Internet Explorer (IE) 8 vs. Firefox 3 vs. Safari 3 vs. Opera 9.5 (Betas) + Flock

By | March 25, 2008 | 35 Comments

Internet Explorer (IE) 8 vs. Firefox 3 vs. Safari 3 vs. Opera 9.5 (Betas) + FlockThere’s an interesting article on CNET called “What’s the best beta? IE 8 vs. Opera 9.5 vs. Safari vs. Firefox 3“.

The following article covers the latest beta versions of most popular web browsers (Internet Explorer (IE), Firefox, Safari and Opera (also got a few words about Flock as well)), their recently introduced features and improvements.

Although I’ve missed some conclusions, it’s still worth a read. What’s your conclusion?

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About (Author Profile)


Vygantas is a former web designer whose projects are used by companies such as AMD, NVIDIA and departed Westood Studios. Being passionate about software, Vygantas began his journalism carrier back in 2007 when he founded FavBrowser.com. Having said that, he is also an adrenaline junkie who enjoys good books, fitness activities and Forex trading.

  • http://www.jgoettle.blogspot.com/ John

    Firefox 3 is the best! Right now its at RC 1 and will go final in June.

    Help Firefox set a word record for the most downloads in 24-hours. Just download Firefox 3 during word wide download day 2008 (the day Firefox 3 is released).

  • http://www.blogspot.com/3awkkwardd BeccaChang.

    Well, I’ve used IE 8 Beta (which kept of crashing on my Vista but not so much on my XP)… Firefox 3 and Safari. Haven’t yet used Opera yet but I’m not gonna try coz I’m really happy with Flock right now.

    Firefox and Flock are really similar, but Flock has more special features (that only comes in use when you’re like me. But if you like themes, Firefox has more than Flock… Technically, Flock doesn’t have any – unless you want ot make some.

    IE, is really useful, in a way, but I’m not too much of a fan of Windows… And yes surprisingly I’m not using a Mac, and I still use Microsoft, etc. But currently I can’t uninstall IE, if I do, I wouldn’t be able to use MSN.

    And lastly I think Safari is good and simple… But it can be a little bit too simple… It’s good for people like my mom :D. She’s not that tech savvy.

    But at the end, I still prefer Flock to anything.

  • Rohit d technoking

    hello guys;
    i had already used firefox 3, opera 9.5, IE 8, & safari 3. & believe me opera 9.5 is far much better than the rest ones.

    its download speed is also mush faster than the rest. & it has an additional feature to open wap sites (mobile sites), which the other browsr cant. It also has a superb look, & has a speed dial feature.

    but for security, i think firefox is better option.

    but all above i will prefer OPERA 9.5

  • Rohit d technoking

    i had already used firefox 3, opera 9.5, IE 8, & safari 3. & believe me opera 9.5 is far much better than the rest ones.

    its download speed is also mush faster than the rest. & it has an additional feature to open wap sites (mobile sites), which the other browsr cant. It also has a superb look, & has a speed dial feature.

    but for security, i think firefox is better option.

    but all above i will prefer OPERA 9.5

  • suresh

    hello,
    my favourite web browser is firefox.its very useful for web browsing.because it loads web pages faster as well as easier.it much better than any other web browsers.so my opinion is firefox3 is much better than any other web browsers.thank you

  • Jim S Smith

    I comment about the article stating that Microsoft intends to add ‘private browsing’ to its version 8 of Internet Explorer by allowing the user to prevent the caching of personal information. The comment about Mozilla.org not having nor even thinking about adding such feature to Firefox is disingenuous and shows that the author must not have used Firefox very much. Mozilla Firefox ( at least from 2.0 on – possibly older versions too ) has a setting option to prevent any site ( any is in all being denied or only selected sites ) from being ALLOWED to set cookies. It’s under “Tools”, “Options”, “Privacy”, Cookies – “Exceptions”. You also have control over other aspects of content. If you install the FREE “NoScript” plugin extension, you will have that much more control over which sites are allowed to execute scripts ( and also Flash Objects ).

    Firefox was built with the security of the user’s(s’) data security in mind. Not perfect, but better than anything Microsoft has come up with! Mozilla Firefox gives the user much more control over content and access to the user’s computer from and by the internet than Microsoft Internet Explorer would ever think of. Plus, the folks at Mozilla respond to security-related concerns and “bugs” very quickly; much faster than Microsoft has done. Mozilla also responds more quickly to the user’s(s’) requests than Microsoft has.

    The only bash I have on Firefox is that the windows version ignores your system security settings if you are managing an network of public accessible computers. There again, maybe a savvy programmer can write a plugin extension to deal with that issue.

    I had used Internet Explorer, Netscape products ( from vers. 3.2 to 7.1 ), and Opera. Firefox sold me when I “test drove” it on the “information superhighway”. Today, I have never looked back!

    -JSSmith

  • Harsimran Singh

    After downloading the Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2……I think that Microsoft got it…..It is so awesome compared to any browser including Google Chrome and Firefox. You can view websites in compability mode…..you can edit the source of a website…..and so many more features…..Microsoft stole it all…..IE Beta 1 used to freeze on my computer…..but Beta 2 improvements are incrdible…..

  • mr.browser

    i think safari 3 is the best browser, come on try it ue self, it wont bite, after u try it tell whar u think. im using ie8

  • http://www.favbrowser.com Vygantas Lipskas

    I’ve tried Safari but couldn’t use it for a long time due to its font smoothness.

  • http://gmail.com Shumackers

    I’v been searching whats is the best Browser on the net? I would say Opera10 is one of my alternative choice not to mention Firefox 3 and Safari3., It’s a beta release but sad to say it needs some Improvement / study in their New beta release. but its really good browser and made w/ a clean lay-out very neat look, and it download fast.
    At the long run it’s seem’s to be ok for me. By the way I’m not trying to be like a computer geeks or whatsoever, Just giving my though my opinion and observation. I love Opera in short. Opera is one of the best browser.

  • http://www.flexoweb.com/ snt

    Whats wrong with FF3? They are releasing one update every 45 seconds. I stopped using it due to security concerns. Will stick to IE and Chrome.

  • http://open-tube.com opentube

    FF3 is the best. However, IE8 isn’t far behind. We use them both. IE 7 was real mess but its improving. Gotta watch for Microsofts Gazelle which is a new wave in browser technology. growing SaaS n Hosted apps will really push the browser dev team as it needs to handle a lot of things other than just browsing the page as we used to earlier.

    OpenTube
    http://www.open-tube.com

  • Oleg

    Привіт всім. Я теж думаю що Firefox найкращий у світі браузер, проте поставив на деякий час IE 8 , на випробувальний термін. Десь прочитав, що IE 8 більш надійніша ніж браузер від Mozilla.

  • Diego

    I have two web Browsers that are my favourites one is Safari 3 and that other one is Firefox by far they are the best.

  • http://vasilstechblog.blogspot.com/ ed

    See my blog for more details, but…
    Opera is simply miraculous in terms of usability, yet it’s still has this geeky feeling.
    FF is mature and incredibly fast.
    IE is a no-no the way it looks now. Maybe next release? Or stick to good old fast IE5? Hard to say.

  • James Nell

    I love Opera because the opera development team listens to the users and work constantly to improve Opera , The speed dial feature is amazing as there is a way to add up to 30 speed dial windows in the speed dial page .
    I am so surprised that none of the other browsers have added the speed dial function , But thats not all , Opera 10 is amazing and so fast and it incorporates E-mail , RSS feeds , Ftp support to mention just a few .
    What more can I say , Opera is simply the best and anyone who disagrees either works for Microsoft or have never tried Opera , So there , My opinion

    • spyros

      hi to everyone!first of all ,soory for my english!about opera’s responde to my letter don’t try to tell me about,because they didn’t answer to me ever. i beleave that opera steel the best browser but for the greek people such as i’m,it cannot translate any pages from other languages to the greek at all,but steel the most easyes way to connect to any places in network !!! thak you for your patience!

  • Boomla

    Opera is the best, obviously its speed dial is the best idea you can ever find in a browser and beside it runs quite faster than others

  • belask

    opera’s best.
    1> it’s search engines are easy to work with as compared to firefox.
    2> In opera mouse gestures are built in. no need to install gesture add-on. and if you don’t use mouse-gestures, then your analysis about browsers has simply no value. personally i am very addicted to mouse gestures and short cuts. No mouse-gestures, no browsing.
    3> Opera’s download manager is the best among all the major browsers. Firefox’s download manager is very annoying.
    4> I like firefox too, but my favorite browser is still opera.
    5> I am new to safari so i can’t judge it right now.
    6> and as far as IE is concerned! I think it’s not a BROWSER any more.

    • Anachron

      1>
      Adding a search engine
      Firefox
      Click the searchbar when it has a blue background and chose Add “search engine name” and you’re done.
      Click the searchbar again and chose Manage search engine list to access an interface where you can add a keyword for each search engine.

      Alternatively, use Mycroft.

      Opera
      There appears to be no way to add an actual search engine :-/

      Right click the input field instead and chose Create search.
      Now two things can happen.
      1.
      Become astounded that for some reason you can’t create the search engine!
      Click Cancel and forget about it.
      2.
      Randomly fill in the Keyword field and notice that the Ok button suddenly becomes active!

      Managing search engines
      Firefox
      Open the dropdownbox for the Search bar, select Manage search engines.
      Change keywords and remove or add search engines to your hearts content at the click of a button.
      Actually, adding simple double-click to edit the entries in the list would be nice.

      Opera
      The easiest way seems to be to open a new tab, right-click the search field and chose Manage search engines (yes, that page actually has a use!), unless you want to run around in the menus only to find out that they placed the Preferences under Tools instead of Edit.
      This is the only place to change the default search engine, why they just couldn’t respect your choice in the dropdown is something I don’t understand.

      Interestingly, almost any search you do are re-routed via redir.opera.com.
      Well, just about all your trafic is re-routed via Opera’s servers anyway if you use the compression thingy.

      For some reason you can’t reorder your search engines. Also, there appears to be no way to add those special engines again if you remove them!

      2>
      I don’t need to have mouse gestures because the keyboard is always faster and more precise.
      Speaking of mouse gestures. The losy thing can’t even handle the quick back/forward buttons on my mouse correctly (it thinks they are normal left-click buttons) which every other application handles perfectly!

      3>
      That clunky thing, good?
      They haven’t even managed to add a search field to it after all these years.
      Also, it doesn’t clean up after itself when you stop and remove a download!

  • Anon

    I use firefox. On my PC I tried IE8 and for the first 3 days it was faster than my firefox. Then three days later it wasn’t responding or anything, it was like my IE7 browser, only slower. Firefox to me is the the best out of all of them.

  • yereverluvinunclebert

    If you are going to comment on a particular browser and you want to be understood and believed you need to make sure your English is up to scratch or no-one is going to take you seriously especially if English is your first language. If you can’t spell ‘much’ or don’t know whether to put capitals at the beginning of sentences no-one is going to listen to much credence behind what you have to say. My penn’orth on the browser debate is that I will stick to IE alternatives like Firefox until Microsoft decides to unbundle Internet Explorer from the O/S.

  • Gary Larrington

    Personally, of course, I think that Firefox is the best browser because of its A- speed, (Opera is better), and its incredibly good security. You just can’t top Firefox when it comes to security and good features.

  • roman

    Firefox is the World best Browser in the World! It’s Safety Persenal!
    Internet Explorer is stupid!
    Netscape, Safari, Google Chrome, Opera are goder als Internet Explorer!

    Ps Microsoft = Microshit

  • Rezha

    i like IE because i has full screen fetures that other other browser doesn’t have

    • Anachron

      F11 in any browser I have tested works just fine!

  • Vii

    I’ve used all of them. Opera is a great browser; love the integrated e-mail client, however has issues when running sites like facebook, especially the apps. IE8 is boring, lets be honest. I’ve found firefox to be the best as it runs all websites without an issues. Plus it has great addons!

    Firefox is the way………… well for now it is!!!

  • Speddenbill

    Opera 10 with speed dial

  • http://www.yahoo.com Kevin

    Internet Explorer 8 is Best.
    1. Mozila FireFox not support Some/Advance JavaScript and other Script.
    2. FireFox FTP(fireFTP:take 20 minutes for uploadein 7 Files) World Worest FTP.
    3. FireFox Not support Many Web Site Design.
    4. This browers not support some languages.

    • Rezha

      I agree with that, and don’t forget that mozilla doesn’t have a powerful security

      I have a friend of mind using a mozilla, when he scans the computer their’s about 80 viruses from mozilla

      • Anachron

        Are you trolls are getting desperate or what. You’re not even trying to make these fabricated situations sound plausible!

    • Anachron

      1. ActiveX isn’t JavaScript, it’s a security hole!
      2. I use SSH not FTP so can’t judge that.
      3. Oh, wait you’re trolling? Almost had me there for a moment!
      4. Just going to quote Wikipedia here:

      Mozilla Firefox 73

      Afrikaans (af), Albanian (sq), Arabic (ar), Assamese (as), Basque (eu), Belarusian (be), Bengali (India and Bangladesh)(bn), Bulgarian (bg), Catalan (ca), Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) (zh), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Dutch (nl), English (UK/US) (en), Esperanto (eo), Estonian (et), Finnish (fi), French (fr), Frisian (fy), Galician (gl), Georgian (ka), German (de), Greek (el), Gujarati (gu), Hebrew (iw), Hindi(hi), Hungarian (hu), Icelandic (is), Indonesian (id), Irish (ga), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Kannada (kn), Kazakh (kk), Korean (ko), Kurdish (ku), Latvian (lv), Lithuanian (lt), Malayalam (ml), Marathi (mr), Mongolian (mn), Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) (no), Occitan (oc), Oriya (or), Persian (fa), Polish (pl), Portuguese (Brazilian and Portugal) (pt), Punjabi (pa), Romanian (ro), Romansh (rm), Russian (ru), Serbian (sr), Sinhala (si), Slovak (sk), Slovenian (sl), Spanish (Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Spain) (es), Swedish (sv), Tamil (ta), Tamil (Sri Lanka) (ta),Telugu (te), Thai (th), Turkish (tr),Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), Welsh (cy)

      Epiphany 70

      Amharic (am), Arabic (ar), Azerbaijani (az), Belarusian (be), Belarusian Latin (be@Latin), Bulgarian (bg), Bengali (bn), Bosnian (bs), Catalan (ca), Czech (cs), Welsh (cy), Danish (da), German (de), Dzongkha (dz), Greek (el), English (en), Spanish (es), Estonian (et), Basque (eu), Persian (fa), Finnish (fi), French (fr), Irish (ga), Galician (gl), Gujarati (gu), Hebrew (he), Hindi (hi), Croatian (hr), Hungarian (hu), Indonesian (id), Icelandic (is), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Georgian (ka), Korean (ko), Kurdish (ku), Limburgian (li), Lithuanian (lt), Latvian (lv), Malagasy (mg), Maori (mi), Macedonian (mk), Malayalam (ml), Mongolian (mn), Marathi (mr), Malay (ms), Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) (no/nb/nn), Nepali (ne), Dutch (nl), Oriya (or), Punjabi (pa), Polish (pl), Portuguese (pt), Romanian (ro), Russian (ru), Kinyarwanda (rw), Slovak (sk), Slovenian (sl), Albanian (sq), Serbian (sr), Swedish (sv), Tamil (ta), Telugu (te), Thai (th), Turkmen (tk), Turkish (tr), Ukrainian (uk), Vietnamese (vi), Walloon (wa), Chinese (zh)

      Google Chrome 50

      Arabic, Brazilian Portuguese, Bengali, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (UK/US), Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kanada, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malayalam, Marathi, Norwegian, Oriya, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovakian, Slovenian, Spanish, Spanish for Latin America, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese

      Maxthon 42

      Arabic (ar), Bosnian (bs), Belarusian (be), Bulgarian (bg), Chinese (zh), Croatian (hr), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Dutch (nl), English (en), Estonian (et), Persian(fa), Finnish (fi), French (fr), Frisian, Galego, German (de), Greek (el), Hebrew (he), Hungarian (hu), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Korean (ko), Lithuanian (lt), Malay (ms), Milanes, Norwegian (nb), Piemonteis, Polish (pl), Portuguese (pt), Portuguese (Brazilian) (pt), Romanian (ro), Romano, Russian (ru), Serbian Cyrillic (sr), Serbian Latin (sr), Slovak (sk), Slovenian (sl), Spanish (es), Spanish (Argentina) (es), Swedish (sv), Thai (th), Turkish (tr), Ukrainian (uk)

      Konqueror 40

      Afrikaans (af), Arabic (ar), Belarusian (be), Bulgarian (bg), Bengali (bn), Bosnian (bs), Catalan (ca), Chinese (zh), Chinese (Simplified) (zh), Czech (cs), Welsh (cy), Danish (da), German (de), Greek (el), English (en), Esperanto (eo), Spanish (es), Estonian (et), Basque (eu), Persian (fa), Finnish (fi), French (fr), Galician (gl), Hebrew (he), Hindi (hi), Croatian (hr), Hungarian (hu), Icelandic (is), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Mongolian (mn), Malay (ms), Norwegian (nb), Dutch (nl), Norwegian Nynorsk (nn), Punjabi (pa), Polish (pl), Portuguese (pt), Romanian (ro), Russian (ru), Slovak (sk), Slovenian (sl), Serbian (sr), Swedish (sv), Tamil (ta), Tajik (tg), Turkish (tr), Ukrainian (uk), Uzbek (uz)

      Opera 40

      Belarusian (be), Bulgarian (bg), Catalan (ca), Chinese (Simplified and Traditional) (zh), Croatian (hr), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Dutch (nl), English (en-GB, en-US), Estonian (et), Finnish (fi), French (fr-FR, fr-CA), Frisian (fy), Georgian(ka), German (de), Greek (el), Hindi (hi), Hungarian (hu), Indonesian (id), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Korean (ko), Lithuanian (lt), Macedonian (mk), Nynorsk Norwegian (no-nn), Bokmål Norwegian (no-bn), Polish (pl), Portuguese (pt, pt-BR), Punjabi (pa), Russian (ru), Spanish (es-ES, es-LA), Swedish (sv), Tamil (ta), Telugu (te), Turkish (tr)

      Internet Explorer 33

      Arabic (ar), Bulgarian (bg), Catalan (ca), Chinese (Simplified) (zh), Chinese (Traditional) (zh), Chinese (Hong Kong) (zh), Croatian (hr), Czech (cs), Danish (da), Dutch (nl), English (en), Estonian (et), Finnish (fi), French (fr), German (de), Greek (el), Hebrew (he), Hindi (hi),Hungarian (hu), Italian (it), Japanese (ja), Korean (ko), Latvian (lv), Lithuanian (lt), Norwegian (nb), Polish (pl), Portuguese(pt), Portuguese (Brazilian), Romanian (ro), Russian (ru), Slovak (sk), Slovenian (sl), Spanish (es), Swedish (sv), Thai (th), Turkish (tr)

  • dEATHm3RCHANT

    1. I have been using Firefox since its conception an cant remember a java script issue.
    2. Who uses FTP anymore? even if you did that why there are ftp ad dons that kick the crap out of IE speeds.
    3. I have no Idea what you mean here.
    4. Speak English.

    Problem solved.

  • http://kemchho.com Nibil

    I am using IE8 (Internet Explorer 8), its better than all of others, its is the safest and secure browser presently in the world
     
    I’ll tell you for what are these browsers popular
    Internet Explorer 8 = Secure and safe
    Firefox = Amazing browsing
    Opera = Amazing tabbed browsing, have widgets tooo
    Safari = Great Look!

  • jimp68

    firefox is good,but sometimes something makes it unstable so i switch back to ie8 on vista machine
    ie8 also more user friendly when having multiple web engines
    have not tried opera
    waiting to try out ie9 and/or firefox4 before i do anymore evaluating

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