What Browser Should I Use ?

Like most things computing there is not really a very simple answer to this as there is quite a choice out there and depending on your browsing habits one might be more suitable than another.

Some time ago Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7. There has been a fairly major update to its predecessor and it has some fairly nice features including a revised interface, tabbed browsing, improved printing features, and a phishing filter. Not to be left on the shelf the other browser companies have been very busy too and have produced revisions to their own products with similar or better features. Quite a few people migrated away from IE6 in the search of a better experience and found it in browsers like Opera and FireFox.

Unfortunately instead of just offering Internet Explorer 7 as an optional download, they are pushing it to customers via the Automatic Windows Update. Which means you may wake up one day soon, after leaving your computer on, and have a brand new browser replacing Internet Explorer 6.0. For many this may not be a problem but for those of us who like to make our own decisions this is very annoying.

For my own choice I use IE7 and FireFox 2.03 but these days mostly FireFox. My partner uses Opera for most browsing but occasionally has to resort to IE7 as there are occasionally rendering problems with some IE optimised sites.

Other options you might want to look at are Maxthon and Avant although the latter has a slightly annoying habit of releasing an update every second or third day which I find a worry.

There are many more out there and at some point I have tried most of them but to be honest they rarely last more than a few days as inevitably I come up against problems with crashes, sites not loading etc.

At the moment in order of preference I would use FireFox then IE7 followed by Opera all solid platforms that will give you a good surfing experience.