Hard News by Russell Brown

Read Post

Hard News: Public Address: Technical Profile

61 Responses

First ←Older Page 1 2 3 Newer→ Last

  • Sacha,

    You can import them into most other browsers, surely?

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • 3410,

    Hmm. I should check that, but either way, I wouldn't know what to switch to.

    Auckland • Since Jan 2007 • 2618 posts Report Reply

  • David Hood,

    I can't think of any of the major browers that won't cannibalise the others bookmarks upon installation.
    Because our broadband connection has been really flakey at peak times lately, the main thing I've valued in browsers are keyboard shortcuts for killing javascript, images, and styles (which means at bad times the pages will still load).

    Dunedin • Since May 2007 • 1445 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    PC Gone Mad? Don't worry, I'll sic me Mac on it. (sic)

    I'm feeling a bit out of touch that I hadn't seen this before.

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Lucy Stewart,

    I'd guess a fair number of the Safari users are simply the same as many Windows/IE users; it's the default and it's not actually terrible (not that that affected pre-IE 7 use, anyhow...) My quite tech-savvy parents use it, just because it's there. My younger brother has installed and uses Firefox on the same computer. Hasn't moved them an inch. Habit is everything.

    User stats by country are always just a little weird; fanfiction.net (don't judge me!) does quite a nice user stats breakdown and when I've checked occasionally my profile page gets a couple of hits a month from places like Oman. And I promise you, if they're arriving there searching for porn, their porn-google-fu is non-existent.

    Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 2105 posts Report Reply

  • David Hamilton,

    Why I recommend Chrome for everyday browsing:

    Chrome is fast to load, fast to render and has a good javascript engine. Each tab runs as it's own process (meaning you don't lose all your tabs if one crashes, like with Firefox). Not that I've seen one crash actually. You can drag tabs off to become their own windows and drag them back. The magic address bar is also your search bar, which I find hard to live without after using it. It's minimalistic and clean.

    If you're especially keen you can read about their design decisions in comic form at http://www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome/.

    I still use Firefox for dev stuff though.

    Hamiltron • Since Nov 2006 • 111 posts Report Reply

  • Russell Brown,

    I'm a Safari user: I prefer it to Firefox, and I haven't really had a good enough look at Chrome for Mac, which came a long time after the Windows version. Safari 5's belated support for extensions means I only launch Firefox for the web video that's really hard to grab.

    This you must understand, is a weekly task for me, and one covered by the fair dealing provisions of the Copyright Act. I really am copying for purposes of criticism and review, using RealPlayer Downloader, Click2Flash (useful right-click menu on YouTube) and my new favourite, the YouTube Downloader extension for Safari, which adds a button to every YouTube page that, when clicked, offers every resolution and file type available, sometimes up to 1080p .mp4.

    (I cannot stress strongly enough that if you attempt this activity without being a professional critic or reviewer, you will be tried in copyright court, and you will go down. Possibly as far as Hell.)

    Apart from that, Safari's a fast, attractive browser. Except when it's not. It does beachball. Flash still sometimes bogs it down, but Click2Flash helps. The most common problem (apart from having 50+ tabs open) is that sometimes the Guardian website loads some javascript that smacks Safari between the eyes. It even triggers a warning giving you the chance to kill the script, which doesn't doesn't seem to make any difference to the Guardian experience.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 22850 posts Report Reply

  • tussock,

    I've recently moved to Firefox 3.x series from 2.0.0.xx (everything is incompatible given time), and it's a crashy POS in comparison.

    Or possibly it's just the new Flash 10, which came at the same time. Must strip a few things from the noscript whitelist again.


    Yay for linux, four years in and I've finally found a program that crashes (other than wine), and I have three alternatives available without resorting to package-hunting. 8]

    Since Nov 2006 • 611 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Withers,

    At home, I use the Chrome beta for Linux alongside the nightly dev builds of Chromium. The difference between the two is amazing. The nightly builds have been blazingly fast lately.

    But at work I'm using Chrome on a Windows Server 2008 system. Must read hard news at home. :-)

    Or on my Android phone. I can see the flash content now, if there is any, with Android v2.2 on my Nexus One.

    It will be in your stats.

    Auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 312 posts Report Reply

  • Rich of Observationz,

    Hey Steve: did you get froyo (2.2) with the device, on OTA update, or did you use an unofficial download?

    Have had no OTA update and considering the unofficial route

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

  • Steve Barnes,

    So, there seems to be four of us using Opera. I had a good look at Chrome when it first arrived and was struck by its speed and the separated processes for each tab. I had a dig around in its guts and saw a fledgling OS, albeit one based on Cloud computing. I still have Chrome as my default browser, it's so damned snappy it's silly to use anything else for opening .html files (Bank acknowledgements saved for reference for instance)
    However, Opera has got me with its features, server, built in mail client, notes (for saving quotes with an automatic link back to the page they came from) Contacts list/address book, Voice control (which I never use) and many more goodies. Oh, and it had tabs before anyone else too. And it's totally customisable and ...and...
    ;-)

    Peria • Since Dec 2006 • 5521 posts Report Reply

First ←Older Page 1 2 3 Newer→ Last

Post your response…

Please sign in using your Public Address credentials…

Login

You may also create an account or retrieve your password.