Hi All,

I downloaded Google Chrome a while back and liked it at first, but for the last few weeks it's become a sluggard, refusing to load up. I sometimes have to exit the load and try again three or four times or more before it actually loads up. I've had it. Sometimes I just want to pop online to look something up and it's become faster to do that on my phone!

Any suggestions on what browser I should use on my Vista 64 system? Internet Explorer works, but it's not great.

Opera!!!

hagatha, once you've had the joy of using mouse gestures to navigate and Speed Dial to take you right to your favorite sites, you're going to see why I love Opera.

It so irks me that I can't use mouse gestures in Windows...but I keep forgetting and trying.


Gil.

A lot of folks seem to like Firefox -

I've had some of the same issues with Chrome - don't know what's going on with it. My default browser is Firefox.

I've been trying out "Chrome" but I don't like the fact that it updates itself automatically - which (on my aging machine, anyway) whilst happening causes slow downs and freezings

So unless I can find a way of somehow requesting updates manually, I might not keep it ....

I use Opera, and am very happy with it. It uses a feature called Speed Dial, a one click front page, if you will, that is simple to setup. Plus, there's no clutter of ads or news panes messing up the page.

You copy a web address, left click on a slot, click on the icon you want and click OK. And if you want to delete that slot, right click and delete it. You can set it to automatically update or update it yourself.

Bookmarking a site is as easy as clicking on Bookmark, scroll up to Bookmark Page, and it's done. Want your History? Click on History and you're given each day for you to open. Want to keep your current window open but open another one? Click on the plus sign to the right of the top tab and you get a new Speed Dial window. Need to watch something download? Opera opens the Download page when you download, and displays a time line.

I've tried FireFox and Chrome, besides IE, and by far I like Opera the best. Keep in mind Opera doesn't have some feature some sites require, those particular sites tell you that when you go there, but they are far and few. Opera is easy to use and setup, for those who want something simple.

A very nice explanation of some of Opera's best features, Homer6!

Do you use Mouse Gestures? I believe some browsers have it as an add-on now but in Opera it's built in and it makes navigating a snap.

Gil.

I allways used IE as far as I remember and now IE 9 that I find to be OK.

I see that some members use 2 browsers.

How do you pass from one to the other?

Thanks.

Chief

Chief,

It's easy. Browsers always put an icon on your desktop. I do away with the desktop icon by dragging it to the taskbar. If there's still one on the desktop afterward, I get rid of it. If I have Opera open and want to use another browser for some reason (say IE), I just click the taskbar icon and IE comes up so I have both of them open at the same time unless I close one.

Since IE is there for everyone who uses Windows and has to stay there if they don't want problems, everyone with a PC running a browser like Firefox, Chrome, Safari or Opera "is" running two browsers. I imagine you could run a dozen of them if your computer didn't go on strike.

When it installs, a browser usually (always?) asks if it should be the default browser, so if you want to keep IE as the default, just don't check that box in the new one you download.

Gil.

Gil, thanks for the info.

Chief

Excellent explanation, Gil! I did the same thing on my Windows 8 desktop side. I have IE 10, Firefox and Chrome down in my taskbar. It sounds like I really should check into Opera too... Some of the features mentioned sound very appealing. Chrome seems to be the fastest one, but I'm in a "comfort zone" with Firefox. Maybe it's time to shake things up a little bit.

Draclvr,

I like Opera so much that even when a load takes too long, I don't even think of changing. I have Chrome just because I have a Googlesite and Google has a down on Opera. The bums.

I'm beginning to believe that some websites just have too danged much going on anyway to load quickly for those of us who do not keep cookies enabled. (I'm a mad woman about cleaning those out. My apt. should be so lucky.)

Opera shows you all the intermediate stops you make when you click on a link and, good grief! there's a ton of them sometimes. (That explains a lot about where all those cookies come from that you don't recognize since you think you've never been anywhere near those sites!)

Btw, have you used the Avast Safe Browser?

Gil.

No, haven't tried it because I don't use Avast. I use WOT (Web of Trust) for safe browsing. But I'm always looking for something new to help with safe browsing on some of the computers I work on. I had to uninstall Microsoft Security Essentials on our American Legion computer after someone downloaded a virus. So, I installed Avast on that computer. I will go check out the Avast Safe Browser...

No, Gil, I don't use mouse gestures. Really didn't know about it.

I leave IE as default because that's the browser my wife is comfortable with. And some links from my e-mails use it as well. I also keep it around because, as Gil mentioned, some sites don't like Opera or Opera doesn't have all the bells and whistles those sites are looking for.

I did use Firefox for a while, at my son's suggestion, but for some reason, which escapes me now, I didn't like it. It may have been at the time not a lot of sites liked Firefox. I really don't remember.

You should try them, Homer6. Hold down the right mouse button, swipe a quarter inch to the left and you're back on a previous page.
To return, hold down the right mouse button and swipe a quarter inch to the right.
To open a new tab, hold down the right mouse button and swipe down a tad.

Or just hold down the right mouse button a moment and you'll see a diagram telling you what to do. After you used it just a little while, you'll wonder how you lived without it.

Gil.

Hi everyone, and thanks for the information. Looks like I'll be checking out Opera.

But do I have to have Chrome to keep my gmail account?

Hey, hagatha,

No, you don't think Google will let you go that easily, do you? You can access Gmail from any browser.

Gil.

I've always used Firefox for accessing gmail.
I'm sure Opera would work too.

I access my Gmail account from IE and Firefox in addition to Chrome.

Okay, that seals it.

Iiiii don't know Gil. The way my mind works today I'm not sure there's enough room, organized of course, to remember to use mouse gestures. I'm so used to mousing here and there it'd be a stretch of my memory to add some change. BTW, what was the question, again?

This reminds me of my fumbling attempts to play a Mage in Arx Fatalis. Remember the magic signs? Using mouse gestures? In a dungeon, surrounded by monsters, trying to remember which dagnab handswipes make a fireball? And at some point while you're doing all the remembering, you've been turned into dog meat?

I get decimated on a regular basis using "normal" controls - so fumbling around with mouse gestures in a game would just accelerate the process !!

If I can't count something one at a time I get in a real pickle. Guess that why we were given fingers and toes.

My problem with mouse gestures is I do them by accident, and end up wondering where the webpage I was reading (or trying to bring up) has got to.