badger

People keep talking about Firefox, and I decided to give it a go. I have to say, after using it for al my surfing for a weekend, apart from the tabs feature (which is reasonably useful, but I've more than happy to just have hundreds of windows open instead) I fail to see why everyone prefers it to IE so much...

Am I missing something really fundamental?

Tim

P.S. You know if you click a link, and it opens a new window automatically - is there anyway to make this open on a new tab instead of a new window - short of right clicking and clicking 'open in new tab'? And is it Netscape based or something? Because there's a lot of page I am finding tell me that I need to have IE installed to look at them. Which annoys me slightly.

Fox

I think FireFox is amazing...it beats the stuffing out of IE, especially for its added security- skeptics may say, "well if everybody used firefox then it would be just as bad." No. It doesn't work that way. ActiveX is a security hole in itself.

An easy way to open a link in a new tab is to click it with the mousewheel- that's always worked for me.

Volt-Schwibe

ok, here is my reason for using it, even though i am more comfortable with IE:

i installed a windows98 machine using 98 lite, i then used IE to go to 25 random sites.

i closed explorer, and ran my spyware scanners, and i was infected beyond "a tiny bit"
(Ad-Aware, Spybot, HiJackThis!, CoolWebShredder, and HouseCall virus scan are what i use)
i uninstalled IE (a function of 98 lite) and installed firefox, and went back to the same 25 sites.

i closed firefox, and ran my spyware scanners again, and guess what, not a single problem.

blackduck30

That is pretty impressive , 25 v's 0 , is firefox free ? and if so were can I download it from ?

DJ Specs

So far Ive been using the latest version, and It is great! I love it!

Fox

http://mozilla.com

xpspecial

Tip: I read on their site, that they have versions they call nightly builds, I recommend not downloading those as they are fresh builds put out that have not completely been tested by those who develop Firefox. Not necessarily unsafe, just that nightly builds are more likely to crash/work improperly as they are test/beta type releases. So it might be best to download the final version instead, in my opinion.

I have a question about the downloading process. When you download a new version of Firefox, do you have to remove the old version first, or can you just download the newest version and install it over the old version?

DumberDrummer

Yeah, its netscape based (or is netscape mozilla based? I can never remember.)...though after I installed Flash and Shockwave, I never had to open IE...I have to do a search for it when I want it, cause it seems to have disappeared. And if for some reason I need to load a page in IE, I have added a button to the right click menu entitled "View Page in IE" So everythings easy.

And a few other things
1) its skinnable
2)tabs are kewl
3)you can add modifications and other cool stuff
4)its waaaaaaaaay faster than IE....as a very recent dial-up user, I was lost waiting for pages to load in IE before I switched to firefox.

badger

i've also now installed a plugin to add the 'view in IE' button.

the opening in a new window thing, clicking the the scroll wheel is fine if you know its gona open in a new window - but if you just expect it to go to that page in the same window/tab, then its not much help.... I wondered if perhaps you could specify somewhere wether you wanted it to open a new window or a new tab...?

jgvernonco

No answer for you Badger...I'm still too new at this.

I had installed and played with Firefox before, but there were so many progs that weren't compatable (some of them comfort progs, for me), that I uninstalled it.

Recently, I did an upgrade install of W2K and, in the process of putting everything back together, had huge problems with IE. I asked myself, "Why do I put up with this? Do I have a sign on my back saying 'kick me'"?

Two weeks, now, with FF as my primary browser, and I am happy. I downloaded the IE plug-in, so I can correct the few page problems that I have encountered with a single click. My attitude is different, as well. I forego listing to WI Public Radio on my system because they require Real Player (as do many other govt sites, interestingly enough). If it take Real Player, I am not watching or listening, because I won't have that junk on my system. Now, if a page requires IE, and I can't clear it up, I just don't need that page.

I have tried most of the other browsers (including Opera), and I think Firefox is the most "brain-free" conversion from IE.

BTW, Badger, there are keyboard shortcuts for opening links in a new tab. I can't tell you about them, as I don't use them. If I want a new tab, I open it and work from there. I have found it convenient to use a second tab with a certain grouping of links, there, fo some of the projects I have been doing. I am not wading in windows looking for what I want; it is in that smaller group on the 2nd or 3rd tab...a bit like a filing cabinet.

I was in the office last Friday, and on the net. IE was soooo slow! Holy smokes, how did I ever put up with that????

Der Rabe

Well IMPO I have been using it for about 2 months and I so far would love to get away from IE but I have few problems with it so far. I get an error message "document contains no data" for for alot of websites I visit and can get to them with no problem with IE secondly it does not like flash files on my end and lastly it crashs for no reason when I am viewing certian forums. Othere then that I like the tab feature. so for now I use both

jgvernonco

There is a flash plug-in for it; you need to go to themes and extensions and look around:

http://update.mozilla.org/?application=firefox

There is also a "view page in IE extension.

Can't help you with the crashes, though.

Midnight Tech

BTW...the latest version is on the November MaxPC CD!

gervin100

I recommend FireFox, the official release is out FireFox 1.0 I use FireFox and thunderbird (email) as default; and it is alot faster than IE.

Hawaiian Boy

Lets just say that I'm ready to use Firefox at school.

Volt-Schwibe

well, not to get your hopes up, but i don't see any schools' administrator being savvy enough to know about how much safer firefox seems to be, or for that matter, i don't expect them to even know how to get it working in the first place.

seems to me that school admins are really useless, like the schools hire the first guy they see.

Fox

You hit the nail right on the head. Our school's sysadmin is so incompetent that he didn't bother to fix a recurring error message that happens on each logon, and left command prompt available in the start menu. Not only that, only the links to directories are deleted. Access is there, and I can get to Novell administrator right from my account.

badger

Guh. don't me started on school admins.

our old one knew nothing, and as a consequence the system never worked. We frequently couldn't access our work on the main server.

Our new admin knows far too much, and actually knows how to stop us doing things. Which is very annoying.

Our school system is soooo crap. I timed a computer the other day. from cold to me being logged in, took 9 minutes. If that was my home computer, i'd throw it out of the window. The only computers that have a bigger-than-14" monitor and run at any kind of speed are the teacher's computer in each IT room. and this has restricted logon, so only the people on a list (i.e. teachers) can log on to it. I'm trying to work out how to get my name on the list. I can get the computer to load up non-networked, but all the programs are loaded across the network, so although i can do stuff, I can't use any programs except the ones that come with windows. and if that was all I was going to use, I wouldn't need a half fast computer now would I?

ARRRRRRRRRRRG

Get so annoyed about how crap it all is.

And the school computers are incapable of letting me access gmail properly. I have to click on 'send' about 10 times before an email will send. Infuriating.

DumberDrummer

Our sysadmin sucks as well. I don't know exactly who it is, but whoever it is, he is such a control freak, he turned off the display panel, so we couldn't adjust the resolution. Then our login script, which barely ever works, takes about 3-4 minutes to load,

I'm not sure how big our connection is, but it has to be a lot more than we are getting. Either all the science teachers are constantly download off I-tunes, or he has it so screwed up that we can't even do anything.

Then we have XP running on Dell G1's with Celerons.

SSVegeta184

.

there is a way on FF to fix this problem. open up your browser and go to Tools->Options-> Tabbed Browsing -> then say Load Links in: New Tab. this should fix your problem. =)