pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, and skins -- as well as many other extras such as the ability to right-click even when webpages have forbidden it. For people who like the speed and rendering capabilities of IE, but want the features of Mozilla, I highly suggest giving MyIE2 a try.

If you like (or have to use) IE for whatever reason, consider installing MyIE2. It has a lot of the cool features that Mozilla has: tabs, popup blocking, etc., but uses IE's rendering engine. It doesn't fix the security holes, though.

we're getting pretty far off target from a family home computer here but, here are some of my favorite alternatives to the above list;

mozilla - if prefer MyIE2
ws ftp - i much prefer filezilla
PuTTY - try transparent putty
vnc - if you're running xp or 2k you should go with ultravnc
gnu-emacs - yikes!if you must have a unix style text editor under windows, may i recommend cream for vim
free-av - i'd probably go with AVG anti virus
boingo - don't forget netstumbler

here are a few more i install before i ever run a new system;

foobar2000 console2
divx player
stuffit expander
trillian
and if you need an email client try popcorn

i've got links to lots more free windows software at my links page

Slimbrowser
MyIE2
Crazy Browser
Avant Browser (not free)
Netcaptor (not free)

Slimbrowser
MyIE2
Crazy Browser
Avant Browser (not free)
Netcaptor (not free)

• NetCaptor is the oldest, but costs $$$.
  
• Crazy Browser is free, and it's interface is almost a direct copy of NetCaptor but is no longer being actively developed.
  
• MyIE2 has a stupid name but is free and being actively developed. It also has tons of features including skinning, a plugin architecture and mouse gestures. Watch the spyware during installation though.
  

MyIE2