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So I've been checking out Avant Browser, which is a tabbed browser that's more IE-like in presentation. I'll give them that they've got a much nicer presentation than Mozilla (which I flatly hated when I tried to use it), but they've got Problems. A few biggies:
1. They don't honor my reg-hacks that let me type "lj utsuri" (for example) and end up in![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
utsuri's journal. I don't know if there's a way to get them right for this browser, but....
2. The "favorites" menu presents things underlined as if you could select them. You can't. You have to use mouse or arrow buttons; hitting the first letter to toggle through choices doesn't work.
3. The 'backward' and 'forward' buttons on my keyboard are not honored.
Frankly? It ain't worth it. Here are the pros of it, though:
1. Tabbed browsing. Frankly, I find this to be more of a pain in the ass than anything. What it means is that I frequently close the main window by habit, shutting everything down at once. (See below; it saves windows, so this is a nuisance, not a disaster, but it's a BIG nuisance. And if I was writing something in one of them? Ooopsy.) It doesn't save any space on the task bar for me, since XP stacks windows of like type, so IE would be just as efficient - and can be closed normally, and tabbed between. The extra process space is probably negligible, considering the code's already in memory.
2. The ability to save pages you were already at. Okay, this is cool. If the rest of the browser were okay, this would be a major plus. But when the basic functions aren't there? Fuckit.
3. The ability to create groups of pages and open them all at once. Okay, this is also cool. Of course, if I had to, I could just create a couple javascripts for that, dump them in my web space, and bookmark them. But that would be a pain.
That's pretty much it, for the pros. I may keep it on my system and use it to save pages I want to be able to haul up in the future; I may not. But I still don't understand why tabbed browsing is supposed to be so cool, and Avant sucks.
And I let it make itself the default browser and now can't coax IE back to that position. I told IE to check if it was, but it's not. Grrrrrrrrrr. Anyone know how to force it back to the good program? Please? (UPDATE: Never mind, got it. Avant apparently has some sort of lock that keeps IE out. Taking Avant out in its menu before using IE seemed to deal with it. Mostly. It's done something so that no attempt to view my friends page from the client works: it opens the window, but doesn't actually put in the URL. I wish I had never heard of Avant.)
...and one reboot later, it cleaned itself up. Stupid program.
1. They don't honor my reg-hacks that let me type "lj utsuri" (for example) and end up in
utsuri's journal. I don't know if there's a way to get them right for this browser, but....2. The "favorites" menu presents things underlined as if you could select them. You can't. You have to use mouse or arrow buttons; hitting the first letter to toggle through choices doesn't work.
3. The 'backward' and 'forward' buttons on my keyboard are not honored.
Frankly? It ain't worth it. Here are the pros of it, though:
1. Tabbed browsing. Frankly, I find this to be more of a pain in the ass than anything. What it means is that I frequently close the main window by habit, shutting everything down at once. (See below; it saves windows, so this is a nuisance, not a disaster, but it's a BIG nuisance. And if I was writing something in one of them? Ooopsy.) It doesn't save any space on the task bar for me, since XP stacks windows of like type, so IE would be just as efficient - and can be closed normally, and tabbed between. The extra process space is probably negligible, considering the code's already in memory.
2. The ability to save pages you were already at. Okay, this is cool. If the rest of the browser were okay, this would be a major plus. But when the basic functions aren't there? Fuckit.
3. The ability to create groups of pages and open them all at once. Okay, this is also cool. Of course, if I had to, I could just create a couple javascripts for that, dump them in my web space, and bookmark them. But that would be a pain.
That's pretty much it, for the pros. I may keep it on my system and use it to save pages I want to be able to haul up in the future; I may not. But I still don't understand why tabbed browsing is supposed to be so cool, and Avant sucks.
And I let it make itself the default browser and now can't coax IE back to that position. I told IE to check if it was, but it's not. Grrrrrrrrrr. Anyone know how to force it back to the good program? Please? (UPDATE: Never mind, got it. Avant apparently has some sort of lock that keeps IE out. Taking Avant out in its menu before using IE seemed to deal with it. Mostly. It's done something so that no attempt to view my friends page from the client works: it opens the window, but doesn't actually put in the URL. I wish I had never heard of Avant.)
...and one reboot later, it cleaned itself up. Stupid program.
no subject
...but it annoyed me thoroughly at the time by being worthless for half my uses. I know it's not rational to still dislike it, but I do; and I don't want to pay or live with ads.
At least back then, you couldn't run it as one-web-page-per-window, either...which is STILL the best use of desktop space I've seen, and which I prefer to the other methods...is that still the case?
no subject
JavaScript support is still incomplete, it seems, but most of what is unsupported is stuff that I consider annoying.
You can put each page in its own window, if you set that as an option, but there doesn't seem to be a way to use tabs if you have that option set (i.e. you can't have multiple windows with multiple tabs).
There are still some things that I need to use IE for, but as Opera improves, it's becoming more and more my browser of choice.
no subject
I do a lot of sites with javascript, though.
Besides, after the "fun" of trying to get IE back? I want it, working, default, right where it is. MY browser. It does what I like, how I like it. I do have to work around not being able to save pages for when I reopen it, but I've done that long enough to be fairly used to it, anyway.