“What browser to use during online transactions?”

I was unable to post for almost a week and there is a reason for that. A happy reason. Uptill now, TechExplorer was hosted on blogger platform and we recently made a switch to BlueHost and now using WordPress as our CMS. During the whole process I frequently dealt with online money transactions and which made this post possible. I made some apparent conclusions on what browsers one should use while dealing with sensitive online transactions.

Although most browsers have evolved themselves and are quite capable for online transactions and the security measures that come alongwith, here are the top 3 browsers one should use irrespective of what your favorite one is.

#3 – Opera 10.x

Opera is certainly one of the highly anticipated and much loved browser with great features. However, I felt the browser being a little slow while making online transactions. It takes quite a time to load a page during a transaction and urges you to hit the refresh button again (which is a terrible thing to do while the transaction is in process). Moreover, I felt that Opera is a bit tacky in handling and displaying Ajax content that reloads a specific content on your webpage. So, Opera goes at #3.

#2 – Mozilla Firefox 3.x.x

My personal favorite. Mozilla Firefox is unarguably the best browser I have used. But when it comes to online transactions, it ‘sometimes’ behaves unexpectedly. The worst thing is, you never know when. We know that Mozilla Firefox is notorious for being resource hungry and chokes your computer if lot of tabs are open or if an addon misbehaves. This can ruin your work. Otherwise, the transaction itself is a smooth process in Firefox. You just have to be a bit careful on opening multiple instances of Firefox windows and tabs while doing some important work. Hence, #2 for Mozilla Firefox.

#1 – Internet Explorer 7+

Not so happy about ranking IE as #1 but when it comes to compatibility with almost all websites, specifically the ones involving money transactions, IE is an out-n-out winner. The reason lies not in the capability but the popularity of IE. Web devs design their websites keeping the compatibility with IE at the top of their list. This is reason enough to use IE when dealing with online transactions. Moreover, it is my personal experience that certain websites of banks and financial institutions are rather shoddy and can only be used with IE if you seek a glitch free experience. Hence, #1 for IE.

Finally, it’s needless to say your browser should be up-to-date with a good antivirus running on your computer while performing an online transaction.