Modern Browser Problems

[kenny1]

At the advice of just about everyone I finally have upgraded from IE6 which I've been quite happy with but which is apparently "hopelessly outdated", so I've been told repeatedly (even though it did what I wanted fine). Sooo, after spending a bunch of time trying to decide which direction to go, I've installed both IE8 and Firefox (I didn't even know you could run different browsers on the same PC). Well, admittedly I just installed them yesterday, but straight off they both have problems I don't know how to fix!!

IE8 is giving me grief as follows: One- I'm getting a constant window popping up called "view and manage your IE add ons". Every time I close it, it pops back up. I don't know how to make it go away, or what it wants me to do exactly. Two- IE8 seems to have a pop up blocker problem. Even when I turn the pop up blocker off it still continues to block every pop up, even if I set it to the lowest setting. In IE6 there used to be a handy option allowing you to select "allow pop ups temporarily" or even "always allow pop ups from this site" just by right clicking on the alert bar. IE8 doesn't have this that I can see. It does offer the option "turn pop up blocker off" but even if I select this option the pop up I need to use continues to be blocked. For example, one of my online banking sites security verification measures involves the use of a pop up menu where the user must select security information. Well, I can't log in to that banking site using IE8 because it will not allow those pop up menus to execute, no matter what I do. I even tried to add that site to my "allowed sites" but it still blocks all pop ups. The wierd and frustrating thing is that it continues to block the pop ups even after I turn the pop up blocker OFF!! So, that's been my experience with IE8 after my first day with it. (PS. I just tried to select "instant email notification" from the menu below and the pop up blocker won't allow the menu to work, even if I go and turn it OFF!!!)

As for Firefox, the immediate problems with that are: One- it doesn't have a favorites menu. It has something else called bookmarks, but it changed the order of all my links and folders, organizing them alphabetically by default. This is not a huge problem of course, I could probably get used to it. Two- a bigger problem is that I use a program called Roboform where I store all my passwords and such, so that when I visit various sites, Roboform will pop up and offer to fill in logins and other forms automatically. I have come to rely on Roboform to do this task and I rarely have to remember any user names or passwords in particular. The handy thing also about IE is that it includes Roboform in the toolbar options so I can have it there handy at all times. With Firefox however, not only is Roboform not available as a toolbar, the pop up function does not work either, so basically Roboform appears to be incompatible with Firefox, at least at first glance. Further to that with toolbars, Firefox only appears to have 2 toolbars available, Navigation and Bookmarks. I've played with the customise feature but with no success as yet. But the biggest drawback so far with Firefox is not being able to use Roboform.


These issues alone are enough to make neither of these browsers attractive to me if they cannot be rectified. Any advice appreciated.

Cheers,
Kenny