What's so great about firefox?

M

Makave7i Tha Don

Gawd
Joined
Oct 1, 2004
Messages
626
Somebody talk me into wanting to use it. Considering i have a legal copy of xp pro and sp2 and get auto updates constantly to keep IE up to date on its security. I personally love using IE, the way it's embedded into windows makes it come up much faster and i have no problems with it crashing or anything like that. So i'm just wondering, what exactly is the advantage of firefox?



thanks



Eric
 
To be one of the cool kids?

I like:
  • Tabbed browsing
  • Automatically saves downloads to desktop
  • Fun extensions
  • When you view the source of a web page the code is colored for you (much easier to read)
  • Built in search bar
  • Cool themes

I don't like:
  • Downloading the whole package for a patch
  • Favicons sometimes mysteriously change
  • Firefox zealots (it won't cure AIDS)

Give it try. Play with it for a couple weeks, find some good extenstions like Tabbrowser Preferences, FirefoxView, IEView, and Googlebar. Also, the Noia theme is mighty fine. I really only use IE for Windows and Office updates (or any Microsoft site, now that i think about it) and Xanga.
 
Microsoft doesn't update IE that much. And Microsoft likes to patch holes with holes anyway. The advantages of Firefox is that it uses a different engine, and renders web code differently and much more meticulously.

Also, you have much more control over your browsing experience. You can download extensions that modify or add features to the browser, like MouseGestures so you can navigate with certain mouse movements. Firefox allows very few popups to occur. Also there's an extension that blocks advertisements on the page itself, so you don't even see flashing banners and annoying animations.

The biggest advantage is security. Internet Explorer is a slut in regards to rendering code. Firefox is very strict and picky, especially with images. IE allows scripts of all kinds to run, which is the main way of infecting yourself with spyware.

Once you install Firefox and customize it, you'll never go back to IE, except to browse certain sites that are designed horribly and require IE to function.
 
I dunno EXACTLY what it is about it that makes it soo good, but ever since I installed it I will never go back.
 
I like it because of the tabbed browsing and the fact that it just feels safer. Whenever I use IE, I get heeby-jeebies. Granted that it doesn't render some pages correctly but that is less than 5 percent of the sites that I visit daily (they are designed specifically for IE such as Windows Update to fix WIndows and IE :)

I like it and I'm sticking to it.
 
I dunno EXACTLY what it is about it that makes it soo good, but ever since I installed it I will never go back.
Click to expand...

I do, Tabbed browsing.

Tabbed browsing adds tabs for each page, much like you would see in Office applications, like Mircosoft Excel. It's great in that when you visit a news site or say,a porn site, you can just open all the pages that interest you from the first page, without going back and forth. You can also get bookmarks to load in tabs, which Walt Mossberg has a nice description,

>The benefits of tabbed browsing hit home when you create folders of related bookmarks. For instance, on my computer I have a folder of a dozen technology-news bookmarks and another 20 or so bookmarks pointing to political Web sites. A third folder contains 15 or so bookmarks for sites devoted to the World Champion Boston Red Sox. With one click, I can open the entire contents of these folders in tabs, in the same single window, allowing me to survey entire fields of interest.

There are also of plenty other little features that make any modern browser just seem so much more advanced than IE. There's privacy features, appearance features, session saving, customizations, etc. that IE just doesn't have.

If you do decide to try firefox, have a look at their Tips & Tricks page, really great things in there.
Opera is also quite worth checking out, much more so than firefox, in my opinion.
 
I have Firefox installed, but I use it only to test how websites look in other browsers than IE. For me, it has nothing special over IE; I don't care about tabbed browsing, I don't visit suspect sites and I am all up to date with patches etc, and IE is a lot faster for me (especially with start up times). I sometimes use Firefox when I download a huge file as it has the download manager that IE does not.
 
Preface: This is direct from the mouth of a Firefox zealot...like it, or not.
I'm a zealot not because I am biased, but because Firefox is the best browser available, and until a better one comes along, I'll remain a zealot. No apologizes offered because I am certain that I am on the right side of the fence.


Why should you switch?


Firefox is not embedded.
What that means is that if the browser is ever severely compromised, although highly unlikely, it will never spread to the entire operating system, no matter what. Internet Explorer, however, is inherently entwined in the operating system. That fact alone makes it weak in that the attack can go much further than simply damaging the browser's functionality, and unlike Firefox, such an attack is a very distinct possibility. That's one reason that Firefox is more secure. Spyware and Malware will never do much damage if Firefox is the browser, assuming they ever get in to begin with. Nothing from the Internet installs through Firefox without the users express permission. The host file doesn't need to come into play when Firefox is the main act, either.
...and these are good things.

Firefox does not employ the use of Active-X controls.
The use of Active-X is another major reason that Internet Explorer will never be safe. Active-X is easily exploited, and although Microsoft has released literally dozens of so-called fixes for it, they are tantamount to mere tweaks. Active-X, although convenient, is very dangerous because it makes your machine a sitting duck to the blackhats from the underbelly of the Internet. They know how it works better than Bill Gates knows it himself, and they use it in the worst ways they can imagine, and their imaginations are getting more vivid by the day.

Firefox wasn't developed by, and is not maintained by Microsoft.
Because Firefox is opensource software it is not susceptible to attack due to corporate blindness and procrastination. Many people from different sectors of life write code and fixes for Firefox based on realtime threats, and savvy anticipation of threats. Security doesn't take a week, or a month. Firefox people are all over it, and fixes are ASAP. Many of those involved understand firsthand what it takes to beat off the bad guys because of their fiercely independent work ethic, combined with firsthand experience on the dark side. Also, many attacks against Internet Explorer are because there is a smart, but disgruntled, bunch guys out there who hate Microsoft with a passion, and their mission in life is to make Microsoft miserable. It is a war, especially now that Gates speaks about the need to outsource jobs to areas outside of the United States. That made some pretty mean guys pretty mad, and he may see some talent rise up from places he never thought about before. Besides, Firefox is written in C++, a language that script kiddies have a hard time mastering, so it just isn't worth it to work at messing with Firefox. Plus, Gecko API calls are a lot harder to compromise.

Firefox is plenty neat.
Firefox has hundreds of features that Internet Explorer will never have because extensions are written by many individuals, not because they are paid to come up with something on a deadline, but because they personally think it would be a nice feature to have. Besides, they don't have to run it past a committee. They just do it, and we get to pick the ones that we like. If we almost like one, don't worry because someone else will mod it to our total liking. The whole browser is that flexible. You can tweak it to be even safer if you are paranoid, or if you go to evil places with it.

Firefox is really quick.
The browsing engine is Gecko, and it really screams. Best of all, the browser can be configured for your machine, so that it is even smoother and faster. Although it doesn't load as quickily as Internet Explorer by default, you can preload the essential components, so that it loads faster, if that is your cup of tea.
In either event, Firefox rocks. :)

Commentary:
Many people will continue to use Internet Explorer because they don't know any better, or because they are creatures of habit, or because they are addicted to some convenience that it has, or because they are unaware of its dangers and feel secure enough using it, or simply because they have their heads in the sand. The Dark Side loves the fact that they will stick by it no matter what. We opensource guys would like for them to switch, but the Warez guys, the porn kings, the virus writing clubs, the Russian Mafia, the identity thieves and all the other blackhats, regardless of their malevolent intent, hope for the status quo. Then, they win, and it's business as usual.
I would like to see them lose the war.
 
I was a hardcore MS guy back in the day when IE reigned supreme but now use Firefox as IE has lagged behind recently and the constant security concerns + activex nonsense drove me away. I only use IE on the corporate or gov't networks now and Firefox for the Internet; tabular browsing rocks.

Oh yeah... to the Firefox developers... one word... "PATCH"
 
mattjw916 said:
Oh yeah... to the Firefox developers... one word... "PATCH"
Click to expand...
Could the "PATCH" actually be an Achilles Heel?
Sometimes it is better to reconfigure the whole works, just to be on the safe side. We've seen a lot of patches from the usual suspects that fell short of our expectations, haven't we? ...not that Firefox can't be patched if need be. Firefox should include a proper automatic uninstaller with each release, but that's a convenience that will surely come. Right now the concentration is simply to strive to improve the most perfect Internet tool in the world when it is actually in use. It's pretty much there, so maybe we won't have to wait much longer. It would be yet another reason to switch, though.
 
beanman101283 said:
I don't like:
  • Downloading the whole package for a patch
  • Favicons sometimes mysteriously change
  • Firefox zealots (it won't cure AIDS)
Click to expand...

One: the Mozilla Update system wasn't built to handle direct file patching, since the Mozilla team didn't expect Firefox to become this successful this quickly. Heck, they didn't even have the bandwidth to handle the launch of 1.0. They're working on a new system that will directly patch your Firefox instead of downloading the full install.

Two: the favicons changing is a bug that may or may not be fixed for 1.1. Keep up with the Burning Edge (Google it, I'm too lazy to throw in a link here) for Firefox nightly build bugfixes and regressions.

Three: zealots have no effect on the quality of a browser. Either the product is good, or it isn't, zealots be damned. (And I would argue that Opera fans have far more zeal than Firefox fans, but that's another topic.)
 
lol, the Opera remark reminds me of how annoying people were about pimping that browser as an IE alternative. I never used Opera just because of how annoyed I was at every anti-MS bigot and college professor I saw trying to convince their students it was the answer to all the internet spyware problems, etc.
 
mattjw916 said:
lol, the Opera remark reminds me of how annoying people were about pimping that browser as an IE alternative. I never used Opera just because of how annoyed I was at every anti-MS bigot and college professor I saw trying to convince their students it was the answer to all the internet spyware problems, etc.
Click to expand...


funny thing, when you dump activeX, and disable Windows Script Hosting
the vast majority of spyware becomes irrelevant
 
If you use IE, you miss out on pages served as application/xhtml+xml unless the author was nice enough to send the page as text/html as an alternative for IE. That means IE doesn't support XHTML 1.1

A lot of CSS-styled XML pages won't display properly in IE because of its poor css support.

A lot of CSS-styled pages in general break in IE. (Usually pages that follow standards more closely are the ones that break in IE)

IE's plugin handling (when it comes to the standard non-activeX methods) is pretty quirky.

The mime type for javascript is application/x-javascript. IE won't execute JS for a script element that has type="application/x-javascript".

IE doesn't support data URIs

You don't have those issues with Firefox.

IE still prints better though.
 
I love weatherfox
I love tabkiller (fucking ass fuck tabs grrrrrrrrr...)
I like not using IE

thats all
 
mattjw916 said:
lol, the Opera remark reminds me of how annoying people were about pimping that browser as an IE alternative. I never used Opera just because of how annoyed I was at every anti-MS bigot and college professor I saw trying to convince their students it was the answer to all the internet spyware problems, etc.
Click to expand...

That's a shame, it's a quite useful piece of software these days.
 
Dude, since I started using firefox about a year ago, not a single virus and not a single piece of spyware. We have all had our battles with viruses that take days to clear up sometimes. I know i have. Rest asured that although firefox wont stop all virus', it will keep them to a minimum.

You will also breathe a sigh of relief when you go to a questionable site that you would NEVER consider going to in IE.

Also, tabs, and the extentions! Adblock and weatherfox are the ones i use most.

PS: Anyone else have a Firefox tshirt? One of the few free programs that I feel like i should dontate to. The program saves my life, i think i can spare $15 for the cause.
 
GJSNeptune said:
The biggest advantage is security. Internet Explorer is a slut in regards to rendering code. Firefox is very strict and picky, especially with images. IE allows scripts of all kinds to run, which is the main way of infecting yourself with spyware.
Click to expand...
So much of that is the popularity, not the uberness of firefox. There are exploits that affect FF as well. When FF > IE in users, you won't be saying the same thing. There are aspects of it which make it more secure, but it only takes one vulnerability to affect you.

FF now has popups, why? Because more people started using it. Necessity is the mother of invention.

The fact you have to reinstall the whole package as opposed to running an update makes people ignore the patch. "I'll get it later" or "I'll get the next version. If you want to touch on security you are better off listing what's more secure about it.

Mosin does this well in his post except for "Firefox wasn't developed by, and is not maintained by Microsoft." This is a fallacy. It ASSumes open source > MS. Which may be true on a case-by-case basis, but it isn't true all the time.

He also conviently leaves out the fact you can disable activeX (which you aren't using if you switch to FF) and script hosting and you get the same security.

That being said, this post was generated in FireFox. The reasons I like it are: enhanced default security. I can tell a friend "download FF" and it's easier than telling them "open IE, change X, Y, Z" etc. I like tabbed browsing and the ability to customize the look and feel with extensions (major advantage of it being opensource). I love the ad-blockers and reduced pop-ups.
 
Terpfen said:
One: the Mozilla Update system wasn't built to handle direct file patching, since the Mozilla team didn't expect Firefox to become this successful this quickly. Heck, they didn't even have the bandwidth to handle the launch of 1.0. They're working on a new system that will directly patch your Firefox instead of downloading the full install.

Two: the favicons changing is a bug that may or may not be fixed for 1.1. Keep up with the Burning Edge (Google it, I'm too lazy to throw in a link here) for Firefox nightly build bugfixes and regressions.

Three: zealots have no effect on the quality of a browser. Either the product is good, or it isn't, zealots be damned. (And I would argue that Opera fans have far more zeal than Firefox fans, but that's another topic.)
Click to expand...

1. Ok, i didn't know that. Hopefully they get it fixed soon.

2. The favicon thing isn't a big deal, i can wait for 1.1. It did confuse the hell out of me the first time it happened though.

3. I know, but i couldn't resist. I really like Firefox, i use it 95% of the time. But some of the people remind of religious folks preaching their religion to anyone and everyone within earshot, without many hard facts to back it up, or the same facts told over and over that are either less true now or don't matter to some people. This bugs me with just about anything, not just Firefox: people blinded by their love for what they're talking about.
 
HighwayAssassins said:
Adblock and weatherfox are the ones i use most.
Click to expand...
Do you mean ForecastFox? I can't find "weatherfox" on the extensions site, and the other hits for "weather" are expired.

Now, SessionSaver has become my favourite extension. It does what I've wanted my browser(s) to do since back in the Amiga/iBrowse days.
 
Arkham said:
Do you mean ForecastFox? I can't find "weatherfox" on the extensions site, and the other hits for "weather" are expired.

Now, SessionSaver has become my favourite extension. It does what I've wanted my browser(s) to do since back in the Amiga/iBrowse days.
Click to expand...
i did mean forecast fox.
 
I love firefox. The way favorites are managed as well as the download manager and the amount of stuff that can be modified.

IE is not as bad as poeople think. activeX thats your choice, sp2 prompts you if you want it. There are not that many pop ups anymore and in fact, IE has BETTER Css style rendering as it supports the newer version of css.

However, firefox is a lot nicer to use in my opinion..
THe fact that it has nothing to do with MS is a tiny but not irrelevant plus :p

short:

Dont ask, just try it, give it a hsot for a month or so.. You wont go back.. promised!
 
Phoenix86 said:
So much of that is the popularity, not the uberness of firefox. There are exploits that affect FF as well. When FF > IE in users, you won't be saying the same thing.
Click to expand...
The fact that it is not embedded makes Firefox inherently more secure.
Phoenix86 said:
There are aspects of it which make it more secure, but it only takes one vulnerability to affect you.
Click to expand...
...which beats the Hell out of dozens of vulnerabilities. ;)
Phoenix86 said:
FF now has popups, why? Because more people started using it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Click to expand...
True, but I haven't seen a single popup since I upgraded to 1.03. :)
Phoenix86 said:
The fact you have to reinstall the whole package as opposed to running an update makes people ignore the patch. "I'll get it later" or "I'll get the next version. If you want to touch on security you are better off listing what's more secure about it.
Click to expand...
True, but what would you do? We can't hold everybody's hand, can we?
Phoenix86 said:
Mosin does this well in his post except for "Firefox wasn't developed by, and is not maintained by Microsoft." This is a fallacy. It ASSumes open source > MS. Which may be true on a case-by-case basis, but it isn't true all the time.
Click to expand...
It's true this time. I really believe that.
Phoenix86 said:
He also conviently leaves out the fact you can disable activeX (which you aren't using if you switch to FF) and script hosting and you get the same security.
Click to expand...
Maybe, but I feel a lot better knowing that my browser isn't embedded into the operating system. There are simply too many ways in with IE.
Phoenix86 said:
That being said, this post was generated in FireFox. The reasons I like it are: enhanced default security. I can tell a friend "download FF" and it's easier than telling them "open IE, change X, Y, Z" etc. I like tabbed browsing and the ability to customize the look and feel with extensions (major advantage of it being opensource). I love the ad-blockers and reduced pop-ups.
Click to expand...
...and we respect you for that. ;)
 
strange as this may sound, Im actually using ActiveX these days
and IE too


only its not allowed to talk to the internet, and is just "internal" use
IE as the webview and shell html viewer if cutoff at the firewall makes a dandy and light replacement for samurize to a certain degree on the desktop (or more accurately an addendum to samurize)

> http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=805117&page=14&pp=20
juu801 posts and downloads ;)
http://home.comcast.net/~juu801/pictures/desktop.JPG
(active links, and ap launches)

hmmm have to hit the waybackmachine here it seems
http://web.archive.org/web/20040621214516/nerdusa.com/index.php?cat=13
> 16 October 2003
THIS JUST IN: Active Desktop Doesn't Totally Suck! [Geekery]

of course you dont have to run javascripts or activeX but its pretty cool
and when your using the search bars the returns are popin up in firefox since its the default browser and IE is effectively contained

of course if Im goin somewhere dangerous I lockdown WSH with a 2 clicks of symantecs noscript.exe
 
I just hope that people don't abuse Firefox like IE (security-wise). Think of the monopoly effect, once you're big, you're target.
 
clockworks said:
I just hope that people don't abuse Firefox like IE (security-wise). Think of the monopoly effect, once you're big, you're target.
Click to expand...
Did you read the whole thread from one end to the other?
 
clockworks said:
I just hope that people don't abuse Firefox like IE (security-wise). Think of the monopoly effect, once you're big, you're target.
Click to expand...
Don't even open that can. There's already a thread or two just on this forum debating that.
 
Sheesh, normally when I see me quoted like that I expect an argument. ;)
mosin said:
Pheonix86 said:
FF now has popups, why? Because more people started using it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Click to expand...
True, but I haven't seen a single popup since I upgraded to 1.03. :)
Click to expand...
It's only a matter of time...
mosin said:
Pheonix86 said:
He also conviently leaves out the fact you can disable activeX (which you aren't using if you switch to FF) and script hosting and you get the same security.
Click to expand...
Maybe, but I feel a lot better knowing that my browser isn't embedded into the operating system. There are simply too many ways in with IE.
Click to expand...
They will find vectors. This line of thinking leads to a head buried in sand. (Har-har get it? Sandbox, head in sand... I kill me :D)
 
Phoenix86,

You know we are on the same side, don't you?
Sometimes I have to pull you back into the lock-step march, however. ;)
 
Phoenix86 said:
It's only a matter of time...

They will find vectors.
Click to expand...

@#%$#@@! missed that one :p
anything that can be coded and all

but sitting here wiping out some 60 odd trogan components off a clients Compaq I have to reflect on the average end user, and how the browser is set by default and how when something pops up that is inbetween them and something their monkey curiosity thinks it wants is a quickdraw "yes"


<rant> @#%$#@@! wintoolsA.exe damn thing wont let me install ProcessGuard and its reinstalling itself even in safemode, wont let me unregister the .dlls or delete the keys only reference Ive found so far say I need to kill two items within 2 seconds of each other and this might be an even more fun varient @#%$#@@! </rant>
 
mosin said:
Phoenix86,

You know we are on the same side, don't you?
Sometimes I have to pull you back into the lock-step march, however. ;)
Click to expand...
It's me against everyone. I don't share sides. :p

No one liked my sandbox joke. OK, I'll get back do my day job... :(

Ice Czar, Java will be the new vector, just watch. Why compromise the browser when you can get a vulnerable add-on that everyone runs? Hey it's platform independent too!!! Welcome to win/linux possible virus, if they wanted to code for both OSes. At the VERY least they can get IE/mozilla/whatever java capable browser.

edit:
Ice Czar said:
anything that can be coded and all
Click to expand...
That's the way! I like to think of it this way, if there is copper from me to you, I can get you and vice versa. This is why wireless scares me in general (where security is necessary).
 
Firefox has been HELLA crashing on me lately when it has anything to do with a Java applet.

/methinks I need to reinstall Java + Firefox.
 
RandysWay said:
Firefox has been HELLA crashing on me lately when it has anything to do with a Java applet.

/methinks I need to reinstall Java + Firefox.
Click to expand...

Complete profile wipe, Java uninstall/reinstall, then the creation of a new profile should do it.
 
Pheonix86 said:
mosin said:
Pheonix86 said:
FF now has popups, why? Because more people started using it. Necessity is the mother of invention.
Click to expand...
True, but I haven't seen a single popup since I upgraded to 1.03. :)
Click to expand...
It's only a matter of time...
Click to expand...
I have seen 2 pop-ups in FF1.0.3 since I posted this, that didn't take long.
 
Ok, I installed Firefox today to give it a try. Got the adblock and so forth. It was fairly painless and is interesting so far.
 
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