I have finally lost my patience with Internet Explorer.

The BBQ Pit
1

I know, I know, I should have done this a long time ago, IE sucks, blah blah blah, but it’s what I was used to. I’ve used IE pretty much since I started dealing with computers.

Today was the last straw. I opened a window, and immediately it tried to load a taskbar, some search/spyware program. I have no idea where it came from and it did not give me the option to decline loading it. So I CTRL-ALT-DEL, got rid of the window, and ran the Control Panel. I found it on the list, I deleted all the components, and then I ran Spybot and CWShredder. When I went to run AdAware the program kept locking up, and it ran just fine yesterday, so I attribute its failure to this spyware garbage. Now I have to figure out what’s up with AdAware. Wonderful.

Anyway, I intuitively knew that there were holes in IE, anyone with half a brain or anyone who reads the SDMB would know that IE is basically an invitation for disaster, but I stubbornly stuck with it, perhaps out of fear of the unknown, that being another browser.

So I downloaded Mozilla Firefox, deleted the quick launch button for IE so I wouldn’t forget, and now I’m set upon learning the features of this browser. It’s a good bit different, but not so different that I won’t be able to figure it out. Hopefully this will go a good ways towards curing this spyware problem. If not, I guess I’ll just try something else.

Regardless, let me say inequivocally that IE sucks, and I should have done this a long time ago. And since I’m a newbie to this browser, any assistance as far as the functionality and features would be appreciated.

And one more thing that I need to address, just a little preemptive strike: I don’t care if you have a Mac. I just don’t. Good for you. I have a PC. I can’t afford a Mac, I don’t want a Mac, and I’m glad that you’re happy that you don’t have spyware problems. This thread is not for you. Thank you.

2

Firefox is God’s own gift to the Internet. Other than a handful of pages out there, it’s leaps and bounds better than IE, especially once you get used to ‘tabbed browsing’.
Tabbed browsing: Hover the cursor over a link on a webpage. Click middle mouse button/scroll-wheel. Poof! New page opens in a new ‘tab’. Once you get used to this, having seperate browsers open for each website will seem so damned clunky.

Look over in MPSIMS or IMHO for the occasional ‘Firefox Extensions’ thread. Some great (and free) functionality is available for certain tasks. I use Linky, which makes saving a bunch of pictures a lot easier.

3

Howyadoin,

Hmmm… siccing the Gestalto on the Mac fans, eh? :slight_smile:

Anyways, suggestions for Firefox:

Tried tabbed browsing? Right-click on a link and choose “Open in New Tab”. Really handy, beats having to root around the taskbar. Click the orange “X” at the right to close the active tab.

Right click on the menu toolbar, and get rid of the “Favorites Toolbar”, just takes up screen real estate IMHO.

While you’re there, go to “Customize” and drag the “Go” button to the right of the address bar. You can also make the icons smaller from this screen.

Lastly, check out the wide array of plugins available for Firefox. You’ve probably had to download Shockwave soon after installing Firefox, but there’s tons of other plugins.

Oh yeah, if you want to tighten things up a bit better, replace the Microsoft Java VM (unsupported, insecure and buggy) with the latest and greatest from Sun.
-Rav

4

I don’t use a Mac, either, but I have been running Linux for a few years now. I don’t want this to get into an OS pissing contest any more than you do, but remember that there are alternatives that don’t involve buying new hardware.

I love Mozilla, but I haven’t seriously used Firefox yet. Opera is almost as good as Moz, but it suffers from not having quite as many extras and from (IMHO) never looking quite as nice. And, of course, anything is better than IE.

IE’s lack of support for tabbed browsing is simply moronic. It’s stupid, short-sighted, and makes IE look more primitive than a fire-hardened stick to anyone who has surfed with Mozilla or Opera or, indeed, any other modern browser. Tabbed browsing is essential to how I surf the web, and I hope you find it as useful.

This page has a load of Firefox extensions. 215 as a matter of fact, which should keep you busy trying things out for a little while. :wink: Some that look particularly good to me are Adblock (guess what that does ;)) and the RSS reader panel. (If you’ve never used RSS, give it a shot.)

5

Good choice dropping IE for Firefox. Do a search for threads with ‘Firefox’ in the title for some good stuff about extensions and nifty features.

Firefox will quickly spoil you, and you’ll soon find that IE pisses you off more than ever the next time you’re forced to deal with it.

6

That sounds all very well, this Mozilla stuff. But is it truly sophisticated enough? For instance, can it detect when you are approaching the last half dozen words of an intricate, erudite and lengthy post, and sense the appropriate moment to crash? Can it bring to you those delightfully random pop-up screens, that you see things you’d rather not, unless you were a participant? Without such, how could I know that I am impotent, effeminate, and in imminent danger of financial ruin? Can such blissful ignorance be tolerated, when misery is only a click away? Can any of these upstarts assure me that Bill Gates will fated to boils, piles, and federal subpoenas?

7

I use Opera, and if a web page doesn’t work, IE.
What’s the deal here ?
I haven’t had anything try and load an unwanted taskbar.
My 200 users haven’t had it happen terribly often.
What gives?

8

As others have mentioned, take a look at the extensions page. Adblock is a joy - train it for a couple weeks, and you will barely see any ads of any type on the net. Also, try out Mouse Gestures as well; they make navigating around so much easier an faster.

9

Blandishments and seductions, that’s what this is! Trying to lure the innocent into a web of importuning letters of Nigerian diplomats, and offers to purchase lesbian hamster porn.

10

Was this trying to load AdAware or trying to remove stuff? If it’s the latter, I have the same problem and no spyware to speak of.

11

I think mouse gestures are the greatest thing since the Internet itself. Now I always try to open new windows by using Opera’s “down-up” motion…when I’m using Explorer on someone else’s computer. :smack:

12

I finally got around to making the switch like I had been planning on doing for a while now. I just have one question, though. Will Firefox automatically check for updates for my extensions, or do I have to periodically tell it to check?

13

Well, something crushed AdAware, so what I did was I deleted every trace of it from the computer and downloaded it again. Yesterday when I ran the scan with everything updated fully I came back with 11 results, and since they were erased I was down to zero.

So far with this scan I’ve come up with 323 results, and it still has a ways to go. Absolutely unbelievable. You’d think I was surfing porn or something. Hell, I could click on a link called Spyware-R-Us and not get this much crap in one day. I wonder what happened. Anyway, I’ll use this as a baseline for later comparison, say, after a week or so of using Firefox.

14

Which reminds me: has anyone taken the time to track down the evil minds behind Gator, and stake them to an ant hill?

15

You know what to do.

16

I do believe that AdAware counts cookies as spyware, so it might just be picking up all the cookies in your IE folder. This thing I really love about Firefox and Mozilla are the ability to suppress pop-up windows, and control which pop-up windows you might want to see.

And I’ve always thought that Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox’s Bookmark’s facility much easier to use and more rational than IE’s.

17

Firefox truly is the Chosen Browser. And I use it on OS X and Windows XP, thank you very much. No pop-up windows, no hassles, it just does what I want and I don’t have to think about it at all. All the plug-ins I’ve tried are kind of flaky though; I’ve gone back to using just the bare-bones browser.

The only downside is for intranet sites at my company, which for whatever reason all require you to be running IE. And that just drives the point home even more – IE sucks. A lot.

18

What ess dis “AdAware” you speek of?

19

Another downside for Mozilla–though the only one I can think of–is it’s harder to format text in this here window; it’s not as smooth as in IE; more like Mac.

20

It is possible to hack Firefox to ‘report as’ IE to servers. Forget the instructions, myself.

A note: To fix an annoyance in opening links from e-mails, do this:
First, make sure Firefox is set as the default browser.
My Computer. Tools. Folder Options. File Types. Go down to N/A. Look for URL: HyperText Transfer Protocol. Advanced. Edit. Unclick “Use DDE” Click OK, click OK. Choose URL: HyperText Transfer Protocol With Privacy. Advanced. Edit. Unclick ‘Use DDE’. Okay, okay, okay.

That fixes the ‘I open Firefox AND IE from mail links’ issue.

Don’t forget to reskin Firefox as you choose… and enjoy the plugins.