5 Reasons Why Web Browsers Suck
By Rich Menga on Aug 13, 2009 in Featured, Internet & The Web, Software | comments(24)
The web browser is the most used application on your computer, period. Even when you’re not using it, it’s probably minimized to the taskbar/dock/panel.
Unfortunately web browsers still to this day have a fair degree of suck factor. Here are 5 reasons why web browsers suck:
1. Plugins are the browser’s own worst enemy
I call them plugins. Call then "add-ons" or "extensions" or whatever else you want. They’re plugins.
Plugins are a wonderful way to seriously screw up your browser in short order.
In Internet Explorer 8: In Manage Add-ons there is absolutely no way to uninstall anything there. Not possible. This sucks. You can "disable", but not uninstall. This is because add-ons in IE are "tied" directly to external programs. So in order to get rid of it, you must actually go uninstall the program that uses IE – assuming you know which to uninstall.
In Mozilla Firefox: Many plugins create SQL tables internally to the browser in order for them to work. On an uninstall of many different plugins, files are left behind and the SQL tables remain – in several different places. And darned if you know which tables within Firefox you’re supposed to drop. Thought you could kill this stuff with a registry/file cleaner? Wrong. Has to be done manually. This is assuming you actually know where to look.
And, of course, whenever a new version of the browser is released, plugins break.
2. Proprietary crapola
Internet Explorer is the one to blame for this catastrophe. The fact there are still web sites to this day that are "IE only" is simply ridiculous.
And if you put a tag on your site that says, "Best viewed with Firefox", that’s just as bad. You should be ashamed of yourself for doing such a thing.
3. Copy/paste text from a web page is still a nightmare
Sometimes all you want to do is copy a little piece of text rather than type it out. Good luck with that, because you’ll need it.
Some web pages have it so you can copy/paste text easily. But on others when you attempt to highlight anything this huge BLOCK of text is copied. Then when you try to adjust the highlight you made, it gets even worse.
Let’s say for the moment you’re successful in copying some text to the buffer. Okay, we’re good, right? Wrong. On paste into something as simple as Notepad these huge SPACES happen. "Wait, wait.. I didn’t copy any big-ass spaces.." Well, Mr. Browser thinks you did.
Out of frustration you just have to type out whatever you wanted to copy yourself.
4. Printing web pages is still terrible
Some web sites make it easy to print things. For example, many bank web sites smartly offer PDF versions of bank statements for print-out. This is great because PDFs always print exactly the way you see them.
But let’s say you’re not on a bank site and you want to print something out. The text is either too big or too small on the printed page, the graphics (should any exist) look terrible, and what is that font that printed? That’s not what’s on the web page..
5. Slow!
Believe it or not, there was a time when IE was a really fast browser. That was way back at version 3. And it was wonderful.
Believe it or not, there was a time when Firefox was a really fast browser. That was way back at version 1.5. And it was wonderful.
Both are now are memory hogging, plugin-infested lumps of digital slowness.
Want to know why Google Chrome and Safari appear to run faster? It’s not because of less memory consumption or faster scripting. It’s because you’re not using the same plugins as in your IE or FF.
Unfortunately most don’t like Chrome or Safari.
Am I saying to run IE or FF with no plugins at all? Well, if you can browse that way, I’d say go right ahead. Ditch the toolbars and any plugins installed to breathe life back into the browser. It will speed up quite a bit. That is until you open up a few tabs with some Flash, and then.. it.. gets.. slower.. and….. slower…… and, well.. it would be faster for you to go to the kitchen and make a sandwich.
What do you hate about web browsers the most?
Let us know by writing a comment or two.


Please
If you happen to use the Mozilla Firefox web browser, here are a few little hidden things about it you may not have heard about.
