Well let me just say straight up that I do not trust Google. This could be the reason why I like Firefox. Also, the extensions that it has for developers is amazing. I like the firebug extension the best. It helps me find new ideas for my own websites. Also, it has become quite fast. I remember the days of the first Firefox and it was quite slow. Their framework has become quite amazing and so has the speed. Yes, there are other web browsers that do certain things better but Firefox has been great for me.
Another thing Firefox has going for it is the fact that it is a standards compliant browser. It is up to speed with CSS3 and HTML5 whereas Internet Explorer is still horrible with both. I realize that neither of these have become a standard but they are still useful, especially for web developers.
Well I think that is all I really do have to say on this fact but if anyone has anymore thoughts then go ahead.
Justin
Can you state your reason why you don't trust Google? I'm no Google fanboy but I think Google is better than other big companies out there, way better. But I do hate Microsoft. No questions asked.
Anyway, for me I like Chrome/Chromium, it's way faster than the other browsers. Firefox is fast but very slow on loading especially if you have a lot of add-ons. It would check for updates online first before you can actually use it to surf the net. IE starts up fast, but loads pages horribly.
For me the cons and pros of Chrome are it has the fastest page load time than other browsers (take note: page load time, the time it takes to display a page, not download the page). The interface is clean and non-intrusive. It is also a standards compliant browser with support for CSS3 and HTML5 tags, since it uses Webkit Layout Engine. The Javascript engine is very fast, very good for dynamic sites. The bad side is that it is not that customizable. The themes can only change the color/texture of the window and not redesign it. The plugins are just a Javascript implementation and no way dwells into the low-level structure of Chrome. But still, if I'm going to surf the net, performance is better than looks.
Regarding Firefox, I like it because of its customizability. When I want to download stuff, I use its plugins like DownThemAll to act as a Download Manager that can simultaneously download a file by downloading it in multiple parts. It is also my primary browser when I want to access FTP. FireFTP is way better than other stand-alone clients. Other plugins can detect and download videos from YouTube without installing anything to your OS. Themes are great! It makes Firefox not look like Firefox! Great when you want some compliment to your eye-candy desktop. I don't see any major con with this browser except that Chrome surpasses it with performance.
About IE8/9, I'm not sure what advantage it will offer you against other browsers, aside from its tight integration with the Microsoft website. ActiveX plugins are sometimes required to check for updates to your Windows installation right from your browser. As for the cons, the rendering engine is VERY quirky. Cannot render correctly complex websites. A conditional CSS code is usually needed to make other websites render correctly. Downloading files is horrible, the GUI still looks like the 90s. Aside from that, I use this browser just for testing purposes. When I want to make sure my website displays correctly, I use IE.
