Internet Browser?

[dumwaldo]

Firefox because I just don't see any reason to use anything else. Any feature found in another browser seems to be duplicated in firefox or it can be added to firefox with extensions.

I use the speed dial extension to have a home page of thumbnails like chrome and safari.

I also wanted to mention to G35 that Firefox allows users to save their position also.

DW

 

[surbitonPete]

I have been trying out google chrome for a couple of hours .....and I seem to quite like it. ..its very fast in comparison with firefox and very simple.

 

[mizmare]

Safari on my Mac and Chrome on my PC. It's all about the speed baby.

 

[Vince1]

FireFox+No-Script=no problems.

 

[nonamebrand]

I use Chrome now. I was Firefox loyal for years though and I still think it's a great browser.

When I first tried Chrome out awhile back I found the speed in searching and bringing up webpages was the same, so I went back to my trusted Firefox 3.0.

By that time I had gotten so used to Chrome's convenient interface that I was getting a bit frustrated using Firefox.

Chrome has that nice speed dial function. When you first open Chrome or a new tab, it displays a page of links to your 9 most visited websites in thumbnails which are clickable (e-cigarette-forum.com is one of my top 9 ^_^). Though I think Firefox has a plug-in that can do this too.

I also like how Chrome's top address bar doubles as a Google search box which is lightning quick. You just open up Chrome, the cursor is in the address bar, type your Google keywords and off it goes, no mousing or tabbing around. In IE you have to tab or move the mouse to the small secondary search box on the far right...more work.

I haven't bothered to install Firefox on my laptop which I'd used since Firefox 1.0 back in late 2004. Chrome has pretty much spoiled me rotten. It'll be interesting in the future to see what Firefox has in development to counter Chrome.

 

[dumwaldo]

I use Chrome now. I was Firefox loyal for years though and I still think it's a great browser.

When I first tried Chrome out awhile back I found the speed in searching and bringing up webpages was the same, so I went back to my trusted Firefox 3.0.

By that time I had gotten so used to Chrome's convenient interface that I was getting a bit frustrated using Firefox.

Chrome has that nice speed dial function. When you first open Chrome or a new tab, it displays a page of links to your 9 most visited websites in thumbnails which are clickable (e-cigarette-forum.com is one of my top 9 ^_^). Though I think Firefox has a plug-in that can do this too.

I also like how Chrome's top address bar doubles as a Google search box which is lightning quick. You just open up Chrome, the cursor is in the address bar, type your Google keywords and off it goes, no mousing or tabbing around. In IE you have to tab or move the mouse to the small secondary search box on the far right...more work.

I haven't bothered to install Firefox on my laptop which I'd used since Firefox 1.0 back in late 2004. Chrome has pretty much spoiled me rotten. It'll be interesting in the future to see what Firefox has in development to counter Chrome.

All of that AND the bonus feature that Google gets to keep track of every aspect of your web surfing habits.

 

[Tasdad]

One of the best things about chrome is if you get a tab that locks up, you don't have to close the whole program, just that one tab. Chrome even has its own task manager.

The "Inspect Element" feature is pretty cool too. When I see something cool on a site, I can inspect it and see how it's done, rather than viewing source code and spending 5 minutes trying to find it in the code. Very convenient.

That being said, when i design a website, I design it first for IE. You have to make it work for the masses. Then I test it in every other browser and tweak as needed.

As for Google tracking me, they already do that when I'm signed into them, so I figure what's it hurt.

 

[nonamebrand]

All of that AND the bonus feature that Google gets to keep track of every aspect of your web surfing habits.

Oh no! Me pr0ns!

But seriously I wasn't aware of that. Glad you brought that up though. I wish they would give us an option to opt-out of google tracking. There's Chromium which is open-source. Looks to be written in C++. Could comment out the code that tracks usage and sends the tracked data to Google's tracking servers.

 

[Kitabz]

Just wondering what browser everyone uses?? I use Safari mainly, and IE sometimes.
Mace

Firefox for me (and IE7 when websites don't work - not so many now-a-days).
Might have to get Chrome.
No plans to get Safari since I'm not an Apple fan; I'm not into lifestyle marketing...

 

[nonamebrand]

*update*

After researching, I found that when you install Google Chrome it assigns Chrome a unique ID to relate to the tracked data that is harvested. Pretty sneaky with their Google Analytics...I remember seeing Google Analytics in my Firefox loading bar in the past. I'm guessing this is from using GMAIL.

Someone wrote a program called "Unchrome" that will replace your Chrome's unique ID string with null values. This should do the trick in making your personal usage undetectable, unless they are also tracking usage by IP in Chrome. In this case the next step would be filling the IP values with nulls too.

After all is said and done, the tracking in the background is still occurring, it's just made no longer identifiable from the source.

 

[Vince1]

I thought if you use "No Script" and do not "allow" it for any site then on one can track your info.

 

[nonamebrand]

I thought if you use "No Script" and do not "allow" it for any site then on one can track your info.

If you're talking about the "NoScript" extension for Firefox, it should block something like Google Analytics (GA) which is written in JavaScript. People use GA on their websites to collect information about the visitors, such as page hits on certain days, how long you stayed on the site, who referred you to the site, geographics, etc, etc. It can be a useful statistical tool for letting you know how your website is doing.

Actually looking at the source code for this page where I'm typing this message now, it appears that GA is being implemented in the code. "google-analytics.com/ga.js" is what I see near the end of the page source. The "ga.js" is the GA JavaScript code your "NoScript" is blocking, if that's what you're using.

 

[Vince1]

Yes, that's what I use. It is currently blocking 6 programs right now on this page.
1. Google.com
2. Google-analyitics
3. Woopra.com
4. Facebook.com
5. Chuug.com
6. Quantserve.com

I don't know what these are supposed to do but I don't need them so they will stay blocked.

 

[Zaxx]

Yes, that's what I use. It is currently blocking 6 programs right now on this page.
1. Google.com
2. Google-analyitics
3. Woopra.com
4. Facebook.com
5. Chuug.com
6. Quantserve.com

I don't know what these are supposed to do but I don't need them so they will stay blocked.

Thanks for the tip. Just downloaded and it's working well.

 

[nonamebrand]

Yes, that's what I use. It is currently blocking 6 programs right now on this page.
1. Google.com
2. Google-analyitics
3. Woopra.com
4. Facebook.com
5. Chuug.com
6. Quantserve.com

I don't know what these are supposed to do but I don't need them so they will stay blocked.

Yikes! I thought it was just Google Analytics running. Going to have to research those other ones after I eat. I never imagined all those things would be going on for just this page. What in the Sam Hill is chuug.com lol

 

[ISAWHIM]

Statistics tracking, and ad-tracking.
1. Google.com
2. Google-analyitics

Unsure, possibly one ad running on your page?
3. Woopra.com

User tracking, for referral purposes. (They have a face-book account.)
4. Facebook.com

Not sure? possibly another ad you are viewing.
5. Chuug.com

National statistics, used to determine a websites value, for selling ad-space.
6. Quantserve.com

Most of the "Tracking" is anonymous... You are just a number, for sake of being any user. Such that the places you visit can show specific ads you might be interested in, as opposed to showing you random ones, which you don't have any interest in.

EG, all my browsers know I am from Jacksonville, Florida. I know this, because all the ads I see say this... "Meet hot girls in Jacksonville!"

If I visited garden sights, and researched Koi fish... I would see ads for, "Koi pond garden kit."

As opposed to seeing ads for, "Cement your yard and pond, who needs grass and swamp."

You can't stop them from tracking you. Just identifying you as a specific user. (They can still do that by your IP address, and they do. There is no real way to block that. If you do, you are using a remote virtual connection, and you are guaranteed to run into more viruses. They target anonymous browsers, because people pay more to know who those people are. Viruses are not for fun anymore, they are to gain money by injecting your computer with data-harvesters, for cold hard cash.)

Still, they know who is on the other side of those virtual proxies. They just ask your computer, and it freely tells them. It only takes one image or cookie inside a hidden iframe. No script required. (But it takes two separate websites to achieve that trick, and confirm the user.)

Seriously... unless you are a serial killer, or a child molester, or alkeida... why do you care? You are photographed and video recorded every day by security cameras, many are live online. You use credit cards, and they not only collect info, but they sell it to everyone who is willing to pay a dollar for it. (Not giving you anything in return for it, and actually charging you for it.) Not to mention, forums are how most people find out about you, and what you really are and want and like. How many forums do you frequent? How many blogs do you comment on? how many friends pages do you visit on sites like myspace or facebook?

Want to know the dirtiest trick...

When they send you an e-mail. There is an image in the e-mail that says...
yourname@youraddr.com.jpg (But in code, it looks like this... 5223422342554436345.jpg) Looks completely innocent... except it is not... that is a tracking ID.

Now your e-mail tries to download image 5223422342554436345.jpg from that website, but that image does not exist... now they know that yourname@youraddr.com is a living real e-mail, since it was opened, and the e-mail tried to download the fishing image. (If you did not open the e-mail, or preview the e-mail... you would never have tried to download that image, and the junk-mail would stop. Now, since you did... they know your e-mail is real... and what IP address is yours. Since you send you IP to them, so that they could have sent the image back, for you to view, if it actually existed.)

Browsers work the same way...

Use it because you like it... Use it on another persons computer if you don't trust the websites you visit. LOL.

 

[tribalmasters]

Facebook is sneaking around watching us too!?

 

[nonamebrand]

Thanks for info ISAWHIM.

3. Woopra - "Offers free and real-time web tracking services." We can group this script with in with GA.

4. Facebook - Do you know what this does exactly? I'm not sure how this one works.

5. Chuug - is I think "twitthis.js" for Twitter.

That's a good example you brought up about the ads targeted towards the specific user.
The IP should give it away though, even if you block scripts. I'm going to try this out on IE, just to satisfy my curiosity. I remember visiting an IP identifier website a long time ago, it was pretty interesting.

I never knew that some proxies were setup to give you adware and viruses. Makes sense though, we else are there all these "free" proxy services offered.

So that image tracking email is an example of phishing? I think I understand why email services like hotmail and gmail warn and ask you if you want to "display these images". Simple but pretty smart on the sender's part. Once you download that image from their server, they tag you and know they caught a live one.

 

[Sir_Puffalot]

Just had to re-visit this thread as I`ve been playing about.
I`m a speed freak when it comes to browsers and thought I had found the holy grail when using chrome.
I`ve benchmarked IE7 , Chrome and Safari 4 using Futuremarks Peacekeeper and Safari smashes everything!!!!

For my system:- (Quad Core Q6600 with 8800GT`s SLi)
IE7 139 Points
Chrome 727 Points
Safari 4.0 953 Points

I`m blown away with the performance so far, only been using safari for about an hour so I can`t go into details but it`s soooooo quick and looks nice, if your into the whole apple cover flow thing

 

[gnsmith]

Firefox