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Firefox

I have Firefox with ABP and I find it to be too strict with pop-ups :p .

But then, I'm using Linux, so I wouldn't know about viruses.
 
Blue Mountain said:
This is part of the reason I keep pushing the MVPS hosts file...
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I second and third the hosts file. Using the http process is so much simpler, efficient and elegant than installing a bunch of other resource-hogging applications and add-ons (not that they hog resources so much, but still, why make the computer do more than it has to?). Maybe it's a Canadian thing.;)
 
Soapy Sam said:
Will someone kindly explain what a hosts file is and how to use one?
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To avoid getting all technical on you, I'll recommend you follow this link to the MVPS hosts page. I'll quote a little bit from there:
The Hosts file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. This file is loaded into memory (cache) at startup, then Windows checks the Hosts file before it queries any DNS servers, which enables it to override addresses in the DNS. This prevents access to the listed sites by redirecting any connection attempts back to the local (your) machine. Another feature of the HOSTS file is its ability to block other applications from connecting to the Internet, providing the entry exists.

You can use a HOSTS file to block ads, banners, 3rd party Cookies, 3rd party page counters, web bugs, and even most hijackers. This is accomplished by blocking the connection(s) that supplies these little gems.
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The MVPS hosts file redirects over 14,000 known adware and spyware systems to 127.0.0.1, which is effectively a black hole. Unfortunately, they don't have an automatic update mechanism, so to keep current you have to remember to get a fresh copy every few months.

The hosts file is just as effective on Linux, MacOS, and *BSD as it is on Linux. (Actually, I'm assuming it will be effective on MacOS given its BSD roots, but I haven't tested it.)
 
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WildCat said:
Oh, one more annoyance I forgot - when I'm downloading a large file (such as a pdf) in a separate tab the whole browser just freezes until it's fully downloaded.
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Do you perhaps mean "downloading" here? There is an issue where you view a PDF embedded in the tab, which results in what you're describing. But it's not a download problem. In any event, downloads aren't tied to tabs. If you actually just download the PDF then view it in a decent PDF viewer then everything's ok.
The Adobe PDF viewer plugin, however, is pants. Not completely the browser's fault...

This is of course just for PDFs. You say "such as a pdf" and I'm assuming from other bits of context that you mean "I've only tried PDFs".
 
Yeah, for any of you wondering why your web developer charges so much...it's all that time spent making perfectly well coded HTML pages work in IE.

As for why Firefox uses plugins for stuff that IE may have built in, that keeps the core browser "lean and mean." IE is noticeably slower than Firefox.

I haven't noticed FF allowing a lot of popups through. At any rate, many ads these days use CSS layering, etc., to get around popup blockers.
 
moopet said:
Do you perhaps mean "downloading" here? There is an issue where you view a PDF embedded in the tab, which results in what you're describing. But it's not a download problem. In any event, downloads aren't tied to tabs. If you actually just download the PDF then view it in a decent PDF viewer then everything's ok.
The Adobe PDF viewer plugin, however, is pants. Not completely the browser's fault...

This is of course just for PDFs. You say "such as a pdf" and I'm assuming from other bits of context that you mean "I've only tried PDFs".
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Well so far all the large files I opened in another tab were pdfs.

I'll just save them from now on.
 
IE 7 example:

They moved the refresh button on the other side of the address bar, away from the forward/back buttons. Why? If I'm going back or forward through pages and need to refresh I gotta move over there. Then move back. Yeah it's just a mouse movement, but it's poor UI design.

Unless they're trying to prevent accidental refreshes that were meant to be forwards, but if misclicks are a problem, your buttons are too small or too close together. But there's no need to put the entire address bar between them.

I much prefer Firefox for many reasons, but the underlying silliness of the preceeding example is why I usually find IE annoying.

Plus Firefox is more standards-compliant. I hate IE for attempting to own the market by being incompatible. As a web developer, I hate the constant messing with my standards-compliant code to make it work in IE.
 
I just had to go through an IE8 install on an XP in a virtual machine to test something. Holy FSM what a pain in the butt.

First we're given the option of connecting for updates first, fine, we'll do that. Cue watching the progress bar for 15 minutes while it "searches for updates" - I finally decide to check with tcpdump and no traffic is outgoing. What the hell is it doing?! Of course, even though this is the IE8 installer, it won't actually install IE8 until it's done with those updates. And you can't cancel it. Also the close button is greyed out.

Secondly, whats the point of a progress bar on an installer if all you're doing is display an animation? Is the install progressing at all? Is it stuck? Is it just taking forever? Who knows!

Next, It takes over 5 minutes to install IE, and requires a reboot. For a browser install. Really?

After reboot it denies access to desktop because it has to spend another 5 minutes "personalizing my settings" and what have you. At least the actual browser is faster than IE7, but that's not much of a feat.
 
WildCat said:
So for the last month or so I've been using Firefox, since so many people say it's the shiznit.

I'm not impressed.

It does a terrible job of blocking popups, and it lets in all kinds of malware. My last anti-virus scan found 92 infections! Almost all tracking cookies, but still... I never had more than 2 or 3 infections using the latest version of IE.

And to top it all off, I am having shutdown problems (XP pro) that I have never had before and started the day I installed Firefox.

It does have a spell checker though, so it's got that going for it. but other than that, why the hell do people love Firefox so much? I'm on the verge of uninstalling it.

Anyone else have these issues?
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Seriously, Jerry: Where the heck have you been using Firefox???
It's the best Browser I've seen so far - and the safest as well due to it's open source status....
 
Oliver said:
Seriously, Jerry: Where the heck have you been using Firefox???
It's the best Browser I've seen so far - and the safest as well due to it's open source status....
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I've given up on Firefox. I'll use it throughout the day and next thing I know it's using 3/4 gig of RAM. Not only that, at various times it will start to chew up all my CPU.

I've tried Safari with a bit more success but it gets bogged down as well. Now I'm trying Chrome, so far I'm liking it.
 
DavidJames said:
I've given up on Firefox. I'll use it throughout the day and next thing I know it's using 3/4 gig of RAM. Not only that, at various times it will start to chew up all my CPU.

I've tried Safari with a bit more success but it gets bogged down as well. Now I'm trying Chrome, so far I'm liking it.
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Firefox using up so much unallocated ram is normal, by default it pre-caches a lot of pages and images to make actual browsing faster. You can turn that behaviour off in about:config by making sure browser.cache.memory.enable is set to true. Add a new integer called browser.cache.memory.capacity and set it to, for example, 8192 or 16384. Reducing the session history size (browser.sessionhistory.max_entries) and especially the back/forward cache (browser. sessionhistory. max_total_viewers) helps a lot if you want to see lower numbers of memory used.
 
Fishstick said:
I just had to go through an IE8 install on an XP in a virtual machine to test something. Holy FSM what a pain in the butt.

First we're given the option of connecting for updates first, fine, we'll do that. Cue watching the progress bar for 15 minutes while it "searches for updates" - I finally decide to check with tcpdump and no traffic is outgoing. What the hell is it doing?! Of course, even though this is the IE8 installer, it won't actually install IE8 until it's done with those updates. And you can't cancel it. Also the close button is greyed out.

Secondly, whats the point of a progress bar on an installer if all you're doing is display an animation? Is the install progressing at all? Is it stuck? Is it just taking forever? Who knows!

Next, It takes over 5 minutes to install IE, and requires a reboot. For a browser install. Really?

After reboot it denies access to desktop because it has to spend another 5 minutes "personalizing my settings" and what have you. At least the actual browser is faster than IE7, but that's not much of a feat.
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Fishstick said:
Firefox using up so much unallocated ram is normal, by default it pre-caches a lot of pages and images to make actual browsing faster. You can turn that behaviour off in about:config by making sure browser.cache.memory.enable is set to true. Add a new integer called browser.cache.memory.capacity and set it to, for example, 8192 or 16384. Reducing the session history size (browser.sessionhistory.max_entries) and especially the back/forward cache (browser. sessionhistory. max_total_viewers) helps a lot if you want to see lower numbers of memory used.
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Fishstick - don't you see something a tad amusing about your two posts?
 
Those are tweaks that only people anal about how their memory usage looks in taskmanager should do though, the default options that are enabled out of the box are what actually improve performance since it only uses unallocated memory to do the caching. Exceptions on netbooks or SSD drives, of course.

Whereas with IE8 you have no option at all during install to avoid that behaviour.
 
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DavidJames said:
I've given up on Firefox. I'll use it throughout the day and next thing I know it's using 3/4 gig of RAM.
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I have no idea how in the world you managed to get Firefox using three quarters of your memory - How much RAM do you have???
 
I have a really, really annoying problem with Firefox now. Hyperlinks and buttons go dead whenever I navigate to a new page or open another tab. I have to click on Firefox in the taskbar to minimize it, then again to show it again and all is well until I go to another page, and I have to click the taskbar twice again to get the hyperlinks and buttons to work.

I've tried opening Firefox in safe mode and disabling all add-ons, to no avail. Problem persists.

Anyone hear of this problem before? A web search reveals similar problems but not my exact one, all the others seem add-on related.
 
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