Mozilla FireFox - Yes or No

Discussion in 'Software' started by JoeyAnyc, Sep 19, 2006.

  1. JoeyAnyc

    JoeyAnyc Private E-2

    Hey there,

    I've done a search here on FF, and came up with mostly specific tech questions. Someone just mentioned how wonderful FF is. I've used IE from day 1.

    I wanted to find out what people thought about FF? Is it as great as they say? Is it highly recommended over IE?

    Thanks in advance for eveyone's opinions.

    Joey :)
     
  2. bruceb

    bruceb Private E-2

    It is very good .. been using it now as primary browser
    for about 8 months .. you can also check out Opera
    at www.opera.com ... it is also very good and some
    people prefer it over Firefox
     
  3. EXOX3

    EXOX3 Staff Sergeant

    Well I am using firefox right now, I changed over from IE because I kept getting a random error every 3rd day or so, I must say I like firefox, especially having tabs over seperate windows, the diffrence is though, firefox takes a little longer than IE to open a fresh browser window, if I click the Firefix icon, bootup takes about 4 to 5 seconds load time, where IE is nearly instant, 1 to 2 seconds at max! thats about the only diffrence there.

    Firefox has many excellent plugins though, I use the script blocker, and Flashgot, just to name a few, something that IE doesn't really have the options for! :)

    Other than that, its really just personal prefrence, with regards to the loading time diffrences, you also have to aleviate that IE is intergrated into XP, where FireFox is standalone! :)

    Dave
     
  4. Mada_Milty

    Mada_Milty MajorGeek

    I'll never go back to internet explorer! I've tried versions 5-7, and none of them compare.

    The most significant benefit is security. ActiveX is a means of automating tasks on the web. This is a VERY powerful language, but can do (and has done!) alot of damage in the wrong hands. Firefox does not script ActiveX. Internet Explorer will. This means if you visit the wrong page in internet explorer, and your security settings aren't right, it could wreak havoc on your system.

    Unfortunately, MANY sites are developed using this, so it is hard to keep your settings correct (you need to change them for legitimate sites to work correctly), and you cannot visit these legitimate sites with Firefox.

    There is a group called the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that is working on standards so that all web pages can be rendered by any browser, so one day, this will all change.

    However, 'til then we have to put up with poor products like Internet Explorer. You may be asking, "why bother?", but I haven't yet mentioned the additional functionality Firefox offers over Internet Explorer. For a list of these features, please see this link. These are what puts Firefox leagues ahead of IE.
     
  5. Jud149

    Jud149 First Sergeant

    I used IE for several years and have just recently switched to FF. Of the 2, I prefer FF now and fine myself rarely using IE. As for speed, I find them comparable with one being faster opening some sites and then slower with others. I don't think there is any question as to FF being the more secure of the 2. You can use both, so give FF a try.
     
  6. yukon98

    yukon98 Specialist

  7. Kniht

    Kniht Sergeant

    I think FF is a very good browser. Nice features. Safer than IE.

    Unfortunately, I had to return to using Opera.

    Reason: Resource consumption (the developers call it a "feature").

    Discussion here: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/009749.html

    There are ways to lessen FF's use of resources, but still, at least on my PC, FF just uses too much memory.

    I'm not stating FF is a bad browser, quite the contrary. But, until the developers of FF take the use of resources seriously, I will continue to use other browsers (but not IE).

    Hopefully the developers of FF will fix the resource issue so I can go back to using my favorite browser.
     
  8. leopold99

    leopold99 Private First Class

    i use FF. i only use IE when i go to MS websites.
    there are some MS files that can only be downloaded with IE, imagine that.
     
  9. mulletgut

    mulletgut Private First Class

    I have been using FF for a few years now and as Lithius says it does take a few secs longer to boot but I understood ie to be kind of preloaded at start up.
    There have been some issues with Firefox for various reasons but they seem to have settled, there is an excellent enthusiast community offering help at their site, and a development community producing loads of great extensions for it.
    I use:
    Dictionary tooltip
    All-in-one (mouse gestures)
    Print previes
    IE tab (unfortunate necessity)
    RSS ticker
    Foxy tunes (control your music from within your browser, very cool)
    Chatzilla
    Colourzilla

    and I'm open to suggestions on others.

    Put it this way, if your install it and don't like it, don't use it. Personally I am too addicted to tabbed browsing with the centre wheel mouse click.
     
  10. theefool

    theefool Geekified

    I of course have to chime in. :)

    I've used FF since the .3 or .4 erra. :) Currently running: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9a1) Gecko/20060919 Minefield/3.0a1 ID:2006091904 [cairo]

    Yes, a nightly tester I am. Every day, for the past 4+ years. I also read the daily updated fixes, upgrades, and bugs, at the mozilla forums.

    Extensions I use, is the nightly tester tools. :)

    I have used the many incarnations of opera, none fit my fancy. IE 7 is great though. I'm just stuck in my FF ways. :)
     
  11. ColonelAngus

    ColonelAngus Beefy

    Internet Eplorer? What's that?:p :p :p

    FireFox is good enough for me.
     
  12. Dreamer

    Dreamer Corporal

    I've tried all kinds of browsers but continue to use firefox. The only thing I don't like is the memory issue. Like Kniht said, they need to manage memory better but personally I don't mind.
     
  13. Lev

    Lev MajorGeek

    Love the security and flexibility of FF. Ditched IE the day FF got released, and been with it ever since :D

    I have Opera too - like it, but still prefer FF.
     
  14. Mada_Milty

    Mada_Milty MajorGeek

    I keep hearing people complain about this "memory leak", and I've yet to see it for myself. (I'm implementing Firefox at work, so I've installed it on at least 40 machines) What I have noticed is that when you have multiple tabs open, each holding a page history, yes, Firefox's memory consumption increases. However, if this is a problem for you, don't use so many tabs, or clear the cache (there's a button to do it in Tools --> Options, in the 'Privacy' section), and the problem is resolved.
     
  15. greenknight32

    greenknight32 Sergeant

    Been using Firefox since v 0.9, would never go back to IE. Used to clean tons of spyware out of the computer, rarely get any using Firefox.

    If you want something lighter, try K-Meleon. It's based on the same engine as Firefox, and it's extremely geeky.:D
     

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