Win 8/8.1 Too many browsers?

[trevortron]

As title suggests- is it possible to have too many browsers installed, causing things to slow down?
Reason I ask is that for a good while I had a pretty flaky internet connection, and installed various browsers to try & find the fastest and most stable one. I am now finding that some site don't run as smoothly as one might expect (Gmail, FB for ex.) yet others are fine. (I also felt that Chrome was becoming bloated & laggy).
I ended up sticking with Maxthon Cloud browser, but in the meantime had installed Opera, Epic, Safari, Mozilla (maybe even others I can't recall) so was wondering if they can all co-exist happily on one system or if there are likely to be conflicts. One thing I noticed is that certain sites (Speedtest for example) will run fine on some browsers, whereas others (Opera for example) ask for Adobe Flash player to be updated. So does each browser need its own version of flashplayer?

PC is an HP i7 with 12GB RAM running 8.1 x64

 

[pck786]

Chrome has its own inbuilt flash player. Where as Firefox and IE you need to download the relevant flash player.

 

[Peter1287]

Chrome uses the System Certificates not it's own.
And some Flash Content is now blocked.
Java ist blocked too.

 

[tamra]

I'm using 4 different browsers (Chrome, Opera12, Opera, Firefox) for years on one system and had no problems. It would be new to me, that different browsers have an influence on each other like antivirus software.

 

[Napster]

I'm using 4 different browsers (Chrome, Opera12, Opera, Firefox) for years on one system and had no problems. It would be new to me, that different browsers have an influence on each other like antivirus software.

why on earth would you want 4 browsers on your one system I have always used what comes with the OS never really had any issues.

 

[idrob]

They all have their advantages and disadvantages; I use several of them as well

But one I’ve never used is Microsoft Edge and I'm not sure if I ever will

 

[tamra]

why on earth would you want 4 browsers on your one system I have always used what comes with the OS never really had any issues.

Private PC:
My default browser is Opera for over 10 years now. Due to the changes from Opera12 to the "new" Opera (>=15) some beloved features are missing (tab stacking, integrated notepad). So I use both versions, the new one mainly for an online game (Shakes & Fidget), which requires Adobe Flash. Flash is deactivated for Opera12. Chrome is also used for the game, because you can't open 2 instances of the game in same browser. Firefox is not always open, but sometimes I need it for some webpages I had problems in other browsers.

On my workstation at work I also use 4 different browser due to testing purposes. Every new release of our internal web application has to be tested.

 

[iggyc]

i use firefox, and if i have more than three pages open, i always get the firefox is not responding, sits like that for a good few minutes, very annoying

 

[trevortron]

i use firefox, and if i have more than three pages open, i always get the firefox is not responding, sits like that for a good few minutes, very annoying

By "3 pages" do you mean 3 tabs? Or 3 separate instances of FF? The browser I use most of the time is Maxthon, I can have anything up to 20 tabs open at once! And it remembers the pages when I shut down so I can pick up where I left off without having to leave the PC switched on overnight. (I know other browsers can be configures to do this too but I do like its snappy feel).
@Napster- I use multiple browsers as some are better than others for different reasons. For instance, Maxthon is quick and has good functionality (as well as the reason listed above, I can also sign in from a different PC and see a list of pages open on the first PC) BUT certain pages don't display well or even work (Webs.com pagebuilder for instance)- in which case Chrome usually comes to the rescue or, worst case scenario IE! I also like Opera as it blocks those annoying cookie warnings.

 

[iggyc]

@trevortron, i have 3 or 4 different pages open at a time. i.e my mail, facebook, this forum, and maybe amazon or ebay, when i try to do something on say amazon, the page whites out, and at the top it says firefox not responding

 

[trevortron]

@trevortron, i have 3 or 4 different pages open at a time. i.e my mail, facebook, this forum, and maybe amazon or ebay, when i try to do something on say amazon, the page whites out, and at the top it says firefox not responding

I have FF installed on my system (Win10 x64) and, although I never use it, I just tried it out- I had 10 tabs open- FB, eBay, N2YO, Gmail and a couple of others and, although it felt a bit laggy compared with Maxthon (which I normally use) it didn't crash- I didn't expect it to TBH. Your issues might be solved with a de- and re-installation, or it may be something else on your system upsetting it. I'm not about to start offering suggestions, I'm not knowledgeable enough.

 

[Captin]

I have used Firefox for years, since the netscape navigator days, never had a problem at all. I always have a few addons installed too. Through all Windows versions.

I regularily use 15-20 tabs at the same time when comparing specs/prices of gear etc... and only find a little slowdown but it has never crashed or locked up.

I like that they have disabled flash as I hate flash and java so I do not install flash. If a webpage needs it and doesnt work then so be it I'll find another page.

There are quite a lot of browsers available that are based on Internet Explorer's trident engine (which is still available in Windows 10, you don't have to use edge which is actually an app). Maxthon being one of them, and I don't think they are as secure as browsers with their own engine, like Firefox, Chrome & Opera.

If i need to use a website that only works with Internet Exploere (like my CCTV box) I use IETab which is an addon for Firefox, and the page works.