Mozilla FireFox

[GreatCarouser]

Originally posted by Serenity:
I'm tempted to install Firefox but after reading several posts, links and troubleshooting info I am having second thoughts. It looks like there is a lot of tinkering to get it going to your satisfaction.

Has anyone had any problems besides the ones listed here? Will the installation alter or conflict with any IE6 or Windows files?

I feel like I am standing on the 5 meter platform of a pool, staring down at the water and wondering if I should take the plunge. Except it's not water, it's some other liquid that other users tell me is fine.

Serenity I run firefox and for the most part it has done well. Setup is easy and all your favorites will transfer. There are some extensions and toolbars as well as plug-ins that should be downloaded but it's easy and not too time consuming if you have broadband.
The only problem I've experienced is when I go to the 'Global Warming: religion' thread and try to read one of Crichton's speeches the window that opens is too small and I can't expand it or grab and drag it. Since I retained IE6 I open it and can access the info. I don't know if that's a FireFox problem or an interface problem with that website or perhaps its a problem isolated to my machine but for the most part I experience less difficulties with FireFox.

[Serenity]

I want to start using it but I don't want "the spouse" to have to use it if there is going to be some issue I'm going to have to fix.

When it imports settings, does it just copy them or does it "take them over"?

[GreatCarouser]

It copies them. I suggest you download it and put an icon on your desktop. Remember to respond 'no' to prompts to 'make Firefox the default browser' or 'have FireFox check to make sure it is the default browser' if there are any during the install. Whenever you use the internet use FireFox but leave IE as the 'default' browser until you are confident enough to switch. If you choose this method you'll have to remember to open Firefox whenever you 'surf' but you'll have left your machine 'as is' except for adding a program.

I find many websites I link to continue to open windows in IE even though I made FireFox the 'default' browser.

[Serenity]

OK, I'm browsing B.com using Firefox. The bottom of the screen states "Transferring data from www.beethoven.com" and the Now Playing window of the homepage is not displaying information (it's just white). The menus on the black bar (On-Air, Community, etc) display only the two submenus. They are all displayed here on the bulletin board. I think the Now Playing window is covering up the submenus. The Windows Media Player started up fine.

When I first installed Firefox, I immediately opened it up and tried to browse but it could not find any websites. I finally figured out I had to reboot and it started up just fine.

[Serenity]

I had to install the latest flashplayer and shockwave player to get the Now Windows to show info. The bottom of the screen still states that it is transferring data from this website.

[OperaTenor]

Hi Serenity,

If you click on the little circle of grey dots in the upper right hand corner of the FireFox browser page, it will take you to the FireFox help site. There is a list of plugins to download after installing FireFox. I think , as it is, you already have downloaded 2 out of 3.
There is other useful information there as well.

Further up this thread, C1sbc posted this link to speed up FF: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1299854/posts . I suggest not messing with it until you decide you like it well enough to keep it. I did what was suggested on the link, and it refreshes instantly now.

BTW, the "Transferring data..." message is constant. I believe that's because it's a dynamic process.

[Serenity]

Thanks! I've been exploring the Firefox browser and like the features I didn't have with Explorer.

My system froze a couple of times today while I was using MF.........
(Mozilla Firefox).......
........

It will take a while to go from driving an automatic to driving a stick shift.....

[GreatCarouser]

OT that's a great speed tip for broadband FireFox users, thanks!

[OperaTenor]

You're most welcome, though I was only the conduit.

[Serenity]

I performed the changes to pipelining and I don't really notice a difference. I've gotten a couple of Alert windows saying the session has timed out while switching pages on the board and logging on to e-mail; e-mail loaded half the page. I closed the browser, went into history and clicked on the mail page to reload. E-mail loaded completely and I was logged in....weird.

[OperaTenor]

It does time out occasionally loading sites that aren't completely FF friendly(B.com is getting better - thanks, Chris).

When entering passwords for the first time, it should have a large, friendly pop up window asking your preferences on how FF should treat this password in the future. If you tell it to always remember it for "this computer", it will automatically log you on whenever you bring up the program. Additionally, if you log yourself off, next time you bring up a log in screen, it will autofill your log on information as soon as the window comes up(mine does it for b.com).

I'd swear FF has some adaptive quality to it. It gets better as I use it. As for the pipeline changes, they take a little while to really come up to speed. Mine took a couple of sessions before it topped out at its present speed, and it's lightning fast compared to anything I'm used to.

I have a feeling two days from now you won't experience a fraction of the hiccoughs you see now.

[Serenity]

FX does seem to get faster with use! (The correct abbreviation according to their website is FX).
As for the password and text fill-in, I don't like those two features. I feel I should enter my password every time and it shouldn't remember previous text and searches. I think that may be a handy feature for hackers to exploit.

[piqaboo]

re passwords, "what she said".

[OperaTenor]

You should have been given the option to save the password or not. If, for some reason, it ended up saving it, you should be able to go back and undo it. I haven't actually done anything like that yet, but I'll check and see what's involved.

...

Okay, I just checked. On the upper toolbar, if you go to Tools, then Options, you will come to a screen for options with icons running down the left side. One of those icons is "Privacy", with a little padlock. Click on that, and you will see a list of check boxes on the screen. One will be for remembering passwords. If you uncheck it by clicking on it, it will clear all of the saved passwords it has remembered, and not ask in the future. If you want to simply clear your saved passwords one time, click on the "Clear" button on the right of the screen.

I perused the options a little, and that is where you can tell FX not to save text filling information as well. That goes for cookies, internet history, and all kinds of settings. It looks like it's more that can be tailored to suit your user style.

I'm still impressed.

Thanks for the correction on the abbreviation.

<small>[ 02-23-2005, 09:43 AM: Message edited by: OperaTenor ]</small>

[EJA]

I've tried using MF, but don't like it. The only good thing about it is tabbed browsing—that is an excellent innovation (that they got from Opera). In my opinion, MF is buggy and snotty. It takes a coon's age to start (I know that IE gets helped out with that at boot, but that's fine with me). It just plain has a bur in its you-know-where about requiring perfect, standards-compliant HTML, causing many sites not to load well. While I think that everyone should write perfect HTML, nobody does. IE has always done a great job of guessing what you meant to type and not choking on imperfect markup. MF is like that teacher you had in grammar school who was useless at everything else in life but always used perfect grammar. And like the grammar teacher, sometimes MF is even just plain wrong about what it thinks is an error. To cap it all off I think that MF has some looming security problems with plugins that I think could make us long for IE's ActiveX snafus. Before XP SP2, there may have been a reason to switch to MF, but IE6 with the XP SP2 treatment is still, in my opinion, the best browser available (and still free, too). It takes care of all popups—and gives you the opportunity to display any pop-ups that you actually do want to see—and has excellent security features (e.g. now it asks you not once twice if you want to install an ActiveX control and gives detailed information on what it is, who made it, and what it does). I do wish IE had tabbed browsing because I'll admit that with the 10-30 windows I typically have open, it can be hard to find the one I want.

If you absolutely can't bear to use a MS (or is that TF?) product, I recommend Opera. It is both fast and polite, and seems much less buggy than MF.

Right here and right now I'm going to say it: Open source is software socialism and has the same problems that socialism has always had: no motivation to excel.

[Serenity]

I think you speak from experience and are knowledgeable about computers. Looks like I'm going to have to do more research over time and continue to evaluate different browsers. I am not familiar with XP.

I have a desktop PC with Windows ME pre-installed and have been faithfully upgrading over the course of 4 years. I see it as driving a car. I just concentrate on driving and getting from point A to point B. I prefer not to tinker with the engine and may troubleshoot a little if I hear something knocking or making an odd noise.

When someone starts explaining the pros and cons of the design of your engine or compare one model car with another, it's easy to get lost in details. All I can do is read the brochures a little and go to different dealers to test drive a model in mind.

When I hear about the constant security issues like identity theft, spamming, protecting kids on the internet....I get worried about it like everyone else. Many fingers point to Microsoft, many hackers deliberately target Microsoft products for now because it controls most of the market.

All we can do as consumers is to do a little digging in our spare time, do a little test-driving, make a choice and cross your fingers that you don't get major recalls or other issues that make your buy non-functional. Eventually you build brand loyalty until you hear about innovative products like hybrid cars.

I'll keep in mind the security issues with Firefox. Thanks EJA

[piqaboo]

ME sucks. XP is ok.

Nothing in life is secure. At least in CA, if someone hacks the banks records, the bank has to inform us of it.

Outlook Express is crippled, Outlook is pretty cool. No one supports Outlook for their stuff (ISPs). Go figure.

[EJA]

Sorry about the tech-talk. Let me make it real simple: XP good. XP SP2 much better.

IE is not a perfect browser, and MS is not a perfect company, but this FireFox revolution is misguided in my opinion. The instigators of it are laregely fueled by a hatred of capitalism (this hatred stems from greed and covetousness) and the proletariat is motivated by a justified fear of the burgeoning dangers on the Internet. While a more secure browser would be helpful, what can be made by man can also be destroyed by man and what can be secured by man can be secured by man. In other words, I don't think a more secure browser will really solve this problem.

You can't solve a moral problem with technology. The Internet is a virtual community, and just as we have laws, police forces, and judges in our real communities, we need these in the virtual community of the Internet. Actually, I think we have all the laws that we need. What we lack most is a police force. Second to that is the problem of punishment. Hackers are often tracked down only to be slapped on the wrist and given 8 figure security consultation contracts. I think for some hackers corporeal punishment would be very appropriate, and for others financial liability. A real threat of pain, or spending the rest of your life paying for the damage you cause, would significantly dampen the thrill of hacking.

[piqaboo]

Somehow, I just never thought of software platforms as a stand-in for morality and economic views.

Some code is written because it can be - open platform is more flexible. The downside, it has less stringent standards. Some will write good code and some will write it poorly.
Not all of them hate capitalism. I rather doubt any of them do. In fact, in some parts of the world, greed and covetousness are synonyms for capitalism.

There's a fine line between sharing and hoarding that makes for success. Apple was too far to the hoarding side. Linux runs the risk of being too open. BillGates walked it very cleverly.

<small>[ 02-23-2005, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: piqaboo ]</small>

[EJA]

Eh, piq, my cursed terseness has failed to communicate once again. The moral problem has little to do with software platforms so far as I know. What I meant is that hacking (under which I include adware, spyware, malware, worms, spam, viruses, etc) is a moral problem. It's wrong and malicious behavior.

As for socialism, it doesn't have to be immoral, but it is stupid. There is for certain some good open source code out there, and I wouldn't say (or shouldn't have implied) that all of the open source community are socialists. I have no problem with open source code. What I resent are those who racously demand that all code be open source, proclaim it's superiority to all other things, and self-righteously decry those who have the gaul to require payment for their programming services as greedy capitalists. The grand irony is that it's usually some greedy capatilast who ultimately gets to pay for the open-source zealots' amusement. Sorry for venting, but I've had a belly full of this, "I'm morally superior because I write open source code" mindset.