Browsing for a Better Browser.

When I first got on the net way back when. I used what came with Windows: MSN Explorer. I always found it rather slow and unwieldy. A friend pointed me to Internet Explorer. (I got him back, I hooked him up with his now third ex-wife.)

IE was great.

However.

I kept hearing about this foxy little upstart browser. All the magazines and online reviews said it was fast, safe, and easy to use. When I saw that one of my favorite webcomics was saying "Best viewed in Firefox." I decided it was time to take a peak. At first I thought that it was really no different than IE. Until that fateful day that when I went to paste in a password. Instead of hitting Ctrl/V, I hit Ctrl/B. My bookmarks came up. I no longer had to click twice to get them. It's a keeper.

However.

Since then Firefox has become bloated, slow, and unwieldy. I figured it was time for a change. To get me to change browsers, one had to pass two tests. The first is what brought me permanently to Firefox: bookmarks. Could you just import your bookmarks from another browser or a backup file and go forward? Like with Firefox? The one that stuck out like a sore thumb was Safari. For the life of me I couldn't figure out to import my bookmarks and make it look like it does everywhere else. I can drag and drop the backup HTML file onto the Bookmarks Bar then I would have to click twice to get anywhere. Or I can set the bookmarks as my homepage and center click to open the link as a new tab and then click on the tab to see the page.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!

So how do the others I tested do? Internet Explorer did okay. It alphabetized my bookmarks. Now I get to spend all day reorganizing them back into the order I want. Plus I still have to click once to get to see them. But they stay open during the entire session.

Chrome: They are on a toolbar that autohides. So I have to click twice to get to any page. They imported in the same order as I had them in Firefox.

Opera keeps the bookmarks pane opens and stay open for each session. Alphabetized again and you can't reorganize them. Wait? What's that? I have to check "Sort by My Order." Why doesn't it sort by my order to begin with?

On to test two: my site. I have to admit that one of the things I have failed to do over many years is to see how my site looks on other browsers. Does it function the way I intend? The answer is yes. The CSS, Flash, and links work the way they are supposed to in every browser. For the looks, I get that my site looks basic. I care more about being able to access the comic than spending time designing some super flashy interface that can't be seen because it turns into a mush of CSS and Java-scripting and doesn't work on an iPad. (That is one thing I need to fix: Change the Flash content to YouTube or simple HTML. No big rush since most of that is buried in the archive that isn't visited anyway.)

Firefox, Chrome, and Safari display just fine. I really can't see a difference. Internet Explorer and Opera really stand out. For opposite reasons. IE makes my site look bad.(Who can I blame beside me? I know! Micro$oft!) The links on the darker background are almost impossible to see. There is a setting buried in Internet Options that you can uncheck to make things look the way they are supposed to. But will the average user go that far? No. I've talked to many people. All they really care about is just being able to click around and have a good time. Not dig around in the bowels (literally) of some program to fix what some guy that gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars should have fixed in the first place.

I don't get paid that much. I'll never get paid that much. Maybe that's why I recognize the fact that I will eventually change up the color scheme so it doesn't A: Blind anybody visiting; and B: Doesn't cause any unnecessary squinting to see the links.

Opera is the lone standout. My site looks great (to me. I don't trust my eyes. I've been up all night typing this out.) Turned out better than intended. Everything is nice clean, clear, and crisp.

Final verdict: I'm sticking with Firefox. None off the others have that perfect combination to make me switch. Firefox has all the great add-ons I like and have spent years figuring how to make work. I don't want to start from scratch.


bonus: spelling suggestions:
online-leonine
webcomics-economics
Ctrl-Carl, Curl
toolbar-barstool
autohides-autodidacts
CSS-CUSS, ASS (boy is that spot on)
iPad-paid, IPA
YouTube-Buyout
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!-(No Spelling Suggestions)