Just browsing

You might have noticed the new top link on the left. That's just a gentle reminder that it's easy for a website to 'know' what browser you're using, and what version.

You'll have fewer nasty surprises if you keep it updated, automatically if you have to. That goes for your firewall, anti-virus, spyware and etc. too, of course. For me, automatic updates always seem to happen when I'm in the middle of something, and they cause problems sometimes.

This would be a good time to ask what you think about browsers, if I didn't already know 80 percent of you use Internet Explorer. So instead I'll ask, why?

Blogger is pretty vanilla and well-behaved, but when I was doing my own web pages I had to test them with all of the popular browsers. I had to learn cheats and tweaks just for IE. It was the worst at following standards. Although IE7 seems better, it still crashes at least once a week. OK, so I like a lot of tabs, and windows off of those tabs, but it doesn't happen in other browsers.

The wife and kids use IE, probably because it's on every computer they've ever used and it comes with Windows. OK, I still use it a lot, just for a quick glance at MSN's headlines before I surf. If I was the only user, there'd be a different home page.

Firefox is better by far. It seems faster and it loads with Google's search engine. That's still the standard, though MSN is pretty good these days. This isn't an anti-Microsoft rant, it's just my personal experience. Hey, Bill Gates has fallen down the billionaire list; he could use your help.

I like Opera well enough, it's light and fast. I just never seemed to feel comfortable using it. Netscape's end was no loss. If I was into a bunch of social networking sites, Flock would probably be the way to go. I've dabbled with it for a couple of months now and it's got great features. I noticed my new toy thinks it's Firefox. I've used SpywareBlaster ever since it was recommended by the Spybot folks, and it now supports Flock.

Macusers are on Safari, of course. There's been a Windows version for awhile, and it's good too.