Firefox nae more

[richardm]

I've used Firefox for a good few years but lately I've found little annoyances creeping in:

• It would forget passwords that I'd like it to remember
• In threads with pictures it wouldn't redisplay quoted images
• Various things stopped working, e.g. on my Gmail account the Quick Contacts list broke

And assorted similar little things that were not fixed by reinstalling and were increasingly getting on my nerves. So I decided to give Opera another go. And once I found out how to put the tabs in their proper place below the address bar and use adblocking, I found that I was pretty content with it, so far anyway. Petty irritations still exist, for example I'd prefer it if the back button greyed out when I could go no further back and I quite liked Firefox's quick list of previous pages on that same button. I'm sure I'll find other things I'm missing because, well, you always do don't you?

I daresay that with some effort I could have found out what was ailing Firefox, but this seems to be a reasonable replacement.

I mention all this because in the past I've made some quite rude noises about Opera, and want to put the record straight from the outset

Edit: I tried Safari a while ago and found it to be a rather unpleasant place to be. I may try it again in three years and post a paean here

 

[Oliver]

Traitor!!!

But kidding aside - I love Firefox and never experienced any problems like the ones you mentioned...

 

[richardm]

Traitor!!!

[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/11107451f2221abd8c.gif[/qimg]

But kidding aside - I love Firefox and never experienced any problems like the ones you mentioned...

Neither did I for many years. But they started to creep in, and finally I decided enough was enough. Goodness knows what caused it.

 

[Jekyll]

I've used Firefox for a good few years but lately I've found little annoyances creeping in:

• It would forget passwords that I'd like it to remember
  [*]In threads with pictures it wouldn't redisplay quoted images
• Various things stopped working, e.g. on my Gmail account the Quick Contacts list broke

This one is down to you, I think.
If you go to user control panel, then edit options and scroll down to miscellaneous options, there should be an option "Convert to [URL] in quotes?"

I've no idea what's causing the other problems though. Have you got javascript turned on?

 

[richardm]

I spent a few moments searching Firefox before realising that you meant the forum user control panel! I would have thought that if that was the root of the problem then it would affect Opera the same way and it doesn't - but I will check: The option is set to "Convert to " but it isn't displaying the hyper...mpletely stuffs up and lose my rag with it :D

 

[Jekyll]

I spent a few moments searching Firefox before realising that you meant the forum user control panel! I would have thought that if that was the root of the problem then it would affect Opera the same way and it doesn't - but I will check: The option is set to "Convert to " but it isn't displaying the hyper... gremlins in the machine then. Never mind. :p

 

[Ducky]

richardm, have you tried camino? It is a gecko-engine based browser with many of the options and bells and whistles of firefox that seems to me to be pretty rock solid. I don't know if they will be able to in the future, and I think they are working on this, but the only drawback is not being able to use mozilla/firefox plugins.


ETA: It's mac only. I'm not sure if you're mac or not, since there are windows versions and mac versions of all the browsers you mention.

 

[six7s]

ETA: It's mac only. I'm not sure if you're mac or not, since there are windows versions and mac versions of all the browsers you mention.

Must be mac - who else would use use Safari? Yeah... I know... Safari for PC... WTF?

@RichardM: I suggest a fresh install of Firefox anyhoo

I'm still using Opera but find that Firefox is catching up in the speed department and, with a few (v small) JS and Flash blocking add-ons, FF is much more user-friendly than Opera when surfing to new (untrusted-as-yet) sites... I rarely 'surf' from Opera now... and using Google Desktop Search is a pain the asre to use in Opera...

Macintosh Web Browsers: Past and Present

This list contains only publicly available browsers that work on Apple Macintosh hardware running any version of any Macintosh operating system.

I have been maintaining this selection of Mac browsers for years. All entries made in more recent years are dated, with newer updates listed first. This means that more frequently updated browsers will more often appear at the top, but what the heck, it's just a silly list. The comments for each browser reflect my own personal opinions and assessments.

Feel free to copy any information from this page.

 

[a_unique_person]

I have a recurring problem of Firefox going into a loop when I have many tabs open.

 

[six7s]

What sort of loop?

Which version of FF?

PC, Mac or other?

How many tabs?

 

[kiwimac]

I prefer Opera to Firefox.

 

[baron]

The only problem I've had with FF is that it sometimes messes up with the Google Toolbar. Then again, I don't need the Google Toolbar because there are about 100 add-ons that do the same thing or better.

Heh, only last week a colleague of mine recommended Opera. I said it was crap but he said no, this is a new version. The first site I went to was MS Virtual Earth (maps.live.com), one of the most popular sites on the web... and it refused to display the map! Just a search box and a blank screen!

 

[a_unique_person]

What sort of loop?

Which version of FF?

PC, Mac or other?

How many tabs?

Various PCs, with XP, current fixes and patches. Say three or more tabs open. Just appears to go into a hard loop, been doing that for a while.

 

[moopet]

What sort of loop?

Which version of FF?

PC, Mac or other?

How many tabs?

Probably an "infinite binary loop".
I hear you can get those from reading the wrong email!

 

[GeeMack]

I've used Firefox for a good few years but lately I've found little annoyances creeping in:

One of my pet peeves with Firefox (as well as with its predecessor Netscape), is when saving an image from the web it changes the filename. If I try to save "some_image.gif" it renames it "some_image.gif.pbm" or "some_image.gif.dib". I could care less about the esoteric implications of the real file format, or some technical naming convention that only the geeks give a crap about, etc. Yes, I'm actually somewhat of a geek myself, and I still don't give a crap. If the file's name out on the web is "something.gif", I want it to save as "something.gif". Haven't been able to save an image file in several years without going through the effort of changing its name back to what it is really named in real life by the creator of the file.

 

[six7s]

Probably an "infinite binary loop".
I hear you can get those from reading the wrong email!

Information About Electronic Hoaxes and Scams

This web page contains information about hoaxes, chain letters and phishing scams on the Internet.

How to Recognize a Hoax
Probably the first thing you should notice about a warning is the request to "send this to everyone you know" or some variant of that statement. This should raise a red flag that the warning is probably a hoax. No real warning message from a credible source will tell you to send this to everyone you know.

Next, look at what makes a successful hoax. There are two known factors that make a successful hoax, they are:

* (1) technical sounding language.
* (2) credibility by association.​

If the warning uses the proper technical jargon, most individuals, including technologically savvy individuals, tend to believe the warning is real. For example, the Good Times hoax says that "...if the program is not stopped, the computer's processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop which can severely damage the processor...". The first time you read this, it sounds like it might be something real. With a little research, you find that there is no such thing as an nth-complexity infinite binary loop and that processors are designed to run loops for weeks at a time without damage.

 

[Dogbreath]

The only time I have had problems with Firefox is that it would occasionally lock up. Like the looping mentioned above. I eventually narrowed it down to Flash. I installed flash blocker and have not had the problem since. Flash blocker allows you to control when the flash item is played. I had this problem on both windows xp and linux. It is kind of interesting to see how ubiquitous flash has become.

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

The only time I have had problems with Firefox is that it would occasionally lock up. Like the looping mentioned above. I eventually narrowed it down to Flash. I installed flash blocker and have not had the problem since. Flash blocker allows you to control when the flash item is played. I had this problem on both windows xp and linux. It is kind of interesting to see how ubiquitous flash has become.

I use Firefox mainly for the great adblocking and especially the Flashblock addon ...

Charlie (CoolIris is pretty cool too) Monoxide

 

[six7s]

CoolIris is cool... esp as it's easy to toggle on or off... I often find it annoying

Flashblock does deliver what it promises ... but that is only one thing... NoScript does that and much, much more

The NoScript Firefox extension provides extra protection for Firefox, Flock, Seamonkey and others mozilla-based browsers: this free, open source add-on allows JavaScript and Java execution only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site). NoScript optionally blocks Flash and other potentially exploitable plugins too, and provides the most powerful Anti-XSS protection available in a browser.

Usable security

Operating NoScript is really simple. When you install NoScript, JavaScript, Java (and possibly other executable contents) are blocked by default. You will be able to allow JavaScript/Java/... execution (scripts from now on) selectively, on the sites you trust

Java™, Flash® and other plugins

While its primary aim is preventing malicious JavaScript from running, NoScript can effectively block Java™, Flash® and other plugins on untrusted sites. Applets, Flash movies/application, Quicktime clips and other content won't be even downloaded from sites where you consider them annoyances, saving your bandwidth and increasing your navigation speed

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

Thanks for the heads-up on NoScript. I feel very Republican when I cruise the internet (the fear of anything non-Republican).

It amazes how people feel it's a valid way of either scamming money (phishing, key loggers etc) or making someone else's internet experience miserable (malicious virii, trojans, web pages).

Charlie (we don't need no steenking scripts) Monoxide