Firefox

Remove all ads!

The smart ads on SP are hilarious. I would never block those. They are far too entertaining.

But I have seen a Firefox extension that brings up a preview of a website before you click the link. That sounds pretty cool. I might have to try that.

And I've just found another one that puts live cricket scores on your toolbar!

Hmm, I can see that I would end up with a messy overblown browser full of all sorts of wierd features. I'd better not get too carried away.

 

Can web pages detect if you use ad-blocking programs?

 

Oh, yeah, so M$ cloned Firefox for IE7, and Firefox is the evil culprit.

I'm always amazed to see how M$ copies stuff to integrate in Winblows, and it's the original idea stolen by M$ that gets blamed of rip-off.

Firefox is developed with the support of Netscape.

 

Where does Firefox get money from?

Sheesh. What an over-reaction. I just meant it looked exactly the same as Internet Explorer to me. I wasn't really commenting (or caring) which came first.

 

I use IE7, but I have heard many good things about FireFox, and not only on this site. After reading all of the accounts on this site, I'm seriously contemplating switching, but there are a few things that I think I should know first. First of all, I have dial-up (56k). Does this limit the effectiveness of Fox any more than it already is in IE7? Secondly, is Fox difficult to install, ie not compatible with IE7 or various sites, and is an uninstall of IE7/reboot required? Finally, are there many "malicious" installs of FireFox that come with Spyware or other "fine prints?" If so, where can I find a "clean" version? I appreciate the help.

 

I can answer that. I am a complete techno-loser, but even I managed to install it in a few seconds, with no noticeable problems. Internet Explorer still seems to work OK as well. Even my Internet Explorer favourite were transferred over to Firefox automatically, which was pretty cool and saved lots of time.

 

Fox and IE cohabit just fine.

 

I just installed it, and all of the extra features were rather nice (especially the spellchecker). However, it DID come with a few problems, most of which can probably be easily resolved. However, I did notice that my poor 56k, already rather sluggish, ran noticeably slower while using Firefox. I ran a Spyware scan, and restarted my computer, and the issue didn't seem to be resolved. Suggestions? Any advice would be helpful.

 

My Firefox ran more slowly than Explorer as well, but I put that down to the fact that nothing had been cached yet. Is that the case, or is Firefox always slower?

 

Actually, the situation is drastically improving. I'm guessing that is due to the fact that my settings and such were being re-adjusted, transmitted, converted, etc. Now it appears to be just barely slower than IE7, which I'm started to adjust to thanks how much more accessible Fox is.

 

On dial-up I found Firefox to be just as fast and a lot more stable than IE (it practically never crashes).
Extension wise I would recommend cooliris (previews websites), fasterfox (optimises speed options), image zoom (zooms images through the mouse scroll wheel), gmail space (allows you to store files in your gmail mail box), All in one side bar (just makes many of the options more accessable), tab mix plus (improvements to tabs) and video downloader (allows you to download files from youtube etc). Also, if you don't have back and forward side-buttons on your mouse, then Mouse gestures is probably a good extension to use.

Tabs are good for reducing clutter. Instead of having 3 windows open to look at three sites at once, you can have just the one window open with three tabs.

 

I am enjoying Firefox. It seems more fun that Explorer. Although browsing through the list of add-ons, many of them look like complete pants.

 

I use FF as well, and I will admit to trying the add blocker, but I have an 8Mbps downstream connection so the advertising really doesn't slow pages down noticeably, and I found myself feeling like I was cheating the owners of the websites, so I disabled the adblocker (prior to readings Tal's post above).

The one thing that I hate about FF is that it takes 3 times as long to load as IE. My rig is getting old (XP2000+), but IE loads almost immediately after clicking while FF takes at least 5 or 6 seconds to load. A minor pet peeve, but it bothers me for some reason...

 

The big problem that I had with an ad-blocker (the free trial one in Zone Alarms) was that it kept blocking normal images as well. I'm not sure how it determines what is an ad and what is an image, but it would block things like the pictures of PCs at a PC retailer site. It was far too painful so I turned it off and I am unlikely to use an ad-blocker again, as it is more trouble than it is worth.

 

Right-click on the image and choose "Block images from [name]." And if you want to view the flash-animations with NoScript installed, simply click on the container (NoScript will place an icon there). Or just enable scripts for that particular site.

 

Wow. Blocking flashy signatures would actually make some other message boards bearable. Not that I can be bothered with any others, but some of the ones my wife goes to are chock full of pictures of people's babies on every post (with counters as to how old they are and angels floating around their heads and other such nonsense).

I've just been reading more about Firefox and I am amazed to see that it is a resurrection of Netscape, which was in turn a reincarnation of Mosaic, so that means we have gone back over a decade to the browser that we (well those of us in the upper half of the SP Order of Ancientness) all started with. Brilliant!

What next? A new PC architecture based on the Commodore 64 (but in gb instead of kb)?

 

Well, they're apparently releasing AmigaOS 4.

 

Another thing I like in Firefox is that you can have bookmarks in the bar, like shortcuts:
( http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y281/srdax/barra.jpg )
Maybe IE already has this, but it's been so long since last I used it that I just don't know.

 

If you want a faster web browser, try Google web accelerator. You can find it here: http://webaccelerator.google.com/

It works with both firefox and IE.

However, it is advisable that you turn it off before submitting personal information over the internet (when you buy stuff etc.)