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Best Web Browser(s) for Windows XP in 2012


helpdesk98

  

76 members have voted

  1. 1. What is the best web browser for Windows Xp in 2012?

    • Internet Explorer
      6
    • Chrome
      9
    • Firefox
      38
    • Opera
      15
    • Other (list below)
      8


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Just a few words on the subject ... having just recently made the decision to put XP on my computers, I continue to use K-Meleon 1.5.4 and 1.6.0 from my 98SE setup. Wasn't sure how the setup would work but am very happy with the speed and results so far. Was nothing to set up, just put the folders into Program Files ... also using Proxomitron with the same filter setup as in Windows 98SE. I will probably try a few other browsers out over the next few months, but no complaints so far with K-Meleon.

...

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WOW! And I thought I was OLD SCHOOL!

My vote is for Firefox, and I set it up to AUTO Update. It's a collaborative effort, from programmers worldwide and will be updated often.

Firefox 12 is working just GREAT with Windows 8 pre release versions.

Don't hobble yourself though,,,, go ahead and install the latest Flash, Shockwave and even Java to get the most out of your Browser.

Both Ad Block + and I.E. Tab work great with FF 12.0.

Cheers Mates and Happy Browsing!

B)

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  • 2 weeks later...

My opinion is:

Internet Explorer - not recommended unless you need ActiveX support

Firefox - a lot of extensions, very customisable, stable but quite slow

Opera - user friendly, many useful functions integrated but often unstable

SRWare Iron - a better version of Chrome, very fast but uses a lot of memory, mediocre extension support

Originally I was a diehard Opera fan but it's become very unstable, especially when using Flash content. The most annoying thing is that when there's an error the browser crashes and has to be restarted. It's different in Firefox where you see an error about plug-in malfunction but you don't need to restart the whole browser. Because of Opera's instability I started to look for other browsers. Firefox is very nice when it comes to customisation as there are plenty of extensions available. On the other hand, it's much slower than Opera and Chromium based browsers. SRWare Iron, while not being very well known, is a very good alternative to Chrome. It uses exactly the same engine but doesn't contain any spying "features" which are present in Chrome. You can install Chrome extensions in it. The problem is that the browser (and it's no different in case of Chrome) cannot be really customised, the options are very limited and extension support still far from ideal. The number of available extensions is also not very large. The browser itself is super fast but requires a lot of RAM (as each tab runs in a separate process).

The conclusion is that I use four browsers simultaneously depending on what I want to do and I think it's much better than limiting yourself to just one of them.

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  • 2 weeks later...

By the way, the new Opera 12.00 is extremely unstable. It doesn't crash as often as the older versions... but freezes all the time, even on the speed dial screen with no pages opened :realmad: I installed it and after 10 minutes restored v11.64.

Edited by tomasz86
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I've never liked Gecko based browsers ;) I find the engine slower than Presto (Opera) and especially Webkit (Chromium). I've also used Opera for many years and find it the most comfortable to use. The problem is that it's not supported on many websites and also itself doesn't handle Flash and Javascript very well (= crashes often). I did try Firefox many times but really wasn't able to adapt. The most annoying are some very basic things like mouse scrolling which is awful compared to Opera. I tried different extensions to adjust it but the effect was even worse then the default one.

I'll probably use SRWare Iron as my main browser as soon as all Win2k incompatibilities are fixed (mouse scrolling is similar to Opera too, maybe even better :whistle:). Yes, I know the topic is about XP :lol: In XP there should be no problems with SRWare Iron and other Chromium based browsers. It's also true that Chromium is a resource hog but I'd still choose it because of speed and stability (but I do have 8 GB RAM here...). The only thing that I really HATE about it is that extensions don't work in all browser windows, ex. mouse gestures won't work in the configuration page or on a speed dial page, etc. It's really annoying but nothing is ideal. I just use keyboard shortcuts more often which work everywhere.

Another problem with Opera is that it lacks many useful extensions due to its low popularity (only ~2%).

Edited by tomasz86
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