The browser chronicles (Part 2)

I started using IE9 as my default browser a long time ago, but things didn’t turn out the way I wanted to. Compatibility was very minimal, specially with Tumblr. I just couldn’t make it work. Also, some add-ons were unavailable on 64 bit. Let’s just say it was not meant to be.

So then I started using the Firefox UX nightly builds. The Tab Groups feature is brilliant and the Firefox Button it rather nice. I mostly care about user experience improvements on browsers since that is the area that is sorely lacking. But the new x64 build rarely got updated, not to mention that by build number 9.0-a1 almost no add-ons were compatible. After a lot of hassles I finally switched to the regular Firefox Nightly x64 builds. Immediately after installation I was prompted with the chance to remove add-on compatibility. Let’s just say a whole new world opened up. The Mozilla Labs experiments are truly awesome, quite literally.

The Awesome Bar HD makes it better than the Chrome Omnibar; the F1 sharing tool makes sharing really easy with a lot of options at my disposal, though sadly nothing beats Cortex; and finally the LessChrome HD add-on bring back the Compact Navigation feature that I loved on Chrome, and it is actually much better here becuase it also conceals extension buttons and the Bookmarks Bar, so they are always there in hiding for quick access.

There are far more extensions that are truly amazing and neat, so frankly I’m staying with Mozilla. I still keep Google Chrome Canary to see what they are up to every once in a while, but besides apps and a few extensions, there is nothing I really miss now. I hope Firefox continues with the incredible work they are doing. As with IE, well… we will have to wait to see how IE10 stacks up against the competition.