Barada said:
Forgive my ignorance on this topic, but how do you distinguish what makes one browser better than another? Say, Firefox vs IE.
From a developer's point of view, IE6 does not support many of the current web standards (and Firefox does). Therefore, a person could design something that is in total compliance with standards, yet doesn't render properly in IE. This is often dealt with by some sort of work-around (often using proprietary Microsoft functions). So, basically, you design a site to work with most browsers and then go back through and hack it up to work with IE.
From a designers point of view, there is a type of graphics file called PNG. This file has alpha transparency which allows a graphic to be partially transparent. GIFs also allow a portion of the image to be transparent, but in a binary fashion - a pixel is either transparent or it isn't. Most modern browsers support PNG alpha transparency, but IE does not (although it will with IE7).
From a users' point of view, Firefox is better because it does a better job of blocking pop-up ads and has better security. It also has tabbed browsing (which IE7 will have) and it tends to run faster.
IE6 is basically a 5 year old browser that Microsoft has been too lazy to seriously update. IE used to be the best browser. I believe Microsoft's plan was to wait to release IE7 with their new operating system. But, they changed that plan and are releasing IE7 seperately (probably because their next OS is delayed).
When IE7 comes out, then we can probably debate whether it's better than Firefox or not. As it stands, IE6 is well behind the times.
