Is Mozilla Firefox worth keeping over Internet Explorer 11?

Joseph DeGarmo

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Mar 12, 2014
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In response to the recent reports of the major security flaw in all modern IE versions, I have installed Firefox and imported my bookmarks and stuff to it. I have always used IE as my primary browser (and my only browser during the last year or two). I have noticed a couple of things. First, Firefox seems to load slower than IE, but uses less system memory. I also noticed a Firefox Sync option. Does that keep my bookmarks online across my desktop and tablet the same way that OneDrive does when I create a sync account? Will suspicious URL blocking by Kaspersky work the same way in Firefox? And finally, I have the Bing Bar in IE 11 which shows message notifications and current weather. Can I get that in Firefox as well? I want to know if it is safe to stay with Firefox since I've seen where there are a few corporate websites which are not compatible with it.
 
Solution
I installed the security patch and have decided to keep IE 11 for now. I want to keep my Bing Bar since there is no Firefox version of it. I don't mind the increased memory usage since the amount of RAM in my PC should be a non-issue anyway, but if games crashing due to high memory usage becomes a problem, then I'll resort to using Firefox.
IE will always beat the competition in initial startup time because, unlike the competition, it's tightly integrated with the operating system, not "bolted on" afterwards. Parts of IE are already running for other Windows tasks even without opening it , even though you may not realise it.

The "sync" feature in Firefox does not work automatically since you have to enter a code for the other device you want to sync, a bit clunky if you ask me.

Google Chrome's "Sync" feature is much more user friendly and it's automatic once you've created a Google Account and signed in. I've tried all the web browsers out there and none of them beat Chrome for my purposes: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/

There are very few websites which don't look right or work right in either Firefox or Chrome. I think I've come across only two in the last 6 years, and believe me I'm on dozens of websites every day, including some corporate, online banking, my investments etc)

Website compatibility was actually much worse than that with the latest version of IE because many companies hadn't updated their websites to recognise it. Consequently, I frequently saw this "Your version of Internet Explorer is too old" !

That's all in the past anyway, I never use it. Too bad you can't purge it from Windows altogether, otherwise I would.
(I don't even need it for Windows Update because I never use that either).
 

Hawkeye22

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Just so you know, MS released a patch for that vunerabilty yesterday.

NOTE: There will always be new vunerabilities regardless of the browser you use. It comes down to how often they release patches/updates for their browsers.
 

Joseph DeGarmo

Estimable
Mar 12, 2014
72
0
4,610
I installed the security patch and have decided to keep IE 11 for now. I want to keep my Bing Bar since there is no Firefox version of it. I don't mind the increased memory usage since the amount of RAM in my PC should be a non-issue anyway, but if games crashing due to high memory usage becomes a problem, then I'll resort to using Firefox.
 
Solution

randomizer

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That's interesting. IE11 is meant to look like a Gecko- or WebKit-based browser, so I'm surprised that they detected IE at all.
 
other posters answered well.
A large unknown thing about ie 11 is that it is the most efficient browser in terms of power usage.
I think it uses about 20%+ less power than other browsers based on my research. It depends on
the computer. if your on a notebook (i think your on a desktop but just to say. it doesnt matter
much on desktops) then use ie 11 if your
not very dependent on addons

here is some sites you could look into this
http://www.7tutorials.com/test-comparison-which-browser-will-make-your-laptop-battery-last-longer