The Firefox vs IE Bashing can go on for days on end but the truth of the fact is that both browsers have their own benifits and downfalls. Here is a list of four features in the recently released Internet Explorer v7 that I found to be quite useful and a probable dose of advice for future Firefox builds. Do note that I hold no bias against any of the two browsers:
Feature #1 : QuickTabs
Now I know that there are a million and two extentions in firefox that will let you do this but the point is not that, the point is the useability of this feature and the fact that it should be a standard feature in Firefox aswell.
I found it espicially easy to navigate though my 20 odd tabs in quicktabs mode while doing research and it made the whole process much faster that your good ole’ Ctrl-Tab.
Feature #2 : Tab Group Bookmarking (In terms of button placement)
Another great feature in IE7 that allows you to bookmark all your open tabs into one folder in your bookmarks/favourites manager (Espicially great when you are working on research-type settings and want the links all bookmarked at once).
Feature #3 : Quick Zoom Button
Now this may seem like nothing special but the truth of the matter is that it is really conviniet for people who don’t traditionally use Ctrl-Scroll Wheel to adjust font size or navigate through menu’s to get to it. Its quick, simple and easily accessible.
Feature/Improvement #4 : Memory Footprint
Yes, for the non-geeky, this hardly matters, but for some of us this is espicially important! So here is ackowledging IE7′s less memory useage (although that peek working set is quite high for IE).
So there you have it! The top 4 features I found pretty good in the new IE7. Would you agree? yes? no? feel free to drop in your comment.
By Rowan Lewis October 18, 2006 - 11:09 pm
Keep in mind that I’m using Firefox 2, which is what you should be comparing IE7 against.
1. Try double clicking, although it isn’t apparent, and only good for geeks
2. Firefox already supports this.
3. Good idea, its hard to tell, is that in the status bar?
4. Bullshit, and has been proven as bullshit repeatedly. To accurately determin the memory usage of IE you have to include an unknown percent of DLLs preloaded by Windows.
Aside from all that, the deal with Firefox is that it has a good base feature set, any additional features can be hand picked by installing extensions. This still puts it at a hell of an advantage to the other browsers on the market.
By Rob October 18, 2006 - 11:13 pm
No offense, but this article isnt very useful. All of the features you describe are available in firefox via extensions. And although you think some of these features should be built into the browser itself, others dont. Firefox is already seen as a memory hog to most users, probably because of all the extra helpful features that mozilla decides to bundle into the browser, like going backwards and forwards extremely quickly by caching web pages. Features like anti-phishing, which are completely useless to anyone with a brain, should be extensions that can be added on if necessary. That way firefox can start out as an extremely light resource browser, and gain functionality through the add-ons implemented by users. So your complaint about bundling features and your implied one about memory usage is a little hypocritical. You cant have your cake and eat it too. Also TBH memory footprint these days is pretty moot, when pretty much all users have at least 512MB of memory. If you don’t, you wouldn’t be using such an advanced browser :\
By Labrat October 18, 2006 - 11:18 pm
I appreciate your views rowan and thanks for commenting
The reason I used firefox 1.5 was because it is what is out at the moment.
As for #2 my intentions were to show you guys the simplicity of doing that in IE due to good navigation button placement, not really the fact that it could be done.
The #3 image is in the bottom right corner of the IE7 window.
Again yes I do agree with you on some of those points, both browsers have their own goods and bads, the point of this is just to highlight the ease of use rather than the feature itself.
By labrat October 18, 2006 - 11:21 pm
Hi rob,
Yes the point I am trying to bring across via this article is the fact that these should be standard implementations in all browsers.
By Rowan Lewis October 19, 2006 - 4:05 am
Comparing IE7 to FF1.5 doesn’t make much sense, as a lot of ideas have been chucked around from all of the major browsers, and its the next batch of releases in which these features are expected.
You need to compare like with likeness.
2. Yeah, the Firefox betas have a button like that, but it doesn’t include the context menu items, only the list of tabs open. It should have both…
3. Yeah, the best placement, I’d leave that as an extension however.
By labrat October 19, 2006 - 12:59 pm
Hi again rowan!
Yes I agree with you, but the main concern of this article was not to say that Firefox is bad or IE7 is bad, its just to show that IE7 is working its way into good useful features.
Believe me I have nothing against Firefox, in fact I use firefox more than IE anyways
The reason I mentioned Firefox 1.5 in some odd places was just for an odd comparison and to bring out the point that Firefox will make our life much better if those features were to come built in the future versions.
By JethroSquid October 25, 2006 - 6:22 am
For me, the single biggest thing I don’t like about IE7 is…
It ONLY works on Windows XP and newer.
Whereas Firefox 2.0 works on my home Win XP and Mac OS/X and also Win 2000 at the office. All setup the same and running the same extensions.
By gaspard leon November 2, 2006 - 2:55 am
Yes, I like IE7 for the features you’ve pointed out (QuickTabs etc) and like the integrated pre-caching with Windows XP (read: fast loading)
But I use FF more because I have greasemonkey scripts.
And, I like that it’s the same on my Ubuntu install as well… yes overall it’s a case of follow the innovator, I’m guessing the better bits of IE7 will be in FF2.x or 3 and the better bits of FF2.x or 3 will be in IE7.x or 8 but you have to admit that FF is better all around as it’s free. (remember IE7 is only a “supplement” to Windows XP/2003) and has windows/mac/unix ports…
By Yahia November 3, 2006 - 1:02 pm
Hi people. I’m here to tell you that all of this is quite little for what another good old browser has to say.
Its name is Opera. A glimpse at http://www.opera.com/products/desktop/ will leave you speachless!
Go get Opera, and cut the crap about IE (the Web polluter) and Firefox (the son of the Web). O had tabbed browsing 10 years ago, while “smart” browsers just made it.
Opera is the best browser in the world, available for Windows, Solaris, QNX, OS/2, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, BeOS haha.
See you.
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