currently i'm using IE8 beta and firefox 3.0 beta. so far, i still use firefox a lot. maybe i too often use firefox but currently what i found was firefox had problem during startup. it will had close error and if not mistaken, it had memory problem. so far, the things i like firefox 3 is that it has a save and quit option when you quit firefox. and 1 thing i do not like is i had 1 extended monitor and i did try on that monitor. but since then, everytimes i open firefox, it will keep staying on that monitor, even i already move back to my main monitor.
for IE8, so far it has 1 new features, which is activities button on highlight on a word. you can highlight a word and then click on the activities button and search on what activities you want, let say is search trough google, translate it in Windows live, define in encarta and more. but 1 thing is that it has too few options for me to add. maybe it still new, so not much they add in. hopefully they add more options to it.
Well I do not think it is appropriate to compare two betas.
And in this case it wont be appropriate even further. Firefox Beta is in final stages and can be released anytime while IE8 is still early in its development.
I do not know about multiple monitor problem but I think memory leak problem has been tackled to quite an extend and I feel is better than IE.
IE8 would be more conforming to standards and will even have "Super Standard Mode" to support all standard websites. It will be interesting to see how this mode actually develops.
Definitely Firefox! firefox now, firefox forever. there's no way IE can beat firefox.. 
| dac_nip wrote: |
| Definitely Firefox! firefox now, firefox forever. there's no way IE can beat firefox.. |
Agreed, although I do like the fact that MS is finally compiling with the standeradsThe new browser war of the next generation! Beta today, final in the future! I'd root for Firefox though. Ever since I was introducted to it, I have never looked back on Internet Explorer. Except at the workplace where we have to use both browsers for testing and compatability purposes. But personally, Mozilla Firefox all the way. 
i am still a firefox user no matter what IE changed in IE8. but there are times when I need IE because i use it for testing scripts and I also need it with certain plugins that doesn't exists for firefox.
I've used both, and I prefer Firefox 2 to them all.
Internet Explorer 8.
I've currently got this installed now, but the emulation mode switched on. Only a small percentage of sites work with IE8, but its a start, and I applaud Microsoft for making IE7 an 'opt-in', rather then an 'opt-out'.
Firefox 3.
I found nothing wrong with this except its address bar. I found it to be slower then Firefox 2 and I prefer the old one. It's probably something I'll get used to, but I won't use it until I have to.
i was creating web page and i just tested with firefox 3 and IE8 and surprisingly IE8 load quite fast. better than i expected. mine is still emulate IE7 off. but for those site i browse, all of them works well in IE8.
| garionw wrote: |
I've used both, and I prefer Firefox 2 to them all.
Internet Explorer 8.
I've currently got this installed now, but the emulation mode switched on. Only a small percentage of sites work with IE8, but its a start, and I applaud Microsoft for making IE7 an 'opt-in', rather then an 'opt-out'.
Firefox 3.
I found nothing wrong with this except its address bar. I found it to be slower then Firefox 2 and I prefer the old one. It's probably something I'll get used to, but I won't use it until I have to. |
Slower? Firefox 3 Beta 4 uses 20mb of RAM while Firefox 2 uses a shocking 84mb of RAM on my machine.Firefox 3 is almost to RC stage, while IE8 is (I believe) not even in beta yet (still just an Alpha) Given those circumstances, I don't think it's really fair to compare.
No matter what I will always mostly use Firefox, I don't like using beta versions of software. The first every browser I ever use was Netscape back in 1999 when I was first introduced to the web, I believe I was 11 or 12 as I was chosen for a computer class.
NOTE :
Don't get me wrong, I new about computer because I used one for the first time in kindergarten back in 1992. I played one of the huge 8 inch floppies, today they are getting smaller.
Getting back to topic
For me firefox has given me a lot more better time online then IE because I don't have the annoying "Do you want to allow this activex" at the top of the screen of every website I view, downloads are hidden and notified in the corner when they're down and many more features.
I still have to use IE sadly for some sites that do not want to support more browsers.
Thanks you for reading!
Glossary 
src: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080317-firefox-3-goes-on-a-diet-eats-less-memory-than-ie-and-opera.html
These are the results of a stress test on the lastest browsers.
As you can see at the end IE loses...
Though I believe IE is less memory hungry in the beginning, but after long and intensive use it will become deadslow.
I'm looking forward to the new Firefox, I've always liked the browser, but it used to be horrid to run it on old computers with little ram. | LostOverThere wrote: |
| garionw wrote: | I've used both, and I prefer Firefox 2 to them all.
Internet Explorer 8.
I've currently got this installed now, but the emulation mode switched on. Only a small percentage of sites work with IE8, but its a start, and I applaud Microsoft for making IE7 an 'opt-in', rather then an 'opt-out'.
Firefox 3.
I found nothing wrong with this except its address bar. I found it to be slower then Firefox 2 and I prefer the old one. It's probably something I'll get used to, but I won't use it until I have to. |
Slower? Firefox 3 Beta 4 uses 20mb of RAM while Firefox 2 uses a shocking 84mb of RAM on my machine. |
I'm not talking about memory usage. I'm talking about loading the address bar, opening new tabs, the bookmarks menu...Sorry, my mistake.
And Internet Explorer 7 looks like it has some maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaajor memory leaks.
I really don't think i would ever use IE. Even if in the future... a distant future... IE will become better than Firefox (absurd!!! i know...).
I really didn't liked the fact that Microsoft launched a browser and they didn't maintain it. We had to install different other programs to stop ads, Pop-up's etc...
IE was garbage collector. This irresponsibility makes me reject IE... even if it will be better than any other browser (but this will never happen )
So, IE vs Firefox >> Firefox can easily beat IE I have yet to try both IE 8 and Firefox 3 beta versions. But I'm sure Firefox will lead the way. I've never had problems with Firefox before and IE always occasionally gives problems. So I'm sticking to Firefox and hope Firefox 3 full version will be available soon.
What I h8 about IE is that it freezes a little when you first start it up, there is no plug-ins. Its not even a question between firefox and IE. Firefox is always three steps ahead of IE. IE is slow, has a poor lay-out, and is homo. I use Firefox with adblocker, no script, and some other stuff and I rarely ever get viruses. IE comes with every computer and is a nice little target for hackers everywhere since computer illiterate people use IE and they're just a additional bonus for them.
Forgive my ignorance, but what is a memory leak? If a browser has many memory leaks, what does this mean i.e. what's the consequences on performance and so on?
Peace.
A memory leak is a glitch where a program allocates memory to use (like to store an image as you view it, or to hold the data from the server in a cache before you view it), but forgets to give the memory back to the system when its done. So the memory sits there holding some ancient data, waiting to be called on, but just sits patiently.
As memory leaks build up with other memory leaks, eventually the program starts using extreme amounts of memory. Once your system's physical RAM is used up, it has to start using virtual memory on the slower hard drive, which slows down your system.
Periodically restarting leaking programs can help clear the memory.
I don't think it's appropriate to compare the betas either.
Dυes the Internet Explorer 8 comply with the W3C? Well, IE will hardly ever beat Firefox, for one simple reason: the union of the Firefox community.
I will go for Firefox, addicted with the interface and easy, nice to use...
Different of plugins, themes really make it great all the way.
Can't compare them in this stage though still i would chose firefox over internet Explorer, whatever the version.
| chartcentral wrote: |
| The new browser war of the next generation! Beta today, final in the future! I'd root for Firefox though. Ever since I was introducted to it, I have never looked back on Internet Explorer. Except at the workplace where we have to use both browsers for testing and compatability purposes. But personally, Mozilla Firefox all the way. |
We will probally not have another browser war. If anything it will be a slaughter. When someone backs Microsoft in the corner, in one way or another, they'll figure out something to beat the competition. I hope Mozilla can fight this battle and not end up like Netscape, although those times were when the Internet was just starting to become popular.
| halflife268 wrote: |
| When someone backs Microsoft in the corner, in one way or another, they'll figure out something to beat the competition. I hope Mozilla can fight this battle and not end up like Netscape, although those times were when the Internet was just starting to become popular. |
The problem is that the people already come with Internet Explorer as browser in their Windows OS', so most of them think "it's not necessary" to have a another one. It's too sad when people turn their back to good things.
Go Firefox! I personally think windows sucks, but i use it anyway. IE is just plain horrible...if you just want to test out FF3 check this
http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/test
you can save that on umm anywhere and it will not affect your FF2 in any way
I'm mildly pleased that IE7 was out, way better than IE6 but umm still can't trust IE as is called "The Swiss Cheese of Software"
bah I hope, however, that the Mozilla team does not get lazy. Many people can be attracted by the "beauty" of Internet Explorer.
I use FireFox Beta 3. I use only Internet Explorer 8 for some sites. But Internet Explorer 8 have so many fouls.
I prefer firefox.
Use it better than ie....!!! dont support M$!! 
Have they got tabs in separate threads in Firefox yet? (I'm not sure if it is in IE)
It's really annoying when one page was coded by an idiot going fancy-free with javascript and it takes out your whole browser session or even worse, slows it to a crawl so the UI is unresponsive.
AftershockVibe maybe it would be better idea if firefox would temporarily disable all scripts which don't run in currently active window. That could free plenty of memory.
Please, don't be childish, no offense. The point is not about supporting M$, it's about the software itself. Internet Explorer is really poor, Firefox is the best and this is not arguable. But don't tell me Windows is a bad thing, because it's not.
| bulek wrote: |
| AftershockVibe maybe it would be better idea if firefox would temporarily disable all scripts which don't run in currently active window. That could free plenty of memory. |
There is probably already a plugin for that. Anyways, Firefox > IE7 and 8 and anything else Microsoft wants to waste their time on. I bet you that Microsoft will get fed up and buy out Firefox.I used both... the new internet explorer is much better than any of the others...
but I still prefer firefox the firefox beta 3 also is alot faster than the older firefox versions
| Diablosblizz wrote: |
| I bet you that Microsoft will get fed up and buy out Firefox. |
I hope not, I'd be very disappointed if Mozilla sold out to Microsoft. However I can't see this happening anywhere in the near future, thankfully. I much prefer Firefox. IE7 was a vast improvement, but Firefox remains my default browser. I've tried Firefox 3 Beta and found it excellent, but I'm sticking with Firefox 2 for now as a lot of the extensions I use aren't compatible yet.
| welshsteve wrote: |
| I've tried Firefox 3 Beta and found it excellent, but I'm sticking with Firefox 2 for now as a lot of the extensions I use aren't compatible yet. |
Actually that was the precise reason why I kept myself off from firefox 3 but when beta 3 launched I thought of giving it a try & after that day I have never really used firefox 2. The speed improvement is immediately visible. You can try it with facebook.com All that slowness of firefox 2 gets removed in firefox 3.
Also now I can pause my downloads from firefox itself without need of any external add-on or download manager. And yes, firefox wastes far les memory.
Although yes, I miss using google toolbar in firefox. But think soon RC1 will be released, then developers will start making there add-ons compatible with firefox 3yeah. if i wasn't as dependent on my extensions as much as on Firefox itself, i would have changed it in a heartbeat. sadly, it looks like i will have to wait until extension developers are caught up with FF3.
going back to IE8 or FF3 debate, i'd take FF3 any day over IE8. I felt FF was better when I was switching over from latest stable IE (bit of an oxymoron, but hey. w/e.) version to FF version 0.9, and the feeling certainly hasn't changed now when FF has been steadily improving whereas IE has experienced what is in my eyes side-stepping (as in bunch of changes which overall dosen't improve the overall score, as it has improved in some aspects and declined in others).
at the risk of sounding like a fanboy if i haven't already done so, VIVA LA FIREFOX!
Spped Dial, DOwnThemAll, AdBlockPlus, McAfee Site Advisor, IE Tab, Dummy Lipsum & Web Developer Toolbar are all now compatible.
Sadly Firebug and CSS Viewer are not. 
Firefox is a highly customisable browser because of it's plug-ins, I think this is an advantage over IE.
Plus I like feature at the url en search bar, where titles and urls pop-up in a drop down menu instead of just the urls.
I am now using Firefox 3 as most of the extensions I use are now supported.
The one thing I do miss though is the google search box.
can't wait for firefox 3 to go final. havent tried IE tho, because it is still in the alpha stages.
