After hearing lots of hype, and needing a new browser since my computer is broken and I’ve been using my girlfriend’s laptop with only IE for four months, I downloaded Firefox.
I must say, I’m dramatically underwhelmed. First of all, this thing has almost no options out of the box. It’s the most bare-bones browser I’ve ever seen. Granted, there is a fair number of “extensions” available, but they are third party and work ok at best.
It offers “tabbed” browsing, which was a huge factor for me since I’m a longtime Opera user, but as far as I can tell, there’s no way to open the tabs in the background, which, to me, negates the usefulness of tabs. It also tends to usually open links in a new window, even with the extension that is supposed to prevent this.
It also seems to scroll slowly and, periodically, the window will just mysteriously lose focus. This can be really distracting when I’m trying to read an email or web page and scroll down with the down arrow and I keep having to reach over and click in the frame again.
So what’s the attraction here? Would anyone pick Firefox over Opera? IE?
I’ve never had any of these problems. Middle-click to open a link in a new tab in the background. There may be a setting in the option menu you have to check, I don’t recall. And yes, it’s bare-bones. That’s one of the attractions.
Reminds me of when Java first came out. All these newbies who didn’t know anything about programming all went “Ooooh, its a new language. It MUST be good”.
I think its the same with Firefox. Everyone thinks “Oooooh, all my friends say its better than IE. It must be.”
Firefox is a smaller browser, therefore, it is not targeted by hackers as much as IE. Which makes it safer to use.
Then again, if you don’t surf for porn, hunt for cracks or visit questionable sites, you are less likely to be hacked.
I’m a firefox user, and have had none of the problems you mentioned. The big draw for me was tabbed browsing (for queuing up 20 SDMB threads) and the fact that it seems to run faster and open/load pages much quicker than IE.
I much prefer Firefox to IE for ease of use, less chance of being hacked, faster load time, and, yes, tabbed browsing. I didn’t like it at first but after a week’s shakedown, I’ve come to rely heavily on it and am loathe to use IE anymore.
And Keapon, to try to imply that all Firefox users use it simply because it’s the new shiny toy is not only erroneous, it’s offensively condescending. I’m the last person to try new programs due to my lack of computer knowledge but after having used this browser, I much prefer it due to the aformentioned reasons, not because I’m a sheep, mindlessly following the rest of the flock.
Ease of use?
I disagree. IE is much easier to use out of the box.
Firefox needs to be set-up correctly to get the best performace.
Less chance of being hacked?
As I said before, that depends on what type of sites you wish to visit.
Faster load time?
You really have to do a lot of tweaking before this statement becomes true. (And this includes messing with internal settings). IE is still faster off the bat.
Tabbed browsing?
Thats a personal choice. Some people love it. Some people hate it.
The reasons that you mention for liking Firefox are not the true advantage of Firefox, its the “layman’s” explanation for why Firefox is better. The real advantage of using Firefox lies in its open-source coding, customizable modules and page rendering software, something that most Firefox users do not know.
Absolutely. Whereas this “visit questionable sites” is something else entirely. I use Firefox because of the tabs, less hassle with browser hijacking and pop-ups, and a smaller program. I use ctrl-<click> to open links in new tabs and ctrl-t to open empty tabs. What are those missing features you speak of?
I use Firefox because I find it more intuitive than IE. Tabbed browsing, once you take the time to learn how to best use it, is also extremely handy. Combined with all the free extra tools you can choose from it exceeds IE, IMHO, in power, usability and customability.
It’s not perfect, it does have same irritating quirks than need ironed out, but for a free application that hasn’t even reached version 1.0 yet I’d say it’s exceptional. An “Ooh new shiny!” reaction has nothing to do with it. If it was poor I wouldn’t be using it.
Naturally it takes a little more effort to install and configure. Unlike IE it doesn’t come ready embedded into Windows. But nor is it difficult and it’s a question of whether you wish to take that little effort to reap the benefits. If you install it expecting it to be exactly like IE, but better, then you’re going to be disappointed. It’s better than IE because it isn’t exactly like it.
And I’ve never had any speed or performance problems with Firefox. The only problem arise when sloppy web programmers assume that everyone uses IE and Windows, so their pages don’t work. In these cases you either go someplace else, or wheel IE out for that one site.
No matter where you surf (dodgy or otherwise) you are far, far less likely to get popups, adware, spyware or viruses. There might be technical reasons why this should be so, but in practice whether this is because Firefox is more secure or more obscure doesn’t really worry me. The result is the same. Surfing is better with Firefox.
For me, I continue to use Firefox because its pop-up blocker is better than any third party blocker available for IE. Tabbed browsing doesn’t thrill me, I am used to having multiple windows open so switching between open windows is no big deal - either I’m switching between open windows on the taskbar, or I’m switching between tabs on the top. Firefox also crashes on me often…almost everytime I try and switch to gmail, if the tab isn’t already open, it crashes. It also tends to crash on java pages, or else it takes forever to load. I think it is slower than IE, too, some pages load quickly in IE and Firefox takes forever. I’m underwhelmed, too, but the pop-up blocker is excellent.
I call BS on this one. I’ve got two interns at work who don’t know the first thing about computers. I asked them to install Firefox on two of the client computers. All I did was send them a link to the site. They had no problems with either installation or setup.
Hacked? Maybe, but spyware, adware and malware don’t only come with visits to shady pages. I’ve found some of the worst offending pages to be legitimate pages like news sources and retailers. And I sure as heck don’t want to spend any more of my day than I have to clearing all that off the computers at work. I’ve found much fewer incidences of spyware/malware/adware since we switched.
Again, BS. Most sites open much more quickly for me in Firefox than IE, and the same has been noticed by everyone at work. I’ve done no ‘tweaking’ to speak of.
Ok, so its not emblazoned on the menubar or flashed across your screen in a jazzy pop-up window that people love oh-so-much, and I don’t know about you but every version of Firefox I’ve installed and run has this neat little thing called ‘Bookmarks’ and one of those leads to this handy dandy little page. It only took me two clicks to find. I seriously doubt that’s difficult to find, or would fall into the realm of ‘advanced use’. Most extensions are simple matter of downloading and running a program. Take two minutes to set up.
I’ve got mine set up to display a notification for my gmail account, in addition to my google bar I’ve got mine configured for babelfish translations, as well as dictionary and wikipedia lookups.
I think that in my mind though, Firefox’s biggest advantage hasn’t even been listed. What I love is the ability to block banner ads. Not just popups, but those stupid flashy banners you find at the top of every page. I visit a lot of news sites and they sure as heck get annoying. After a few visits though, I’ve been able to effectively block all the sites they pull the ads from and I rarely see any these days.
Well, I can only tell you why I like it. As Mr. Laffin says, a lot of people are using it simply because all the popular kids are using it and don’t really know why they’re using it.
I like the tabbed browsing. I’ve tweaked the settings so any pop-ups that do occur, all occur within the same browser. If, by some chance, the pop-ups go out of control, I just shut down the browser. Mind you, this has never happened to me with Firefox, but I’m still allowing for the possibility. When it happens with IE the only thing I know to do is to immediatly log out, then log back in and immediately run all your virus and spyware protection.
I also like that it is less targeted for attack. This may well be because there are far fewer Netscape-engine-based-users than IE users, but I don’t really care what the cause is, I just case that it’s safer.
Mostly, though, I like the control. I’ve loaded three or four extensions that I think are absolutely vital for Firefox to really be usable. Does this make it harder to set up than IE? Sure. So what? So you spend an hour or so browsing the assorted extensions available on the firefox site and installing what you want. But once it’s done it’s done and it makes browsing life SOOOOOO much better than it was with IE. Can you say “adblock”?
Ooh yes. This is something I’ve forgot about at home because it’s become so effective and I’ve forgotten about looking at ads. But whenever I surf from IE at school, they hit me and it’s just shudder.
You mistake what I say. In order to optimize the use of Firefox, it needs to be customized. If you want to compare setup, is IE not easier to setup since it comes with Windows?
I agree that Firefox is less likely to be hacked. But not for the reasons you think of. Its open source, so computer experts and programmers can immediately notify Mozilla if a security vulnerability is found. And quite possibly fix it as well.
With Windows XP SP2, however, I have found that spyware, adware and malware have been cut out as much as in Firefox.
In that case, your perceptions mislead you.
Unless you tweak the settings for Firefox, it performs much lower.
Here are the benchmark results to prove it.
Stop saying BS unless you can back it up.
Saying it just shows that you are trying to redirect attention from the fact that you don’t know what you are talking about.
You can download a notifier from gmail directly. See the New features! link on gmail. You can download many different plugins for IE as well.
I am not defending IE here. I am trying to say that most people download Firefox for the wrong reasons or the hype, and don’t even know how to get the most of it. And their reasons for picking Firefox aren’t the reasons that Firefox is better.
Universal web site compatibility & IE?? I have run into dozens of sites that IE won’t work with, due to IE’s not following CSS & PNG standards; ironically, the only web site that I have had display problems with Firefox is Slashdot. A couple other sites with sometimes say they won’t work with the Fox, but if you use the User Agent Switcher extension to fake the poorly designed site, all of those sites will work.
Also, Maxthon or any other IE rendering engine based browser can’t handle heavy duty web browsing very well. With Firefox, I can have 100-150 web pages open at once with no problems. Maxthon chokes and crashes well before that.
The only thing I don’t like about Firefox is that when you go ‘back’ to a page it takes you to the top of the page, instead of the last place you were.
