I'm curious, once and for all, which is the safest browser (ie, which one best protects your PC from malicious files such as Ad-ware, Spy-ware, and viruses and trojans, etc.) Not necessarily the best browser in terms of capabilities, but basically...

Please Tell Me the Best Browser in Terms of Protecting my PC and Filtering Out all of the Internet Garbage

Thankyou.

Firefox... without the space. :p

lynx4evar

Well, in terms of security that is true.

But what most people seem to forget is that you brain is the first line of defense, not the brand of you browser.
It is possible to secure IE and it is possible to get millions of trojans and viruses through Firefox. It just depends on the user.

I'm currently using FireFox and I have no complaints.

Mozilla Firefox, so what should i vote for?

That would be firefox. Mozilla by itself is different

Right, I've got Fire Fox installed now, (that poll was rather one-sided :p ) and I'm liking some of the different features (such as the Google searchbar built right into the browser). I do, however, have two questions:

1) The images aren't loading very quickly at all, and they show ugly boxes with text (in HTML called the "alt" tab I think). Anyway, it looks rather ugly, and I didn't have this problem with IE, so I'm just wondering if it's just me or if other people have had/having this problem. Is there any way to fix it?

2) I heard about Mozilla's Thunderbird email service at http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/ and it sounds quite good. I'm just wondering if anyone else has it and whether or not it is a good substitute for Outlook Express? Also, can I transfer my current ISP info straight into, or would I have to sign up for a different account?

Much Obliged.

To you're first question: Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit rerurn.

put "placeholder" in the filter box and you should see one item "browser.display.show_image_placeholders" double click it and it will set to false

What irritates me is that Firefox doesn't display "alt" text when you hover over an image.

The standard is actually to put <img title="hello!">, and 'alt' is supposed to be just for when images don't load at all and it's only IE that shows up 'alt' tags like it should 'title' tags, but I've seen very few sites that actually use "title" in image tags. So it'd be really nice to have some sort of option to deviate from the W3C standard for just that.

Mort: there is a plugin to do that. Google for it.

I really have never had any security issues with any of the above (quite a surprise), but as for blocking garbage, anything aside from IE is good. Since Netscape is becomming outdated, it isn't as good as Opera or Firefox (I've never used Mozzila, though), it still quite beats IE, which likes to grant back-door access to any site that asks.

I personally use Avant browser, never failed me in any aspect!

Everyone should vote mozilla, becaue that covers every mozilla browser XD

Thanks.

Also, does anyone else have Thunderbird Email? I might be better if I started a new thread, but I'll see if anyone reads about it here first.

Also, Mort, that's interesting, I'll have to look into adding that to the code of my new website.

Avant == IE.

I lurved Avant but the new version has like... 5 less features than the previous version for some reason. Now she is the devil.

You know, after months of not caring, all this talk about Firefox has gotten me interested. Think I'll go download it. If its not as good as all of you say, I swear I'm going to hunt you all down and steal your OT DVD collection sets!

Quoted for truth. And the love of text-based browsing.

Forget lynx, try w3m or "links" - both of which have color, great table and frame rendering, and can even render images in ascii if you're clever enough to set it up

Opera is the FireFox for people that actually want a decent browser. You don't need to download plugins for it or anything. Only problem is it takes a bit of customising to get it looking decent, as it starts with everything open, and barely any screen space.

I don't just use Firefox because it's secure. I use it because it rocks.

Yeah, except for that whole "ad-supported" thing.

But in terms of security, any browser other than IE is generally safer.

Avant = IE + all the good features + IE's insecurites = badbadbadbadbadbadbadbadbad.

This poll seems vaguely familiar....

Firefox I would think would be the most secure, seeing that it is open source, so people are always finding bugs, and exlpoits to get into, but at the same time, they are telling the developing team the problems, who are patching up the holes. Since the development team is pretty much anyone who reads through the code, you are pretty secure.

As for Thunderbird, I personally enjoy using it. Yes, there are some features that Outlook Express has and it doesn't, but the junk controls work real good, and you don't have to pay for it. You can use your existing email account in it, so no worries there.

Also, the proper name is Mozilla Firefox.

Thankyou very much. I'm glad someone finally answered my question - I was just about to start a new thread.

Anyway, I'm off to dl Firebird...

/me slinks off into the shadows of cyberspace

Firefox I guess is the best, but I only use Opera because I have all my stuff saved to it already and don't wanna bother transferring.

God darn, do we really need one of these every week?

Wow, Thunderbird is great. Transferring my account was a breeze, and the layout is very sharp and logical. I really like what they've done with it, and I'd recommend anyone else get it.

I dislike having to redownload/install all extensions whenever I install Firefox on a new computer.

I wish there was some way I could sort of.. pack up my current Firefox install into one new installer, so I could run that to install Firefox and extensions.

I think something like that is planned post-1.0.

Both are being worked on, the first is making more progress, but the hardest part is making sure extension authors keep up with the browser.