Firefox vs Internet Explorer

[jordan]

I would keep IE around just because there are some things that need it. Do you run Adblock with Firefox?

Like popups?

[jordan]

http://www.litepc.com/download.html

Scroll down and look at them.

What exactly is this for Cap'n, me or something else?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Uninstalling IE, that's what it's for.

[Sayonara]

Like popups?

For windows update.

[inamorata]

Ive downloaded Firefox, and am going to run that now, I figure its about time I caught up with the rest of the "in the know" world.

 

Thankyou for the advice anyhow, much appreciated

[5614]

i know this will cause much anger and arguments, but i shall post my point of view any way

 

basically, i know that firefoz is better, however i havent actually ever experienced any problems with IE myself, therefore i have never seen any reason for me personally to switch to firefox, even though it may be better, IE has always dont the job.

 

now is the windows SP2 comes with an ad-blocked for IE, that leaves firefox with not that many advantages, i mean, there's secutiry, but i've never had any security problems with IE, so is there any need for me to switch?

 

is there any proof of which one loads the pages quicker?

[Sayonara]

If you think blocking pop-ups is the only advantage of Firefox, then you obviously have not read any of the many many posts on the subject, nor bothered to look at Mozilla's specs for the browser, so I don't see why we should waste time posting the same information again.

[5614]

what i meant was that, soon IE will have a pop-up blocker, i have no security issues with IE or any other issues, so is there a point in updating?? the thing i was thinking of was some people have said it is slower and some faster at loading pages, so i asked if there was proof?

 

where can i find a link to the spec?

[Sayonara]

Right. You do have security issues, you just don't know about them. For instance, having a browser that allows several simple methods of running arbitrary code on your machine is what I like to call "a great big stonking mother beast of a hole". IE also allows registry changes to be silently committed without your knowledge, which cannot in any fashion be described as a "good thing" and occurs more often than you'd expect.

 

The biggest reason why Firefox owns IE like the little bitch it is, is because it uses a correctly structured [acr=Document Object Model]DOM[/acr], and correctly interprets XHTML and CSS in a fashion that was intended to result from the W3C recommendations. That makes it, like Opera, not just a good browser, but a good example of a standard platform to code for. IE is just a really bad joke by comparison.

 

IE is one of the slowest browsers because its rendering engine makes work for itself (afaik browser "speed" is a measure of how fast the browser can render the content after downloading it). This is related to the non-compliancy issue. IE allows all sorts of bad and sloppy code to display because it is non-compliant, which takes up extra rendering time for the end-user, encourages further sloppy coding, and makes having international standards fairly pointless.

Opera is probably the fastest - unless you count the text browsers that ignore graphical content - and Firefox/Mozilla is just a touch slower than Opera. Google for browser speed benchmark tests.

 

The main feature you will notice immediately is that Firefox has tabbed browsing. New windows are opened in pages within the parent page, instead of opening a whole new window. This saves desktop and task bar space. Each sub-window has a tab giving the name of the page - you can cycle through tabs using Ctrl+Tab (like you would with, say, different Excel spreadsheets), or click on the tabs to raise that page.

With certain extensions installed you can also duplicate tab, restore closed tab, open bookmark folder to tabs, and so on. Having tabs also means you can have multiple homepages, which all open in their own tab on start-up. To do this you simply separate addresses with a pipe | character in the "homepage" option.

 

The ability to install extensions and themes gives Firefox massive scope for customisation that IE simply does not have. There are over 140 extensions for Firefox, featuring handy plug-ins such as:

All-in-One Mouse Gestures: Use your mouse to perform customisable browser functions, e.g. drag [acr=Right Mouse Button]RMB[/acr] left = "back".

AdBlock: The best extension there is. Allows you to block images, banners, adverts etc. Use regular expressions for intelligent identification of potential banners. Share your block list with others. Etc.

See more here: http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/

(IE5, by the way, does not display the FF extensions page correctly, even though it is a fully standards-compliant page.)

[5614]

spybot resident, labelled as "tea timer" by process viewers stops all registry changes, spybot resident also some stops potentially harmful codes running. additionally NIS prof. has a script blocking always running. spyware doctor also has security stuff running in the background.

 

this is probably why i have never had problems with IE.

yes i did know they were there, no i never had them as problems.

 

whats the difference between opera and firefox, everyone has firefox, but sayo just said that opera is faster, so the advatages are what? the add-ons?

 

is the ad-blocker for firefox an add-on? presumably each add-on you have, makes it run slower, although not much, presumably the differemce, must be there?

[Sayonara]

this is probably why i have never had problems with IE.

yes i did know they were there, no i never had them as problems.

Programs like SpyBot will NOT protect you from things like DSO exploits (although Spybot can detect and remove these, it can't immunise against them and won't alert you as they occur), nor will it protect you from DCOM subversion or any of the arbitrary code attacks which are - by definition - unpredictable.

 

 

whats the difference between opera and firefox, everyone has firefox, but sayo just said that opera is faster, so the advatages are what? the add-ons?

Opera is the same but different. Try them both, as most people with strong opinions on this seem to eventually fall back to fairly anal things (like "Opera is 0.00000089 megs smaller than Firefox") or personal choice.

 

is the ad-blocker for firefox an add-on? presumably each add-on you have, makes it run slower, although not much, presumably the differemce, must be there?

Why would process B slow down process A?

Yes, AdBlock is an extension. I can't describe in words how nice it is to have your daily faves open in their own tabs when you start up, with no banners or irritating flashing images, and no hover-over adverts. Bliss.

[5614]

what i meant with the add-on / slow down was that, surely if say, add-block is an extra feature, that feature running is another program running, if you have all 140 add-ons, then you have, whilsts firefox is running, you have 140 additional add-ons running, that i thought, may slow down the computer. does it?

[Sayonara]

140 I would expect to slow the browser down, but most people only use 2-8 extensions (apparently).

[5614]

are there actually many differences between opera and firefox, im not that fussed with which is bigger, which one runs faster? and which one is more secure?

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Another thing: have you ever gone to one of those security test sites? With IE they can open your CD drive and such REMOTELY. Not through Firefox. Those things can mess up your computer by locking the CD drive or messing around with it.

 

Plus Firefox looks better.

[5614]

im using firefox now, half the time though, when i click a link, it opens a new window, not a tab, how do i stop that?

[Sayonara]

Install the "Single Window" extension.

 

Super DragAndGo is handy too - opens any linked object (that you drag to empty space on the page) in a new tab.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Linked OBJECT or just link? Every link would get really annoying.

[5614]

i thought one of the good things about firefox was that there was only 1 window, and loadsa tabs

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Yes, but you have to get single window. Some links are made to open another window, and Single Window gets past that.

[5614]

if you go:

 

tools>extensions>Tabbrowser Preferences>[click the tick> all the options are here

[Sayonara]

Linked OBJECT or just link? Every link would get really annoying.

oops, missed out a key part of that sentence.

 

Fixed.

[5614]

there are two things which makes firefox better, interface/looks, which is a want, and security which is a need.

 

its the security which i was thinking about;

 

surely, you would have to go onto a well dodgy site to get some virus/trojan/spyware in the first place, so, for normal browsing, is IE ok as far as security is concerned?

[Sayonara]

there are two things which makes firefox better, interface/looks, which is a want, and security which is a need.

And being a proper browser that uses the DOM correctly, which I keep mentioning but it doesn't seem to be getting through to anyone.

 

 

surely, you would have to go onto a well dodgy site to get some virus/trojan/spyware in the first place, so, for normal browsing, is IE ok as far as security is concerned?

Not necessarily. Image beacons, banners and even scripts embedded in sigs can do the nasty on your IE ass.

 

The thing with IE is that the security options that are there are not sufficient to allow you to take steps to protect yourself. For instance you cannot block images that don't come from the originating server, which opens you up to scripts embedded in an <img> tag.

[blike]

Unfortunatly, if I leave the computer for a few minutes with nothing open, I get 20 popups out of nowhere.

 

Check your tasks to make sure there isn't a hidden IE window running in the background. I had the same problem for awhile.