I browse while looking nervously over my shoulder.

- derumi (del-me)
"Bobby Fischer? Man, that guy is crazy!" - Mike Tyson

I haven't installed Firefox 3 yet, but I heard it's supposed to be color space aware. Until now, the only color space aware browser for Windows was Safari, as you can see in a test I did.

For starters, let me say that I think we live in a golden age of web browsers right now.  It's amazing that we've gone from a point (around 2000/2001) where large portions of the web could only be reliably viewed with one web browser (Internet Explorer) to a point where we have three other fully featured, fully functional, very fast and stable browsers on the table.  Part of the thanks has to go to web developers as well, of course, as they've come to realize that creating IE only sites is bad for business (of course, they'd still be able to get away with that if Firefox hadn't gotten so much press and market share).  While I like all three, I've generally come to stick with Firefox as my first choice browser because it seems to be just a bit more compatible with most websites than Opera or Safari (my house is a Mac & Linux only shop now, so IE isn't even on the table), and because of the smart way in which it handles skins and customization.  Still, I've (in the past) found Firefox to be a bit slow and unresponsive - but I feel that this has largely been taken care of with the version 3 release.  I've been using the RCs for FF3 on my main desktop (Ubuntu Linux) for a couple of months now, and I've found them to be quite stable and definitely faster than FF2.  I also noticed a nice performance boost on my Mac laptop (a 2005 Titanium Powerbook running Jaguar) when I switched to FF3 (although on the Mac, I'd say that Safari may still be slightly faster).  While on the topic of Macs - I must say I really like the new Firefox 3 skin for the Mac version - it fits much better with the overall look and feel of the OS now.  The new Opera skin is nice as well, but certain things about Opera (like the lack of a built in spell check function, and the fact that middle clicking on something to open a new tab opens the tab in the foreground instead of the background) tend to turn me off towards it (and the lack of working Flash support on Linux is the nail in the coffin).

I must admit a preference to FF if only because it's less clunky than IE. I used to use Nutscrape some number of years ago and it just seemed that the product was never supported the way it should have been. For anyone feeling at all nostalgic about the dearly departed, you can take a trip down memory lane.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

I stick with Firefox because of the ad and flash blocking; I forget how much advertising and annoying flash there is on the Web until I see/use other folks' computers... it's horrible.  Same thing happens if I catch some TV at someone's house or in a restaurant or whatever, I've had a DVR for like 5 years and when I see commercials on TV it's a little jarring.

I do use IE for Netflix instant watching since their DRM locks it in to IE, though.

For the most part, I've been using Firefox for months.  My particular email service (AT&T) only works with IE7, so I have to keep a separate window open with that as well.  Opera has never appealed to me, and I've never tried Safari, because the reviews didn't sound particularly good.  I think two browsers is enough.  It might be time to uninstall Opera.  

there's only one way to find out...

For those who are interested, I just installed Mozilla Firefox 3.0 last night.  The update from 2.0 was painless.  The look is a little different, and will take a little getting used to, but it's noticeably faster than 2.0.  I deleted Opera from my computer while I was at it.  I'm still stuck with IE7 for email, but them's the breaks.  FF3 is the best.  

there's only one way to find out...