Have you ever downloaded a less than scrupulous piece of software only to discover the next day that you default browser has been changed and your homepage is some rubbish search engine based in North Korea? I have. So have thousands of others who were attracted by freeware never stopping to think of the scheming companies that lurked behind them. Such as Microsoft.
At the present, when users download IE8, the newest edition of Internet Explorer they will quite obviously have to install it. Now when you’re installing any piece of software you’re given a choice.
a) Quick Install
b) Custom install
In most cases the ‘Quick Install’ is already selected for you and most of us will go right on ahead and press ’Next’. Microsoft copped onto that so that when you install IE by choosing the quick install method your default browser and homepage are changed to please Bill Gates.
Microsoft recently came under fire about these practices you would expect from a smaller more desperate company. They responded by saying on their blog that they were making an update and that by August IE8 will ask your permission to become the default browser first.
“IE will never install, or become the default browser without your explicit consent. However, we heard a lot of feedback from a lot of different people and groups and decided to make the user choice of the default browser even more explicit,” Microsoft said.
IE8 has already been in the spotlight when they released the OMGIGP advertisement which Crenk covered here.
With so many Internet Browsers currently on the market I wanted to pose a question, which Internet Browser do you use and why?
Currently, the readers of Crenk have so many different browsers and operating systems in use it is simply crazy. The majority of our readers either use the traditional Internet Explorer or Firefox.
Internet Explorer
IE is the automatic defualt browser for any computer running Microsoft Windows. Internet Explorer 7 was a huge step forward for the Microsoft Internet browser. IE 7 was light, faster and a lot safer than ever before. The new IE8 has just come out in beta and we are in the process of testing, in which we plan to write a review in the coming weeks. You can download the new IE 8 here.
Firefox 3
Firefox has always been a tech geeks favourite browser. The new version of Firefox is Firefox 3 in which has more theme, add-ons and features than ever before. The main reason why Firefox 3 is a browser that is favoured by geeks, is that it is so fast and light. Web pages are normally a lot faster to load in Firefox 3 because they have a much quicker javascript engine than IE, thus making web pages load in your browser quicker.
Safari
Safari is the traditional browser from Apple. Safari can be found on all Apple macbooks and mac computers as its default browser. Safari is a very light browser with very limited add-on capabilities and themes. Safari also has a PC version that can be found here. Apple claim that Safari is fastest browser on the market for both HTML and Javascript.
Chrome
Chrome is the new browser by Google. Chrome is a very light browser with currently no add-ons or themes available. Chrome runs on a very fast javascript engine so you can expect your websites will be in front of you in a flash. Due to Chrome being so new it tends to currently freeze on occassion, which can get annoying after a while.
Overall
After quickly running through those browsers Im keen to find out what our readers are using and more importantly why they are actually using that browser. Just post a comment below and let us know!
