# I'm using IE6 right now, should I get IE7, or switch to Firefox? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 23, 2007, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308 "2007-02-23T01:30:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/21 "2007-02-23T17:54:24Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] I’m curious to know how this could happen and not already be obvious to anyone who knows the meaning of the term ‘phishing’ - could you describe what happened? [/QUOTE] I got an e-mail, apparently from the bank that issued my credit card, telling me that they noticed suspicious activity on my card. It told me to click on the link, log into my acount, and check to see if the activity was legitimate. I clicked on the link, and… **WARNING! THIS IS A REPORTED PHISHING SITE**. Or something to that effect. Needless to say, I closed the page. I went back later to take a look (IE7 will let you go to the site if you really want to) and it was a pretty darn good impersonation of the normal login page. Had it not been for the Phishing Filter, I would probably have been fooled into providing the password for my account. I’ve since gotten other similar messages, although the newer attempts all use banks that I’ve never done business with, so the original was probably just a lucky guess. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/22 "2007-02-23T17:59:47Z")
[QUOTE=I Love Me, Vol. I] What is the advantage or use of tabs? I feel dumb here!! I don’t get it! Make me like them! Make the Tabs be my friends!!! [/QUOTE] Maybe give Opera a spin. Firefox didn’t sell me on tabs, but Opera sure did…minor things like being able to choose and close a tab with one left click vs. right-click-select-close option. Actually, now that I have come to appreciate tabbed browsing, I don’t mind using Firefox at all either…except that it tends to bog down a marginal system much more than Opera. (much larger memory footprint, especially with many tabs open) Using tabs, your browser can start up and load three or four sites you like to visit with one click…assuming you had them all open when you shut the browser down. I can’t think of any way to accomplish anything similar by opening multiple non-tabbed browser windows. If I shut down all instances of IE6, the next time I start IE6 it will load only the last page I visited (or my homepage setting). ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/23 "2007-02-23T18:08:42Z")
[QUOTE=Zebra] I especially like the way that all the text is rendered cleaner and more readable. [/QUOTE] Are you using a LCD display? Microsoft has been touting it’s [ClearType](http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx) stuff, but us folks with CRT displays won’t benefit much from it. [Wikipedia article on ClearType](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType) Now where did I put my flintknapping antler? ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/24 "2007-02-23T18:28:11Z")
This input is great! But, as I’ve seen elsewhere in my reasearch, everyone has a different opinion and a consensus is rarely reached. I think I might D/L FF2 and see how I like it, if I don’t like it, I might check out IE7. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/25 "2007-02-23T22:04:51Z")
I get evangelical about Firefox. I run AV and spyware scans, and they only find tracking cookies, because I don’t install stupid things like Comet Cursor, I don’t open attachments from people I don’t know, I use Firefox, and I use Zoom Player. That’s about all you need to do, honestly. ZP doesn’t know how to install things or use the internet, so if you get some infected music or video file, it just doesn’t play; you don’t get the malware. Plus, the tabs and the new crash tab recovery are aaaawwwsome. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/26 "2007-02-23T22:09:48Z")
[QUOTE=Kevbo] Firefox didn’t sell me on tabs, but Opera sure did…minor things like being able to choose and close a tab with one left click vs. right-click-select-close option. [/QUOTE] A wheel-click on a tab will close it in Firefox; you don’t have to use the context menu. > [@](#): > > Using tabs, your browser can start up and load three or four sites you like to visit with one click…assuming you had them all open when you shut the browser down. Firefox does this too. You can also bookmark a whole set of tabs to open them later at once. ---
**Author:** ![ratatoskK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ratatoskk/32/2987_2.png) [@ratatoskK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ratatoskK)\ **Post date:** [February 23, 2007, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/27 "2007-02-23T23:59:50Z")
Firefox. ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/28 "2007-02-24T00:16:01Z")
[QUOTE=Quiddity Glomfuster] You close each tab separately by right-clicking on it and hitting ‘close tab’. [/QUOTE] IE7 and Firefox both have seperate "x"s for closing each tab. IE7 has a button for opening a new tab, instead of Firefox’s “tab T” shortcut, but that’s the only advantage I can see. ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/29 "2007-02-24T04:28:13Z")
My first impression of Firefox was not good. The scrolling on FF as compared to IE6, sucks donkey balls, not smooth at all! There must be a fix for this, but why should I have to fix it? IE had smooth scrolling when I unboxed my laptop a month ago. Second, I went to iMDb, and FF wanted me to download a plugin just to show a graphic. Again, IE idn’y do this, how many times will this happen? It seems clear that FF will need a bit of work in order to get it to be as good as the fanboys say, we’ll see how long i feel like putting up with that extra effort. I’m waiting to see what my final verdict on FF is before I d/l IE7. ---
**Author:** ![rexnervous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e9c0ed/32.png) [@rexnervous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rexnervous)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/30 "2007-02-24T18:50:30Z")
[QUOTE=dnooman] My first impression of Firefox was not good. The scrolling on FF as compared to IE6, sucks donkey balls, not smooth at all! There must be a fix for this, but why should I have to fix it? IE had smooth scrolling when I unboxed my laptop a month ago. Second, I went to iMDb, and FF wanted me to download a plugin just to show a graphic. Again, IE idn’y do this, how many times will this happen? [/QUOTE] The graphic problem is not Firefox’s fault - you do realize that Flash player and other plugins are different programs on different browsers, so while you probably already had the one for IE, you need to install it in Firefox first. Once you do that, it works the same. You would have the same problem with IE if you only had Firefox installed, then changed over to IE. Not sure what the scrolling problem is. Is it every single site you visit, or just a select few? ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/31 "2007-02-24T20:48:25Z")
There’s a smooth scrolling option, which I think is off by default. In Firefox 1.5 it’s at Tools -\> Options… -\> Advanced -\> General. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/32 "2007-02-24T21:16:36Z")
[QUOTE=Diceman] I got an e-mail, apparently from the bank that issued my credit card, telling me that they noticed suspicious activity on my card. It told me to click on the link, log into my acount… [/quote] Alarm bells should have been clanging in your head by this point, I would have thought. Or was it the case that you’d not encountered the term ‘phishing’ before? ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/33 "2007-02-24T21:24:25Z")
[QUOTE=Kevbo] Are you using a LCD display? Microsoft has been touting it’s [ClearType](http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx) stuff, but us folks with CRT displays won’t benefit much from it. [Wikipedia article on ClearType](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ClearType) Now where did I put my flintknapping antler? [/QUOTE] Yes, at home. At work I had a CRT and it looked a little cleaner there. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2007, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/34 "2007-02-24T23:18:13Z")
ClearType is a general windows feature which, when activated, applies to all fonts on all programs. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2007, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/35 "2007-02-25T23:15:28Z")
[QUOTE=1920s Style “Death Ray”] ClearType is a general windows feature which, when activated, applies to all fonts on all programs. [/QUOTE] That’s not correct; it only applies to ClearType fonts; other fonts, such as ordinary TrueType fonts and bitmap fonts, will not be affected. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_C](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Captain\_C](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_C)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2007, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/36 "2007-02-26T03:34:11Z")
I vote you stick with the IE6. I haven’t had a problem with it yet, and I’ve used it exclusively since it came out. Can’t stand Firefox, all those tabs and what-not. Seriously, when I’m done reading a page I close it, and the other page I have open is waiting right there for me. I’d spend months losing pages I want to read while trying to remember those accursed tabs. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2007, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/37 "2007-02-26T04:28:16Z")
[QUOTE=Mangetout] That’s not correct; it only applies to ClearType fonts; other fonts, such as ordinary TrueType fonts and bitmap fonts, will not be affected. [/QUOTE] I suspected I was being too broad. The point is that ClearType is available on Firefox and Opera. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2007, 8:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/38 "2007-02-26T08:35:57Z")
I thought so. Yes, when ClearType is implemented, it works more or less anywhere. (Possible exception would be if someone built their own font rendering engine into their app). ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2007, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/39 "2007-02-26T21:42:09Z")
Ok, I fixed the smooth scrolling option, and d/l’d a few plug ins. I’m starting to like it more and more. I may not even need IE7, at least not right now. ---
**Author:** ![dnooman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/839c29/32.png) [@dnooman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dnooman)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2007, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308/40 "2007-02-27T23:36:37Z")
Oh goody, [Microsoft probes IE 7, Vista bug reports](http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-6162313.html?part=rss&tag=2547-1_3-0-20&subj=news). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-using-ie6-right-now-should-i-get-ie7-or-switch-to-firefox/393308.md?page=3)