Firefox emerges as credible threat in browser battle

San Jose Mercury News ^ | Mon, Nov. 29, 2004 | Mike Langberg

[Honcho]

One thing puzzles me: What are "extensions," and how are they used?


Think of extentions in the same way as you would after market improvements to your car like say, newer or "snappier" wheels, a better radio, or an improvment to your engine.

Firefox extentions are improvments to your web brower that weren't apart of your orginal download. For example one of my favorites is the bbcode extention. What does it do you might ask? Well with my "html" option checked in the bbcode extention I can enter tags into this very forum to underline, italic, color, text when I post on Free Republic. (And many other html "tags" and functions with the click of a button.)

For example when I want to underline something I just highlight the text that I want to be underlined in my Free Republic post, right click, select ----> htmlcode -----> underline . The firefox extention will add the htmltags around my selected text show it will show up in my post like so. Text text text text text.


The catch is you have to download and install the extensions and configure them the way you want them to operate. If you would like to find out what other extensions there are click on tools-----> extensions. This area is where you can list all the extensions you have as well as configure them via the "options" button. To download extensions click on ------> get more extenstions. You should be able to browse that area and download the extensions you like.

[taxed2death]

I just downloaded the "fix pack 2". I call it......well, it rhymes with "duck-pack 2". My modem will now only connect at 28,000 bps or slower.

Another fine Microsuck program.

[politicket]

It has been my experience that Firefox is almost twice as fast to deliver pages as IE.

My experience is that when I go to a non-cached web page using Firefox it will load the initial page pretty quickly (text - minus graphics and multimedia). It shows me the basic page layout with a bunch of red boxes where the multimedia will eventually go. Firefox then goes out and brings in the multimedia to fill the red boxes.

IE does everything via the same process, it's just faster and I don't get the ANNOYING red boxes.

Firefox wins points on cross-compatibility and pop-up detection, but loses points on its amateurish gui and rendering.

[TXFireman]

ping

[dennisw]

I've been using Firefox happily for months..

But yesterday morning, I woke up and all of my bookmarks had vanished. I am a little miffed about that.
______________________


It's recommended to back up your bookmarks which are in the form of a "bookmarks.html" file. Just copy and paste it into say .... my documents

Fire Fox bookmarks LOCATED IN:
C:\Documents and Settings\user_name\Application Data\Mozilla\Profiles

[tfecw]

well there ya go :)

keep in mind my working knowledge of linux is 5 years old (so ancient history by now)

back in those days ;) the answer is no.
in these days, i would guess kinda sorta no. The number of applications that have been written or ported to linux is greater, but you need the correct version. Ie your windows version of outlook (or ms office) won't work (i think) you need the linux version

now some stuff, namely almost anything written in java (and in terms of big commerical applications there aren't many) will work in linux.

If your big into games...forget the switch. Waiting for a linux game is like waiting for a mac game.

There are all sorts of emulaters that you can run to fool windows programs into thinking linux is really windows. But its kind of like why bother.

[politicket]

Many of the speed issues are likely due to its use of XUL.

AHA! I knew that there was some kind of interpreted stuff going on. I've been programming for over 20 years and normally don't miss that kind of symptom.

[BibChr]

1. I believe his name is Anderson Chu.

2. Did that URL not work for you?

Dan

[bibarnes]

Another good alternative to IE is Slim Browser. I have been using it for almost a year. No pop ups at all and it gets updated about every other month. It is also free. I can't compare it to FireFox since I haven't tried that one yet. I guess I will, but if it ain't broke I don't try to fix it.

[Petronski]

If you find that you don't like it, you can just go back to using Internet Explorer.

It's better than that. They can run side by side if you like (I use Mozilla for everything, but if something refused to run, I copy the url over to IE and run it there).

[Oblongata]

"Somethings kill me about firefox though. It really bugs me that when you click on a link that spawns a new page. Firefox spawns a new page. Seems to me that if your a "tab" browser it should spawn a new tab. Oh well...maybe sometime."

Just use your middle mouse button. Any link you click with the middle button will open in a new tab, even if it's normally supposed to open in a new window.

[Diddle E. Squat]

I dunno about it just yet. I switched over a few months ago, and found it ok, the (current) lack of security vulnerability was nice, but the tradeoff seemed to be that Firefox would take forever to load java pages(such as the weather service radar.) and freezing all the other tabs and windows during the java page's loading process. After installing Firefox I could no longer get IE updates from the Microsoft website, the page would start to scan for applicable updates and then give an error message.

But it got even worse after I switched last week to the latest Firefox release. Ever since then the java problem has been magnified, literally taking 2 minutes to load the NOAA weather radars or often hanging up, so that I'd have to do ctrl-alt-del to get out of the frozen screen and losing all my other tabs and windows. Tried removing java and reinstalling it, but no change. Also loading some pages with a large number of photos produces similar freezes and slowdowns(though not nearly as often), occassionally requiring a restart to go to any more webpages. Something went wrong in the upgrade, as the new Firefox is unable on startup to load up my homepage, I have to actually hit the homepage icon to get started. What is really weired is that now these same problems take place when I try to use IE instead on the java sites.

Routinely scan the computers with Norton, Ad Aware, Spybot, Pest Patrol, have a good firewall, and auto update all plus Spyware blaster, so my machine is clean. Am on ME(yeah, I know that XP would be better, but am not yet ready to take the time, risk, and hassle of an upgrade to this machine.)

Any suggestions are appreciated, I haven't had time to scour the Firefox sites and figure out what exactly are the problems.

[Bahbah]

Many thanks to you both. I am the equivalent of a citizen of the Middle Ages trying to decide whether to get on an airplane. The hand holding is appreciated.

[KoRn]

Uber browser ping!!

[tfecw]

yeah i know. But at work i still haveta use IE so i get confused sometimes. Besides i'd haveta move my finger to click on the middle button

[pepsi_junkie]

Okay, here is a problem. I use Firefox too, and love it. Or rather I hate IE. So I used Netscape for a long time and recently switched to Firefox. Problem I've had with both Netscape and Firefox is anything with Java (or javascript I think) on it kills me. Takes forever to load, sometimes hangs. For example, my bank has a little ticker tape on it and when I go there the whole page loads and then I am stuck for several seconds (tens of seconds) while that loads, and the browser is frozen until it does.

I've looked online and cant find other people with this problem. Does anyone know why java would be exceptionally slow on a given machine versus others?

[Publius6961]

Thanks to all for the "co-existing" with IE answers.

[Ex-Dem]

Yep, what Petronski said. I've found that it's pretty rare though. The only times I can recall that I've had to open up IE when Firefox doesn't work is with the Windows Update website and certain parts of the MSNBC website.

[pepsi_junkie]

Ah hah! See my post #76. Finally someone else who has the same problem! I thought I was going nuts!

[Oblongata]

" Just don't uninstall IE after installing Firefox. You shouldn't need to do any extra setting up."

You can actually uninstall IE but still use it when you need it. I "uninstalled" it through add remove programs, but if I absolutely need it for a page I just go to windows update which still opens IE. Then I stop loading and type the url I need and voila.

IE can't really be uninstalled easily, just hidden. Out of Sight, Out of Mind.