Firefox about to get IE on its knees

[BrutusMaximus]

I still use Netscape. I would go to great lengths to avoid Bill Gates products

Holy shit man, you're missing half the Internet if you're using Nutscrape...........please try firefox :)

We had a discussion about this in Clarity's computer thread. I dont have a problem at all with Firefox, but I dont see a reason to stop using IE until IE fails to do something for me, which it never has.

 

[ArtilleryBuck]

I just downloaded Firefox and am using it now. I haven't noticed much difference yet.

**update** I have had to download 2 plugins so far. (java and flash) I know I already had those with IE. Why don't they work with Firefox?

 

[MolGenBuckeye]

**update** I have had to download 2 plugins so far. (java and flash) I know I already had those with IE. Why don't they work with Firefox?

I'm not an expert on it, but I believe Firefox uses a different model for its plug-ins. This brings up one of the only significant shortcomings of Firefox - some places that write plug-ins only bother to write them for IE. So, it's useful to keep a copy of IE around for the occasional website that's IE only. (Not that you have a choice in the matter on Windows, really.)

That said, I am a happy Firefox user for 99% of my internet use. Also check out Mozilla Thunderbird if you're unhappy with Outlook/Outlook Express.

 

[BrutusMaximus]

Actually IE needs both of those plugins.......you probably just dont remember installing them. Windows does include Java Virtual Machine, but since the whole M$ Monopoly thing, they cant force it on people anymore, so you need to use like Sun Java nowadays.

 

[Dryden]

I would go to great lengths to avoid Bill Gates products.

Amen. I haven't voluntarily touched a Windows product at length in more than four years. I switched to Red Hat Linux permanently in 2001 and have never looked back. I can promise you, there is nothing available in the MS XP/IE/Office trifecta that cannot be accomplished with any-OS/Firefox/OpenOffice.

You cannot imagine how wonderful it is to use a PC for four years without ever having crashes, data loss, or an "accepted" practice that 'when things seem slow, just reformat & reinstall.' Not having to buy any software in the last four years has been pretty nice, and having an OS that flawlessly tolerates a motherboard+processor swap and reboots without a hitch is reason alone to dump Windows.

 

[BrutusMaximus]

Cant disagree with you on the motherboard swap comment at all. However i will give MS props on one thing. They made a HUGE improvement when releasing XP. That might sound crazy given all the spyware and virus probs, but as far as stablity goes, I can honestly say I have never had any crashes, etc with XP.

 

[sandgk]

Cant disagree with you on the motherboard swap comment at all. However i will give MS props on one thing. They made a HUGE improvement when releasing XP. That might sound crazy given all the spyware and virus probs, but as far as stablity goes, I can honestly say I have never had any crashes, etc with XP.

You lucky devil.

As for Firefox - I wonder if the 25% implied use-rate is lower than actual use-rate.

I know I had Firefox configured for the longest time to report as IE so that the wife could get into sites that demanded that piece of crap, bloated junk as the renderer of pages.

One thing for sure, I don't get lock-ups in FF like IE does / did. Something about the typically funky way that M$oft handles memory.

 

[BrutusMaximus]

Well remember it also has alot to do with the machine itself. If I install XP on some E-machine piece of shit or something, it's going to run like ass and crap out alot more.

 

[Dryden]

Cant disagree with you on the motherboard swap comment at all.

I honestly would never have believed it if I hadn't done it, twice now. My current PC started as a PIII/600 w/ RH 7, was upgraded to a P4/1.7 w/ RH 9, and is now a P4/3.0E w/ FC3+SMP all while keeping the same core installation. I replaced my primary hard drive once, going from a 22Gb to a 120Gb, a couple of years ago, but even that was done with a few commands from the console without requiring either a fresh install of the OS or some $50+ software program to move the data.

I do have to maintain Windows PCs at work as well as at home, so I will agree that XP is leaps and bounds better than anything MS has done since probably Windows 98 SE. My girlfriend is learning Linux, but she still has XP on her desktop and laptop, and I've got a Windows XP PC at my desk that I keep around to manage my two iPods through iTunes. All that said though, XP is still quirkier than my DOS/Win 3.1 machine that I keep around to play old classics like Doom, Duke Nukem, Carmaggedon, and Rise of the Triad on.

 

[BrutusMaximus]

XP is still quirkier than my DOS/Win 3.1 machine that I keep around to play old classics like Doom, Duke Nukem, Carmaggedon, and Rise of the Triad on.<!-- / message --><!-- sig -->

I still play them to this day. Believe it or not, Doom and Duke both run on XP if you run em in compatability mode. As well as the original Quake. Havent played ROTT in a LONG time. I was actually playing Wolf 3d the other day :)

I miss 3.1. I was so good with it, I could make it do everyting that Windows 95 users said it couldnt do......and I loved every minute of it. Same with DOS actually. I use linux because my job requires me to do it. Other than that, I wont touch it. Dont like it, too difficult to do the simplest of tasks on. I guess I have been stupified by Windows maybe.

 

[Golferdow01]

I've found the worst shortcoming with Firefox is that I can't access my ftp server via it and still must use IE for the remote connections...not sure if there is some setting somewhere to fix that. Other than that Firefox is definitely the way to go...but hows come some of those blocked popups continue to reappear?

 

[BuckeyeNation27]

I hope all you firefox users know about the extensions you can download for it. I have downloaded a built in mp3 player, weather forecast, countdown (93 days, 0 hours, 12 minutes, 50 seconds Till OSU Football), bandwidth tester, dictionary search (usefull for those who dont know what an ombudsman is), autocopy, image zoom (for small porn pictures), colorzilla (eyedropper....awesome for matching school colors when making wallpapers), mapit (use the mapquest engine to get a map of any address), and adblock (block ANY image).

you can also download themes. somebody needs to make a BP firefox theme.

 

[sandgk]

Well remember it also has alot to do with the machine itself. If I install XP on some E-machine piece of shit or something, it's going to run like ass and crap out alot more.

BrutusMaximus has now graduated from the Psychic Computer Help Desk!

Twas a piece 'o' crap E-Machine that would constantly hose up with IE and XP and all the other lttle gizmo e-crap software ding dongs and add-ons.

The E-machine is now an official door-stop (in which capcity it joins an older Acer machine.

Took the XP (for which I'd already paid), new case, new MB, new Athlon processor vid card, 2 drives, TVR card, 2 dual optical (DC/DVD) drives and extra memory. Built my own. Installed XP, installed SP-2 -- no probs till No. One son turned off some security --- to "improve" his KazaA use :-( Leading to heavy viral/malware population.

Which led to complete re-install (lucky me, most everything except the KazaA shit was backed up). I did scorched earth -- total reformat. And since then zero problemo -- though I sense the need to re-optimize the sytem soon, dragging ass on start-up.

 

[Savante]

I love the mouse gestures on FireFox, too. You can set it up so that any mouse gesture does almost anything. I browse my sites with one click forward and back, open up new tabs by holding the RMB and then moving the mouse up, etc. It's a lot of fun. Extension rule.

 

[CleveBucks]

http://www.frsirt.com/exploits/

List of 0-day exploits. A few for Firefox popping up in the past couple weeks.