CHROME!

...wait, why Chrome and not FireFox?

FireFox is awesome, there's no doubt about that - and I recommend you use it for your normal day-to-day web browsing. Its RSS functionality, for one thing, is vastly superior to Chrome's... well, absolute lack of RSS functionality.

The thing that makes FireFox less than perfect for the Island (and other scenarios where you're moving through many pages very quickly) is in how it sorts out your history. You've probably noticed that your hard drive starts grinding like an old washing machine after shutting down FireFox - if you've got any sort of memory/CPU monitor installed, you'll also notice that the longer you have FireFox open (or rather, the more pages you go through), the more memory it uses. Rather than writing your history to disk as you load a page, it caches it in RAM and then writes it after you exit the program. Go on for long enough, it'll start writing to the swapfile (writing to disk because it's filled up all the memory to which it writes to avoid having to write to disk), and then you're in for a performance nosedive.

FireFox's memory usage is a problem, but unless you're on a very old machine (like me) it's not a crippling one most of the time - except when you're loading hundreds of pages in a single session, as fast as the pages will load, for example when fighting off a bunch of monsters on the Island. Then, FireFox goes slower and slower, using up more and more memory, until the delay between page loads on your end is far longer than the time the server takes to produce the page.

So, Chrome's superior speed and memory handling for the Island and other browser games, FireFox's superior functionality and flexibility for everything else. Haven't tested Opera yet - if you fancy doing some benchmarks, feel free.

(Internet Explorer, as ever, can paddle to hell in a slop bucket)

This just makes me feel better about using Chrome for here, I used to think it was too weird.
Plus, the windows are so compact and sleek and you can make them prettyyy.

No, it can't. Why not?

a. it's so overbloated it wouldn't even fit in a slop bucket.
b. Beelzebub would throw it back out.

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Thank you.

Sweet! CMJ endorses my favorite browser.

I went straight from an old version of IE to Chrome, personally. Firefox is somehow infuriatingly slow on both computers I've used, and so horrifically cluttered compared to Chrome... Oh Chrome, how I love and adore thee.

What the hell is RSS, and why is it so magnificent that I'd want to do... whatever the hell I have to do... to make it work, rather than just look for updates and articles by, I don't know, using my favorites menu?

I use Opera. Haven't benchmarked. Haven't noticed any slowing down over long sessions.

I would use Chrome, but the Mac release requires an Intel processor.

I will use Chrome, when my spankin' new ThinkPad arrives and I retire this six-year-old PowerBook.

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Unofficial Improbable Island out-of-character chat is at irc.foonetic.net, channel #iisland - come on by!

(Oops. Accidental double post.)

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Unofficial Improbable Island out-of-character chat is at irc.foonetic.net, channel #iisland - come on by!

On a Mac, Chrome is just barely out of beta and still a bit buggy. I have used both it and Opera with the Island and found they work reasonably well. For my regular gameplay, I'm now using the Mac-standard browser, Safari, but Chrome is noticeably the fastest of the browsers I've tried, so in a few months, after it settles a bit, I may switch to it as my main Island browser.

(I was prompted to look for something other than the Mac version of Firefox for the Island back when the 'most recent action' status bar was added. I'd put up with sometimes-painful slowness -- which you have just explained very nicely, and thanks for that, CMJ! -- but in Mac Firefox, the status bar feature made every page flash white before loading. It was a flash bulb going off in my face several times a minute. Not tolerable.)

Weird, I had exactly the opposite experience. Safari made the page flash white when loading, with Firefox ran smoothly.

I've been using Chrome for the Island for about two weeks now, and I've found it noticeably faster. Plus if you copy/pase text from teh island, it preserves color coding. Which is awesome.

(And it automatically cuts out the "Nearby Kittymorph..." stuff at the start of the line, even if you have those icons turned on.)

To try out CMJ's recommendation, I just downloaded and installed Chrome.

I don't get that with Firefox, but I am getting it with Chrome, which is also running noticeably slower than Firefox. To the point that I wouldn't even bother trying timed combat in this setup. Mind you, I'm getting spell-checker in Chrome as I write this, which I don't see in Firefox. (Might have to check my preferences on that.)

Also tested it out in a graphics rich site I often use. Slooow, lots of 'page not available' errors and partial image loads, and a forced reboot.

I'm not for a moment disputing CMJ's recommendation, or the reasoning behind it, but it's back to Firefox for me.

D.

(At least we agree in our mutual disdain of IE.)

Edit:
1.Oh, and I just noticed that the Distractions item doesn't blink on new message.
2. I'm on a PC running XP.

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The lunatics are taking over the asylum! Come with?

I downloaded Chrome to give it a shot on CMJ's recommendation, and I have to say I'm not a big fan. Getting the White Screen Flash on II, for instance. Also, I don't like not knowing where to go to turn off the Automatic Form Entry or whatever, that keeps giving me suggestions as to what I want to write in the Comment box...gets annoying after a while, since if I type : at the start of it, it'll list EVERY ACTION I'VE PERFORMED...

That and I'm not a big fan of the interface at all.

I think I'll stick to FF, mostly because I really enjoy it as a browser, and it doesn't seem to have the major memory-hog issues on my system (mind you, I don't store history, and tend to clear cache/tempfiles relatively often, so it doesn't bog down much)

Could also be the way Chrome works in Linux...

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Isn't sanity just a one-trick pony anyway? All you get is one trick: rational thinking. But when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh, the sky's the limit.

Hmm... there must be something related to your computer's age and which browser you should use for the island. I say this because I tried Chrome and it was indeed faster than Firefox (I'm on a older PC with XP).

I had the occasional white screen flash on both of them, but changing my preferences to the Improbable - Gold skin changed it to the brown/gold background with no text popping up instead of the white screen on Chrome. I haven't tried on my Firefox because for some reason those make can freeze up my browser a little as I type.

Also, Daedalus, there is a way to turn on spell-checker in Firefox by either messing with it in the settings or right clicking a text box and selecting 'Check Spelling'.

EDIT: And Dave, there's a way to turn off auto-complete by clicking the wrench near the top-right corner and going to options, then the second tab should have it in the middle.

Sadly, I am also getting the white flashes on attempting Chrome, making it far too painful to play with. Which is odd, as the page load speed seems to be much faster! I may attempt Opera next. But thanks for the info CMJ, that does make a lot of sense from my ongoing experience with Firefox.

I adore Chrome. When I was told about the color preservation copy-paste thing I nearly proposed to it. Now I just feel smug.

Dave, I'm running Ubuntu 9.10 and don't have the flashing problem. I've gotten that flashing problem before in multiple browsers on multiple machines, actually, but it's always resolved itself pretty quickly. Also the interface is exactly the same as it is on my Win XP machine, so if Chrome doesn't work for you in Linux, I have the feeling it won't make you happy in any other OS.

There are two reasons why I use Firefox and not Chrome, which I otherwise like.

1) Adblock Plus. I have forgotten that the internet is full of banner ads and popups. It is that effective.

2) NoScript. I play World of Warcraft and there have been a lot of keylogger scares for WoW-related sites, due to the [relative-unimportance-to-profit] ratio of stealing accounts and using them to farm gold for real sale. The addon NoScript disables Java, Javascript, Flash, and all other scripts when I come onto a website, and I manually allow the specific ones I need to browse a site in the intended way. It is at first a major inconvenience, but you get used to it. The trade-off between convenience and security is well worth it.

Until I find that Chrome has functions or addons which mimic these Firefox addons, I am virtually "forced" to browse using Firefox, as my account security feels at risk otherwise. (Well, NoScript is the security, AdBlock Plus is just super-convenient.)

Edit: By "relative unimportance", I mean the degree to which it is protected and would be recovered. Bank accounts are easy to call and get them to shut them down and cancel illegal purchases. World of Warcraft accounts aren't quite on the same level.

I'm still using IE8. I think that its finally beginning to catch up. IE7 Introduced tabs. IE8 adds the finction view in devloper, so you can then view its HTML,CSS scripts and everything else about it. It can be used in some games to cheat. (Haven't tried for II - don't want to. More useful on something like MechQuest, its no good, single player so I don't feel guilty.)

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A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a trombone; what else does a man need to be happy?

As always, I'm a bit late to jump on the wagon, but here I am nevertheless!

I refused to download Chrome for the longest time because it "looks funny," however, Firefox has been preforming intolerably shitty lately. I was willing to try anything to relieve the pressure in my skull.

Chrome is badass, ladies and gentlemen. Improbable Island is running gobs and gobs faster for me. It is a huge (and I mean bloody gargantuan) difference!

Yes, I am getting a bit of white page-flashing every now and again, but compared to waiting for Firefox's lazy ass to load... it is not a bother in the least.

There you have it. I was reluctant to try it, but I'm ever-so-glad I did. In minutes, I've gone from "eww, yucky" to "oh my god! Best thing since sliced bread!"

Try Options > Under the Hood > Uncheck DNS Prefetching. And try not to alt-tab all the time.
It worked for me for a while... now Chrome is back to hating me again.
Chrome! I am trying so hard to love you why do you not love me back.

Er wow, left out the most important part of that, which is to say that that is how I (partially, temporarily) got rid of the white-flashy thing. Maybe it will work better for you! Whooooo knows.

So, I'm on my desktop on which I don't care about security.
I was grinding my Cleaning the Carcass skill in Kittania, mashing my P key and getting lots of "badnav" in the URL, when I thought about the Chrome recommendation.


OH MAH GAWRD


The pages load so much faster. I've gained a level of Cleaning the Carcass in half the real-world time that I did on Firefox. Holy crap.

I now fully advocate playing Improbable Island on Google Chrome.

I have fallen for the Chrome, and I really do recommend it to all of you. Yes, you. I can see you looking.

I do still get the white flashes, but they're slow enough that they don't terrify my eyes. Despite the slow flashes (uh...) the game runs so much faster on it. Now if I can only find an adblocking service...