Please forget just about everything Jaxel just said. That man is too hardcore.
IE is truly the LAST browser you wanna use.
From a developer's point of view, IE is so retarded that I won't even argue here. Come talk to me in person if you want the full details.
From a user's point a view now... although I don't understand what "beautification" Jaxel is talking about (first time I ever hear that, especially considering that the other browser's interfaces vary according to the OS they run on), I can't think of one single reason of using IE over any of the other browsers mentionned above.
Seriously... can anyone name ONE, ONLY ONE, useful or innovative feature carried by IE that other browser's don't already have ? In terms of UI, the only thing IE has been doing for years is try to catch up with all the innovative features brought by the competition.
ShenYu: in terms of UI I totally agree with you.
Chrome is just neat. I also appears to be fast and brings some well-thought features. Haven't had the time to thoroughly test it though.
Opera: great simplistic UI. Imo, Opera is the firefox of 6 years ago, when people started to pick it up for its clean and fresh interface. Now that firefox has grown so big and cumbersome, it can be a fairly good choice.
FF: well I'm a developer, it's THE choice by default. If you want tips as to how make it the killer development platform, I'll be glad to tell u what to do.
Now for a regular user, several features make it really great
- since FF3: the "awesome bar". Pretty sure it's a FF invention. If it effectively is, that reason alone is worth switching to FF. The amount of time saved is priceless, since navigation + history + bookmarking are now merged in one place. Check it out, hard to explain.
- highly customizable interface, I seriously don't know if any other browser reach that level
- portability: extensions like FEBE and Foxmarks are simply life changing: basically anywhere you go you can have YOUR firefox. At work, home, friend's. History, sessions, boorkmarks... everything is synchronized.
- the tremendous amount of extensions and add-ons you can install based on what you like...
To sum up:
UI, look and feel: between Opera, Chrome, Safari and FF.
Customization and features: FF by far
Dull and outdated: IE