Quote: Originally posted by BluePaperclip
So how do you feel about modern browsers? What is your favorite browser of all time? What sucked about browsers back then? What sucks about browsers now? Are you tired of me asking all these questions?
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First of all, why are you knowingly using a browser with hundreds of known security vulnerabilities? If you want to use an old browser,
here are versions of firefox that go down to 0.8.
As for the first and fourth questions, I'm mostly indifferent to browsers now, as opposed to "back then." Then again, it's hard to feel nostalgic when the only computer in the house was a virus-damaged, badly-maintained Windows 98 machine, until only a few years ago. We got that machine when it was new, and it didn't get replaced until Vista came out. But I digress...
As for the second question, my browser preference is situational:
Windows, in general: Firefox (noscript + adblock = win. Also, Chrome's silent updates creep me out too much for me to use that as a browser.)
Linux, in general: Opera (I would choose Firefox, except the Flash plugin crashes frequently. In Opera, these crashes don't bring down the whole browser.)
Low-RAM Windows Laptop: K-meleon (32MB minimum RAM vs. 64MB for most other browsers. K-meleon also has its own versions of noscript and adblock.)
56k Connection, Windows: Off By One (Strange browser, but it does have the advantage of having a small size and not supporting flash or javascript.)
A Linux alternative for both of the above is Dillo, but I haven't been in either of those situations with a Linux system.
Now that that's out of the way, I can certainly name a few things wrong with browsers back then. Time for another list:
1. "Best viewed in [X browser]" -- Why should I download additional software that's inferior to what I'm already using just to view your website? It's even worse when they absolutely will not let you view the website unless you're using that specific browser.
2. "You must use [X version number] or higher" -- Yeah, nevermind that my Firefox 1.0 was probably more up-to-date than Internet Explorer 6. It was just a way to railroad me into using either IE or Netscape.
3. Dick-length contests between Microsoft and Netscape, with both companies adding features to their browsers at the cost of compatibility, security, and hard drive space, thus leading to the above two problems.