A number of us are running Linux Mint Mate as we jumped ship into dual boot land when XP died on us.    We were seeking to keep on keeping on, and by and large we have succeeded.

A topic of comparison at that time was the two main browsers, Chrome and Firefox.   Both are currently used by me, with Firefox leading as "most used" and also leading as finding the most problems, which isn't surprising since it goes first, generally speaking.

Here is a summary:

Chrome has more difficulty displaying pages for us old people once it is tweeked for old eyes (you have to play around with font size, etc to get the print big enough to read).  

Once you get a Chrome mix that works, then everything is usable but you can tell your display has been tweeked a bit when you go view normal web pages.    

Firefox tends not to have this issue as the Firefox international developers tend to use older monitor stuff (like we do) while the Chrome developers all seem to use VERY modern monitors with huge resolutions.   I think the monitor/display issues tend to come from that -- aggravated by YaBB itself being so out of date (most issues are seen when typing posts in the YaBB text box).

Simply stated, the text in the YaBB text box is too small to be read on 19" older low resolution VGA and SuperVGA monitors when using Chrome.   Admittedly, this is really an issue with older eyes reading older equipment and it can be tweeked with text font size tweeks.

But, Chrome has this issue A LOT more than Firefox has this issue.   Firefox tends to show a font that is usable at all times and is wonderfully consistently and usable across all net pages.

So, Firefox wins for best, most usable display.   So Firefox is my "go to" browser and as such goes it into troubled situations first.

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Other than that, Chrome always wins for always working right.   Always.  A dozen times since this last Mint 7 upgrade there have been DRM issues and other "caused" things that have caused Firefox to choke for a week or so (generally trying to view streamed content or copyrighted works) that have caused me to switch back over to Chrome for a bit.

Chrome's displayed text issues don't really count once you get into your video content, and they can likely be lived with very easily with someone who owns a modern monitor.  

So, Firefox is more user friendly with old monitors and old eyes -- Chrome simply works better all the time otherwise.

Linux Mint Mate 7.0 itself has had no issue to speak of, it just does what you expect it to do right up until the point you hit the wall with some DRM'd providers ---- and especially some stubborn providers like Amazon Prime, who have made a business decision NOT to play on Linux devices at all.


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Steam and video games

Windows is still better at this point for your gaming, but the amount of current Linux ready games from Steam are in numbered in the thousands now and are growing all the time.    You can find a low cost game for your Linux machine no matter what you like to play.

Firefox's big issue (and the reason why I stopped using it as my default browser) is security related.

Chrome, and even I.E., use what's called a "sandbox."  Basically what it does is it allows programs to run and interact with each other without actually interacting directly with each other.  It's kind of like a "scratch pad" for your computer while it's connected to the internet, allowing your computer to jot down ideas and information that can then be read by other programs on the computer.

From an internet security standpoint, having a sandbox is huge.  It means that your browser can view things that are potentially dangerous without compromising the security of the entire system, and anything looking in from the internet can only see the browser, not the rest of the stuff on the computer.

Firefox is the only major browser that doesn't have a sandbox.  The reason for this is because Firefox's base operating code was written before sandboxes were needed by browser software, and it would take the developers ungodly amounts of time and resources to rewrite the entire program to add it in.

I don't like Chrome because it was built by Google, and Google is one of the biggest data-mining outfits out there; but at least Chrome works.  Anyone who still uses I.E. in this day in age needs to take a Computers 101 course at their local community college.

My windows 8 platform has been having video errors lately.....
I have been getting green screen on my you tube or any video....
I reset the computer, it seems to work for awhile then does it again...
Oh well, the joy of computers...

It has done it on Explorer, You tube, and Facebook... I am wondering if its just the java or adobe apps...which ever is in control of the flash player.

Meant to add.....that the video ad's still work though.....go figure

I think my first time with Opera was back in the windows 3.1 days.... it was a ton faster than windows browser and a small package that did not track your net usage or load up on site cookies.

LOL, I still have my 3.5 floppy windows 3.1 disks...too bad I can't write a program or two, I would put some drivers on that booger and see if I could get it to work with Wi-Fi.

I bought a cheap 3.5 external drive but can seem to get it to recognize some of the stuff on the disks... most of them don't want to read...

Serowbot wrote on 07/19/14 at 08:09:14:



No, I use Chrome...but only until Firefox fixes their coding and adds a sandbox.

Oldfeller--FSO wrote on 07/19/14 at 12:22:57:



Odd.  I never had that issue while running adblock on firefox.

For those that do not like the new Firefox 29 interface, there is a Firefox fork that does not use it at all.   This fork is available on PC and on Android phones at this time.

http://liliputing.com/2014/07/pale-moons-firefox-based-browser-ported-to-andr...