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This post is dedicated to Firefox

Rob Lister

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This post is dedicated to Firefox.

I’ve been a Microsoft Internet Explorer user for years and years. The only other browser program I’ve ever used to surf the web was AOL’s fat client. Fat doesn’t really describe it though. Obese doesn’t even come close. Anyway, few would disagree that using the AOL client does not really constitute ‘surfing the web’ in any real sense of the word as it keeps you pretty much stuck within their domain — or at least that’s the way it was when I was using it.

Luckily, I got ‘off’ AOL quite early in my browsing career and switched to a far-better (imo), far cheaper, and far faster ISP – I believe it was EROLS but any of many would have been the same – and with that switch came no fat client, unless you consider MSIE a fat client. So, that’s what I’ve been using, IE.

I recently tried Firefox – on a bet – and I have no intention of turning back.

I’ve only been using Firefox for two weeks but so far I’ve established that it does pretty much what IE does but does it faster and better, and if web accounts are true, safer. I didn’t have to learn anything to make it act as I was used to and I only had to learn some simple things to make it act so much better. The best part about it for me is the text-sizing capability. In IE, it’s rather limited in scope and doesn’t work with certain pages. In FF, it appears completely adjustable from ridiculously large to absurdly small, regardless of the pages download protocol, all with the turn of the mouse wheel.

Also, IE crashed on me at least twice a week, sometimes so seriously that I had to reboot. FF has yet to do that (but perhaps it will next week). FF has options that IE does not, such as tabs. I like those a lot. Additionally, while pop-ups get through even IE’s new client, so far not a single one has made it past FF. In IE, I had installed a google and dictionary plugin and they tend to cut-out occasionally, causing me to either reload or, in some cases, reboot to get them back. Both came standard with FF and they haven’t failed yet.

The only drawback I can see with FF is that it doesn’t yet support all of the activeX controls that IE does. That may have something to do with the safety issue. It has yet to become a problem but if it does I can always just switch to back IE for a particular application. It’s not as if you can delete it, after all. So long as you have MS, you are pretty much stuck with IE. MS doesn’t like to be told no.

In closing, I heartedly recommend FF to other IE users.

Best of all, it’s free!

As much as this post must look like a paid advertisment, it isn't. I'm just so happy I switched, I thought I'd share.
 
I had tried Firefox too, but I finally fell in love with MyIE2. Faster, smaller, more robust, less buggy.

But the problem with small browsers is that you can't know when exactly evolution will run over them. It's very possible that while trying to catch up with the latest specifications, they'll produce one really buggy, vexing, unusable version.
 
It's no contest between Firefox and IE, purely because FF allows tabbed browsing.

Personally, I don't like the 'look' of FF compared to Opera. That's a better comparison. The only reason I use IE is that some sites only work with it (usually airline sites I find).

Still Firefox is pretty good. I've played around with the add-ons and they are just superb. BugMeNot is outstanding.
 
IE doesn't run on Linux. Firefox does.

Time I spend scanning for and cleaning out virusses and adware: zero.
 
Actually, IE runs under 'Wine', or in a virtual machine running windows under Linux just fine.

Of course, Mozilla's browser is perfectly adequate and is pre-installed on many Linux distributions.

Of course, you may as well just save yourself some time and start beating on your computer with a big hammer.
 
geni said:
Still can't get it through my uni proxy thing. I've got instructions on how to do it with netscape and IE but neither work on firefox.
Click to expand...

Under "connection settings" (tools->options->general->connection settins in 0.8) you can enter proxy server details directly or a "pac" file location (that contains more complex proxy rules). Both work fine for me.
 
Posted by Rob Lister

The best part about it for me is the text-sizing capability. In IE, it’s rather limited in scope and doesn’t work with certain pages. In FF, it appears completely adjustable from ridiculously large to absurdly small, regardless of the pages download protocol, all with the turn of the mouse wheel.
Click to expand...


I've been using it for just a couple days, and I agree this a pretty cool feature. My computer has been a pain in the ass font-size and screen res-wise, and quick click of ctrl + works wonders.

One thing - a couple of items I've added to the bookmark toolbar don't have any icon accompanying the text. No big deal, just aesthetically troubling. Anyone know a way to add an icon?
 
lofgoernost said:
One thing - a couple of items I've added to the bookmark toolbar don't have any icon accompanying the text. No big deal, just aesthetically troubling. Anyone know a way to add an icon?
Click to expand...

Not in firefox AFAIK. IE lets you add an icon to arbitrary links but firefox honours the "favicon" set by the web server you connect to. Most sites have these now (of the 11 tabs I currently have open only 2 have no icon).

If a site does have an icon set it still won't appear until you actually visit the site.
 
If you haven't already, check out the extensions available to FireFox - Adblock is a very popular one (and one I use extensively). Many others as well....
 
I upgraded to Firefox 1.0, but I'm disappointed that the Firesomething and BugMeNot extensions aren't available yet.
 
I alternate between Mozilla (Firefox) and Opera as my primary browsers.

Firefox is great; speedy, secure, and stable. It's a little resource-intensive when starting up, but otherwise pretty good.

Opera starts on a dime, but doesn't support half the stuff Mozilla does--and its Java support is still rather wonky.

IE...Well, I'm a web app. developer, I have to use it some of the time. But as a general browser, I don't go near it. It's slow, unstable, insecure as all get-out (as shown by the Microsoft "critical security flaw of the week" announcements), and generally unpleasant to work with. The only advantage is that you can download stuff like the Google toolbar to block pop-ups, but Mozilla and Opera both have Google functionality (and pop-up blocking) built-in from the get-go.
 
Can any Firefox user answer a question for me?

I create internet shortcuts on my desktop, but everytime I click them, two things happen:

1. a popup box appears indicating that it couldnt go to that address.

2. firefox pops up and goes to that address successfully anyway.

Any ideas on how to fix?
 
Did you reinstall? Check your proxy settings for something odd? Any third party 'firewall' stuff? Scan for spyware that's hooked into 'Explorer'?

Make a nice, fresh desktop shortcut and tell us exactly what it says and does.
 
geni said:
Still can't get it through my uni proxy thing. I've got instructions on how to do it with netscape and IE but neither work on firefox.
Click to expand...

Do you know the IP of the proxy server?

Go into the preferences and proxy options.

it will probably ask you for you username and password when you first use it. Let me guess, the proxy is MS.
 
evildave said:
Did you reinstall? Check your proxy settings for something odd? Any third party 'firewall' stuff? Scan for spyware that's hooked into 'Explorer'?

Make a nice, fresh desktop shortcut and tell us exactly what it says and does.
Click to expand...

Haven't installed yet, and no spyware has appeared when I try out IE.

I created a fresh shortcut on my desktop for www.time.gov, and when I clicked it, an error window appeared AND firefox popped up IN FRONT of the error window, with www.time.gov, working just fine. I have to minimize firefox to get rid of the 'error' message, which was:

"Cannot find the file 'http://www.time.gov/' (or one of its components). Make sure the path and filename are correct and that all the required libraries are available."

Googling the last 4 words and 'firefox' shows that at least one other person out there has run into the problem.
 
OK, I finally found it under Mozilla web site. The problem is in the DDE routine or something: the URL is checked before Firefox has a chance to come up. There is a folder in the Registry you can delete, and that fixes the issue (be sure to save that key first, before you delete it, just in case)
 
Since I started using Firefox, three months ago, I'm a better person. :)

My current theme is Nautipolis, and among the extensions I have BBCode, that adds an option to the right-click menu which puts in the tags for PHP-bases forums. I use this feature here all the time.

I'm also using Thunderbird as an email client. I had been using Eudora for 5 or 6 years, and I'm now so happy that I changed. Eudora crashed on me at least twice a week, TB never did. Much better in every respect, those few things are yet to be perfected.
 
bignickel said:
OK, I finally found it under Mozilla web site. The problem is in the DDE routine or something: the URL is checked before Firefox has a chance to come up. There is a folder in the Registry you can delete, and that fixes the issue (be sure to save that key first, before you delete it, just in case)
Click to expand...

So, all better?
 
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