Used to be Firefox 95% of the time. I like me some Chrome now and IE is needed for a few work apps. I want to punch the screen every time I have to wait for IE to open/load.
Firefox is good, but I like Chrome tab layout and “+ tab” history format. Like the Chrome bookmarking better, too.
I was a hardcore Opera user for quite a few years (I started using it back when it was at version 3), but in the past couple of years, I switched to Firefox, mainly for the reason of compatibility (it played better with a lot of sites I browse) and the insane amount of add-ons that make browsing the web absolutely heavenly, some of which are not offered by any other browser.
I mean there’s no way that’s typical of the ‘population at large’*. Likewise, in the real world, where Straight Dope users are, sadly, only a tiny minority, is there anything close to 60 percent Firefox usage? Or am I just out of touch?
*whatever that means
I wouldn’t be surprised if a very large chunk of IE’s market share comes from the corporate world. Most people I know use IE at work and something else at home. IT departments generally won’t bother vetting/approving multiple browsers unless their users require very specific functionality for their jobs.
Here’s the numbers from Wikipedia.
59% IE
28% FF
5% Chrome
4.5% Safari
1.7% Opera
As noted, I’m sure a vast majority of that IE usage has a lot to do with corporate users and clueless people who just use what’s on the computer when they buy it.
Interesting, thanks! (I didn’t even think of looking in Wiki for the answer. When will I learn that everything is in Wikipedia?)
100% Chrome now on my Windows box.
On my Mac, I use Safari mostly, but FF at times. Sometimes Safari just collapses in misery, for some reason I’ve never quite figured out.
Opera.
I used Firefox religiously at work and home, but lately it’s been so goddamned crashy. It seems with every update, it crashes more. It is especially crashy on Facebook when using Facebook chat, for some reason.
So, I downloaded Chrome and have had literally 0 problems. Love it.
But not the last one.
It’s what Netscape grew up to be.
I have to use all of them (or as close to that as is reasonable) because I make web pages for a living.
It’s very gratifying to see that at least in this community IE use is so low. In any complex project, I can always count on Internet Explorer to pounce on me at the finish line like Gollum at the crack of doom. My site has a corporate audience, so guess which browser most of them use. About 20% still use IE6, although that number is going down (it was almost half a couple years ago).
Chrome is my browser of choice these days. As others have mentioned, it’s lightweight and hardly ever crashes or freezes. I don’t know about their claim that javascript runs faster on Chrome than on Firefox… that just isn’t my experience.
I like Firefox best for its error reports. Safari is also handy for its Activities window, for when I’m trying to figure out just what the heck is failing to load.
Firefox 3.5 (because Ubuntu hasn’t bloody added it to the repository yet, that’s why! Bitter, me?)
ETA - I like Firefox for the add-ons, mostly - Linky, redirect remover, web developer, firebug…