To install Google Chrome or Firefox as an alternative to IE?

[soveryapt]

So, IE, the bug bear of most things that likes to throw up random things every so often meaning sites don't work (today being mainly our Mahara Profile Editor page) but then you load the same page in Chrome or Firefox and et voila, all issues have gone.

So my question is this, how many of you install alternative internet browsers as standard these days and of those alternative browsers, which do you favour? I'm fancying more along the lines of Chrome over FireFox as it just seems a simpler package, but I'm willing to be converted either way.

Thanks
Andy T

[clareq]

I've rolled out Chrome, mainly because the GPO is available and so we can manage Chrome as easily as IE.

[soveryapt]

I've rolled out Chrome, mainly because the GPO is available and so we can manage Chrome as easily as IE.

Indeed .. another reason for liking it .. it's easily managed ..

[maark]

We have rolled out chrome - users can use IE as well. As stated in previous post - GPO's are available and also MSI's from google.
Not sure if this is the case for firefox and also there were problems with the version being updated so often.
We did it to give better compatibility with google apps.

[Geoff]

Way back when, I used to deploy firefox. However I've preferred Chrome for the last year or two for the reasons outlined above. The MSI and GPO are readily available for Chrome. It's certainly possible to get an MSI and GPO for Firefox too, but you are relying on third parties and jumping through multiple hoops to get to the same place. All taking up valuable time and effort.

Additionally on a personal level I've moved from Firefox to Chrome. I've found Firefox to get slow and unstable after several iterations of plugin installs requiring me to nuke the user profile to get it back to a usable state. The other show stopper for me was that Youtube videos would not play smoothly. So that was the final nail in the coffin for me with Firefox.

[soveryapt]

Way back when, I used to deploy firefox. However I've preferred Chrome for the last year or two for the reasons outlined above. The MSI and GPO are readily available for Chrome. It's certainly possible to get an MSI and GPO for Firefox too, but you are relying on third parties and jumping through multiple hoops to get to the same place. All taking up valuable time and effort.

Additionally on a personal level I've moved from Firefox to Chrome. I've found Firefox to get slow and unstable after several iterations of plugin installs requiring me to nuke the user profile to get it back to a usable state. The other show stopper for me was that Youtube videos would not play smoothly. So that was the final nail in the coffin for me with Firefox.

Yeah, I found the same with Firefox, always get's really slow after a few version upgrades .. I'd prefer Chrome, I just thought I'd offer the alternative thought too and see what people think ..

Think I'll go grab the Chrome MSI and get installing ..

[SYNACK]

We push Firefox and default to IE, we have to the dirty 'portable' web apps from the MoE some of which work only with IE, some only with Firefox and some only partially in each. I have to say this web app stuff is 'soooo' much better, now instead of having to install a different application for each task we have to install a different web browser for each application for each task and add another level of lacking support in-between. Standards are a joke and everyone is trying to push the envelope in a different direction.

[british_government]

I assume everybody using Chrome is the full google (market research) chrome? Anybody used a clean Chromium deployment? I'm assuming the google GPO's will still work as it is, essentially, the same browser except without google's data gathering!

[SYNACK]

I assume everybody using Chrome is the full google (market research) chrome? Anybody used a clean Chromium deployment? I'm assuming the google GPO's will still work as it is, essentially, the same browser except without google's data gathering!

Doubtful, that is likely to be a Google extra but its woth a test.

[apeo]

Am I right in thinking that Firefox profiles can be troublesome, in that it could get quite large.

[british_government]

Doubtful, that is likely to be a Google extra but its woth a test.

Just looked through the ADM files, they all have specific google registry keys, it could be rewritten if needed but I guess just going straight with Google is the easiest way.

[SYNACK]

Am I right in thinking that Firefox profiles can be troublesome, in that it could get quite large.

Yes, TROUBLE, thanks the nasty *nix habit of writing everything to a billion files that have longer filenames than the content stored on them they can cause havoc with roaming profiles, offline files etc. The problems are usually isolated to a few users but it makes a big mess.

[british_government]

Also on firefox there used to be, and please correct me if this is now resolved, an issue with stored passwords being store in shared profile instead of the users so they were view-able in plain text to all users on a machine.

[Arthur]

Anybody used a clean Chromium deployment?

No, because it's missing quite a lot of useful features that Chrome has.

wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Differences_from_Google_Chr ome

[Geoff]

I have Chromium here on my Linux laptop (for obvious reasons) and I can't say it's missing anything I need day to day.