Beaconfire Survey: Which browser do you use?

Editor’s note: each week, we do a survey of Beaconfire staff to get impressions on a variety of non-profit technology issues. All opinions expressed here are solely those of their authors. This week’s question: What do you use as your primary internet browser, and why?

Amy, Functional Consultant: I use firefox almost exclusively for browsing.  I used to do considerably more CSS design work and came to love the dev toolbar extensions it offers.  (Taylor wrote a great blog piece about FF extensions).  When do I not use firefox? Only in instances where an online application such as outlook web access or the VPN refuses to function in anything other than IE.

Michael, Principal Consultant: I use FF. Reasons are simple – great plug-ins that are constantly improving, UI is smart and highly usable, custom keys & mousestrokes are fab.

Miro, Software Engineer: Inspecting layouts/CSS: Ffox. Everything else: IE(7). Why? Cause it just feels faster, especially spawning whole new windows. And I love Bill Gates. W3 standards? IE is it’s own standard.

Lynn, Principal Consultant: Firefox!

Taylor, Software Engineer: I use Firefox as much as possible:

• I rely heavily on many FF add-ons, mainly for debugging purposes (see my blog: My Firefox Extension Favorites)
• I protest IE for not following W3 web standards, which in turn makes my life as a developer much more complicated
• I think text among other things appear sharper in FF

Tim, Functional Consultant: I use Firefox because of all the addons that that I use to troubleshoot HTML/CSS layouts.  No need to mention them, Taylor already posted about them all.  While I am really pretty happy with IE7, it’s lack of addons and still sub-par support for HTML standards mean I have to stick with FireFox and just open IE (along with Safari and Opera) to test layouts and use the few online applications that won’t work in FireFox.  I have great hopes for IE8 and also am hoping the the next version of FireFox manages to gobble up fewer of my computers precious resources.

Andrew, Project Manager: I used to use FF, but after three separate clients told me that their office, and users, use Internet Explorer, I switched. Some developers and designers focus on FF and forget that most clients primarily use IE, and this can cause problems interfacing between them.

Marissa, Functional Consultant: I primarily use Firefox:

• For all the reasons Tim stated – It is way dreamier than IE for troubleshooting layout issues.
• For all the reasons Tim stated – Plugins I can’t live without.
• Because I’ve had a long-standing love affair with tabbed browsing – Yes, I know it’s in IE7 now, but for me, it’s too little, too late.
• Firefox just seems less annoying than IE.

Jeff, Principal Consultant: FF for me. Mostly the same reasons Marissa said: Tabbed browsing, since I keep an average of 20-40 windows open at a time. Regarding IE, I still haven’t upgraded to v7 since back in the day you could only have 1 version of IE and didn’t want to be stuck with a one I didn’t like. Given that my choices are IE6 and FF, there is no choice.

Kristin, Project Manager: Firefox, because it has cooler plugins and was the first one to come out with tabbed browsing.

John Brian, Marketing Consultant: I use IE7 because I like to view the web the way the average user sees it. That said, I do install a few add-ins that give me some Firefox functionality – in particular, IE7Pro which has AdBlock, crash recovery, and mouse gestures, among other features. Plus I like IE7’s tabs better.

Cara, Project Manager: Firefox – switched when my IE browser stopped allowing me to fill out forms – stayed with Firefox mostly for speed and add-ins.

Kate, Administrative Assistant: I use Firefox, largely because it remembers who I am and what my passwords are without me having to think about it. I’m considering about switching back to Safari though, because I’ve experienced some wonkiness with Firefox at home lately. Also, my husband insists that Safari’s far better, and he’s the official tech guy in our home, and usually right about these things.

Erika, Operations Manager: I use Explorer, mostly because it was the default the last time my computer was updated.  I imagine that the majority of the people who use computers do the same…they never bother to change whatever the default was when they got their computer.  It would be interesting to know what the differences are between “technical” people (those who use internet technology in their work) and non technical people in terms of whether they change the default browser.  Does the majority of the population even know about Firefox and Opera?

At home, I use Firefox on the Mac.  I love Firefox, but it doesn’t always perform well on the Mac, especially when it comes to forms and drop-down menus.  That can be rather frustrating.

Mark, Functional Consultant: I use FF, namely out of habit, for the add-ons and the warm fuzzy feeling of using community developed open source software. Features such as tabbed browsing, password manager and live bookmarks got me hooked on the FF. I stuck around for such cool add-ons as mouse gestures, firebug and forecast fox. Though I admit to almost getting sick from using tab effect (this one does a rotate animation when you toggle between tabs) due to the animation! In my opinion, mouse gesturing should become a standard feature of future browsers of all flavors. I also think of FF as one of the best examples of how the open source ideology can drive software innovation and create better products. After all, the development of IE 7 was all about keeping pace with the innovations and great features created with FF. On the downside, FF is a memory hog at times and has crashed on my machine at times for no apparent reason, though likely due to add-ons or some as yet unaddressed bug.

I do like IE 7 as well, but really haven’t spent the time to get used to the major changes in the interface and controls, so it feels less comfortable. Also, the effort involved in migrating data over from my current fav (FF) is a barrier to me in using it more – though there is likely some tool to make this easier. It does seem in general that this version of IE is converging more on w3c and HTML standards, but I’m sure there’s a ways to go. I’m also annoyed that there are still so many IE only applications on the Web using active x controls, and hope that MS moves its handling of client-side applications to plug-ins that aren’t dependent on the browser type. Maybe Silverlight will take them further down that road.

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