Which Browser Should I Use?

ISP is optimized to run in Firefox browser in desktop computer browsing environments.  (See below for mobile device browsing.) We recommend it because our software was built to run on Firefox. Firefox is designed with the features that best serve ISP, and Firefox can perform more functions quickly and successfully than other browsers running on hardware with the same specifications.

We chose Firefox because of its particular feature set. While Google Chrome works fine for ISP in most scenarios, Firefox handles the protocols that ISP employs exactly as intended. We do a lot with dynamic content, and Firefox handles it better. Firefox also has the ability to right-click anywhere on the browser and take a full-page screenshot:

1. Right-click anywhere on your browser
2. Select Take Screenshot
3. In the window that appears, select the Save Full Page option

You can click here to download Firefox.

Chrome has some limitations when it comes to some of our software, including the inability to handle large amounts of information loading onto one page. Something like an all-time report of transactions in an account seems to be too much for Chrome to handle.

An exception to our recommendation that you use Firefox as your browser in ISP is if you are working on an iOS device (iPad, iPhone). In this scenario, we recommend using Safari (the native browser) rather than Firefox. If you are working on a Mac (desktop, laptop), however, we recommend using Firefox rather than Safari.

Why Firefox?

(Why ISP recommends using Firefox with our software)

1. ISP is optimized to run on Firefox.

   There are many options from which to choose when it comes to browsers.  All of them accomplish the same broad goals – viewing content and allowing interaction with applications on the Web.  Just like different human languages allow us to express the same ideas using different sounds, words and rules (grammar and syntax), each web browser does the job using different approaches.  All browsers are equal, but all browsers are not identical.  ISP chose to write our software with one browser’s performance in mind, to ensure that our users’ experience is positive, consistent and deliverable. 

2. Browsers are not all the same.

   The internet operates on a set of standards shared among the developers of browsers, designers and builders of websites, internet service providers and the operators of the hardware that store and connect it all. The standards are determined by a large community of interested parties, which allows everyone who wants to produce, facilitate or consume content on the Internet to know the standard operating procedure.

   That said, not every site employs every feature available for publishing or distributing content, and most importantly not every browser engages every possible supported feature for retrieving and displaying content to the end user.  That’s why browsers have many features in common, but occasionally differ.

   That’s also why you may notice that the same site looks or behaves differently depending on the browser you are using. For better or worse, this has to do with what features that browser has been designed to support, and how that browser is designed to engage those features.

3. ISP makes purposeful use of Firefox’s unique feature set.

   ISP knows what Firefox’s features are. We build ISP to take advantage of what Firefox handles reliably, and not to employ features it doesn’t have or handles poorly.  That’s how we can ensure usability and stability to our clients.  The browser we recommend is the one we know. It’s the one we test in, and the one that guarantees your experience is exactly what we intended it to be.

4. Firefox does more with the same resources.

   We recommend Firefox for our web application not only because we can guarantee a standard product experience, but because Firefox behaves more efficiently and stably than on any other browser.  For ISP’s purposes Firefox maximizes what can be done with any hardware configuration.  Firefox tends to consume less memory and processing power than other browsers performing similar functions.  This translates into fewer errors loading pages and shorter times to display report results or load pages.  Firefox returns fewer memory errors than other browsers, even on computers with very modest onboard RAM. 

ISP + Firefox = more performance from every computer.

Please note, these recommendations are strictly regarding running ISP’s web application.  For personal browsing, choose a browser that you like and that meets your needs, even if it is different from what you use with ISP.