A word to the wise, you do NOT need to use the latest and greatest updates from FireFox to browse happily and well. In fact I advise AGAINST getting the newest versions for they keep loading on new stuff that is of no use ot most of us and just takes more and more of your computer's processing power. I have not allowed updates for months and browse happily and in total control of my process and just wanted to post this to warn others...do not be fooled or led down the garden path by would be techie experts who try to make you feel guilty for not usiing the lastest and greateste newest updates for browsers.

I have researched this a lot and have the advixe of my techs who i trust and confer daily with many people in the game industry and the internet world internationally and have this on good authority. Just a word to the wise.

CrisGer,

This is in no way to upset you, but i just wanted to jump in here, please do not take it personal.

You should always update the latest version. Most browsers these days have automatic updates in the background. Meaning they do it for you, with or without notice (depending on the options choosen) so updating should never bother you or require something done on your part.

Why update? Security first, improvements second. Just because a brower works, doesnt mean you shouldnt update. Most browsers have bug tracking open to the public incase your curius as to what has been reported and fixed, example would be FireFox Bugzilla. You can see the amount of security bugs found and patched between updates. Its allot.

Another nice thing about updating is the backend engines are always being updated/tweaked to improve speed, features and fix bugs (and sometimes security bugs). Updates to me always means something new, better and sometimes new features that really improve the browsing experience. However every once in a while an update does break things, luckly browsers these days always keep up the last view versions for this reason.

Also something extremely important about updates... settings/filters/configs are always updated to keep someone from phishing websites. They also help block known hi-jacked SSL certificates like the recent ones from about a month ago.

I also have to agree about browsers adding to much fluff to their apps now. But with FireFox and Chrome its really easy installing an extension to disable or change just about anything you want

Your browser is the first step stopping the flood of all the bad stuff on the internet, so why not make it as solid as possible? 

Hi Drew and nice to meet you, from your avatar and your posts I am presuming, and I appologize if i presume wrongly you are one of the new staff membes. Welcome to Just Adventure and it is nice to meet you and thank you for your thoughtful post. I agree with many of your points and observations. I did check most of what you say months ago when i switched my main platform and the access for my main international working group which is hotlink networked for our working groups from IE to FF, and my techs went over the details with me ...our main concern and the concern of our tech staff was keeping the work flow smooth and speedy and the fluff you so rightly speak of is growing on all of the new browsers and even IE which is why we changed to FF. As for the phishing etc, .....yes some of the security updates are signature and realm specific and very useful. We do regular sweeps with the amazing ESET scanner which is a free service and also their monthly support which takes care of just about any imaginable threats.

But we find that the dedicated and alert human eye and hand is even more so in terms of hands on modding and I am sure you and the new and old staff here will continue to keep us in a safe environment. You are joining a crackerjack team here, btw, but i am sure you already know that, the Staff here are among the best in the realm of game forums and sites and they are dedicated and greatly able and we are so fortunate to have them all. I am sure you will fit in here well and help kee things purring along and the speed and courtesy of your reponse encourage me greatly.

So welcome aboard and thanks for sharing.

When I updated Firefox to version 7.0.1, two folders of JA-related bookmarks were dumped. The browser later became unstable and started crashing.

I won't soon be updating Firefox again.

Firefox version 3.6 is still getting security updates.  I see no need to get the "latest" version.

It was bad enough when they removed Properties from the Context (right-click) menu, but I managed to get that back with the Element Properties add-on.

After updating to version 4 back when it first came out, I immediately regretted it when one of my favorite add-ons quit working.

I don't like some of their "improvements" which aren't improvements at all.

Amen to that, Jenny.

I found myself in a position that required me to get the latest version, even though I had good reasons for not doing so. And now, I see that an even newer version has been released. I won't be installing it.

I used to like Firefox. Now, not so much. I agree about the so-called "improvements" they make. They seem to keep "fixing" things that aren't broken.

If you find yourself in a position where you avoid updating your browser, it's probably time to take a look at different browsers to see if you can find one that suits you better. I have three browsers, all at the latest version, but I generally only use one of them. Using outdated versions of browsers, as a general rule, is a bad idea and should be avoided.

Can you make some recommendations, Lurker? Which ones do you think are good?

What suits me is a browser that does what I need it to do: browse. I'm not really interested in bells and whistles, although I realize that simple browsers are a thing of the past.

I also prefer something that won't screw around with my files or otherwise cause problems as two different versions of Firefox have. As much as I dislike Internet Explorer, which I keep around for backup,  it's never done those types of things. But I wouldn't mind adding a third browser if I can find one that works well.  

The main ones, aside from Firefox and IE are Opera, Chrome and Safari. My personal preference is Opera, but I use it because it is feature heavy rather than despite it.

I can't recommend Opera enough, either.  It is feature-heavy, but this mostly doesn't get in the way unless you want it to.  More importantly, though, features are almost never dropped.  Indeed, I'm hard-pressed to find a single user-facing feature[1] that has been removed in the near nin years I've been using it.  It's been on the sluggish side for me, lately, but it seems as if Opera 12 will largely address this with hardware acceleration---eventually.  Otherwise, it's sheer perfection.  

[1] TLS 1.1 and Web Sockets were removed at different points, the former because it wasn't sufficiently compatible, and the other because the specification had serious security flaws