Whats so great about FireFox?

[jerimiah40]

I've heard lots of talk about a great new browser, called Mozilla FireFox. What is it, whats so great about it, how is it different from MS IE, where do I get it, How much does it cost, Any other questions along these lines that anyone can think of, blah blah blah, etc etc etc

Please, any info would be greatly appreciated

[cyu]

theres a great thing called google.
I'll save you the trouble: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

[roster19]

Getfirefox.com/
I would recommend this to anyone, even newbs! What seperates it from your default IE- is the fact that you can tab(middle mouse button)links instead of openning them in a new window. Why's that so good? Because you use a lot of memory using just one browser open, when you open multiple browsers you increase the crash rate. Someelse that's great is that there are zero popups and spyware when browsing.
That's honestly enough for any user to switch now that firefox is at a stable 1.0.

[deeder7001]

mozilla is also pretty good. i use firefox though.

[GarbagePoe]

Built-in pop-up blocker

[MidnightViper88]

If you like spyware, by all means, stick with IE...

[Cognition]

Better security too

[fwgx]

Originally posted by MidnightViper88
If you like spyware, by all means, stick with IE...

This is what can happen if you use IE. See the video and be amazed

[psycho_maniac]

Originally posted by Cognition
Better security too

i do belive this but then do not. i was on my computer and a yellow bar on the top of my firefox said it prevented this web site from installing software onto my computer. the next thing i know im getting a alert from spybot telling me that software was installed. only happend the one time and i had 1.0, but its the best. its even hard for me to go to a friends house and use his computer because he does not have firefox. i love the tabs thing.
www.getfirefox.com

[mysterious_w]

All the above, plus I like the download manager.

[psycho_maniac]

oh yeah and you can get plugins that people make for firefox. i like the one that blocks ads inside the web pages, also you can get skins for firefox.

[PulseDriver]

I don't know. It's very clean in it's design, but it's too slow for me to use it.

[Wolfgang]

yes, it takes much longer to load up too. but I still use it, mainly cos of the tabbed browsing.

[ctn|chrisw]

it takes longer to load then IE because IE is built into explorer which is always running.

[PulseDriver]

For spyware, I use firewall and anti-virus. My firewall can also block adds and pop-ups, but I use mostly pages without pop-ups (they do occur, by all means) but I can deal with it. I can hardly belive Firefox can lead to not needing a firewall, so the security of my browser have very little impact of my use.

[gaekwad2]

Originally posted by psycho_maniac
i do belive this but then do not. i was on my computer and a yellow bar on the top of my firefox said it prevented this web site from installing software onto my computer. the next thing i know im getting a alert from spybot telling me that software was installed. only happend the one time and i had 1.0, but its the best. its even hard for me to go to a friends house and use his computer because he does not have firefox. i love the tabs thing.
www.getfirefox.com

What java version do you have?

There's a known vulnerability in versions before 1.5 that could be used for drive by installs.

[Wolfgang]

something that pisses me off in Firefox is a message I get sometimes, "Alert - c is not a protocol." or something to that effect.

[PulseDriver]

I run Java 2, my enviroment version is 1.4.2. But my anti-virus scans such files before it is executed.

[zootm]

Originally posted by Wolfgang
something that pisses me off in Firefox is a message I get sometimes, "Alert - c is not a protocol." or something to that effect.

That's from people who write crappy pages. If you don't understand the internet, you can make links to files on your hard drive (obviously no-one else has these files). A full URL should look like this:

http://whatever.com/hello.jpg
ftp://foo.com/bar.jpg
file://C:\files\this.jpg

Now, the letters before the ":" are the protocol - tells the computer how to find the file it's looking for. Now, if someone doens't know what they're doing, they might link to a file on their hard drive like this:

<img src="C:\files\foobar.jpg" />

IE will read that and either look for the file on your computer and realise it doesn't exist (which isn't secure - local files should not be accessible from remote ones) or just deny access to a local file (which is what I think it does, now at least). Because Firefox is more standards-compliant, it doesn't "guess" where the file is (many of IE's security flaws are a result of it "guessing" a filetype when it's wrong - including that one where you can get a JPG file to open your CD-ROM drive) and tries to parse the URL normally. Since it sees the ":", it looks for a protocol named "C". This causes the error.

In other words, if you see that message, tell the maker of the webpage to get a clue

[jerimiah40]

OK, just one more question:

Does it use any more memory that IE? I'm using a rather slow computer, like 32 megs ram, so will it still run okay?

[gaekwad2]

Maybe you should try K-Meleon instead.

[beanboy89]

Originally posted by jerimiah40
OK, just one more question:

Does it use any more memory that IE? I'm using a rather slow computer, like 32 megs ram, so will it still run okay?

What is the processor, and operating system you are on? You could try Firefox out to see how it runs compared to IE. You could also try the Gecko based browser, K-Meleon. K-Meleon uses OS native elements and controls for its interface making it somwehat faster(on older systems) than Firefox which uses XUL for its interface.

[edit]Gaekwad2 beat me to it.[/edit]

[Schmeet]

The only thing i don't like about Firefox is the fact that you can't access FTP accounts. Or can you? If you can; i'd be so greatful if somone told me how.

[MidnightViper88]

Originally posted by Schmeet
The only thing i don't like about Firefox is the fact that you can't access FTP accounts. Or can you? If you can; i'd be so greatful if somone told me how.

http://fireftp.mozdev.org/

I think...If that's it and my mind is running clearly after all...

[jerimiah40]

Originally posted by beanboy89
What is the processor, and operating system you are on?

Pentium 133 running Win98

[beanboy89]

Originally posted by jerimiah40
Pentium 133 running Win98

That dosen't meet the System Requirements for the processor, but installing Firefox is worth a try. If it runs poor, try K-Meleon as recomended above.

[CraigF]

probably doesnt meet the system requirements for win98, let alone firefox.

[PulseDriver]

Internet Explorer have no CPU recomendation, nor requirment, and that's prolly because IE running under 98 will require less than running under XP or 2000.

When running Win98, they prolly assumes you meet the requirments of the OS and that is enough to run IE as well.

IE6 SP1 Requirments:

You need 16 mb of ram and 256 colors. That's what I could see in the requirments.

[deeder7001]

for IE the system requirements are something like: a 486 with 8mb of RAM and 256 colors. i forget where i read that.

[Wolfgang]

Originally posted by zootm
That's from people who write crappy pages...
In other words, if you see that message, tell the maker of the webpage to get a clue

I feel a bit pwned. I do actually know what protocols are and I suppose I should have been able to work that out for myself. Thanks anyway, zootm.

[jerimiah40]

Well, my CPU is a piece of crap, but the video card and sound card are good enough to make up for it.

Sound card - AWE 32 w/ Line In, Line out, Speaker out, and Mic In

Video card - Who knows, but its good. 24 bit colour all the way from 640x480 to 1280xsomething

[deeder7001]

i also have a 133mhz w/32mb of RAM. i haven't tried putting firefox on it yet because it's not set up at the moment. i don't think firefox would run that well on it. i couldn't get IE and winamp to run at the same time without problems.

[gaekwad2]

K-Meleon should run:

What are the system requirements?

• Windows 95, 98, 98SE, Windows ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, or Windows XP and Windows 2003 Server
• 32 MB RAM minimum
• 5 MB of free hard disk space for download. 11.0 MB of free hard disk space for installation.
• While a Pentium level processor is recommended, K-Meleon can run on a 486 system that meets the minimum RAM requirements.

[MagnumOne]

I've tried about every build of Firefox that has come out...

It's not my preference...I've been using Netcaptor for about 4 years now...It's never let me down, has all the toys,security features and came out with Tabbed Browsing years ago...

I've never found it's equal for what I prefer...

Large: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v24/Stetson11/NCL.jpg



As well as all the features needed...Netcaptor has an extremely fast and efficient clean up..One click...*All Gone*..And has different depths as to the clean up that is initiated...


Read up about it here.....

http://www.netcaptor.com/

[jerimiah40]

Well, I went on a different computer (486, win95, 64 megs ram) and installed firefox. Everything appeared to work well, even installed a couple of themes. Then, I went onto an online game, and it said i needed to install a java plugin for it to work. So i thought, okay, that makes sense. So, I installed it and it said I had to restart the browser for it to take effect. So, i exited, reopened, went back to the game, and lo and behold: it still said that it needed that same plugin! So, i tried it a couple more times, then gave up and uninstalled it. So now, back to IE until i find something better...

PS - Netcaptor looks cool, might try it l83r

[deeder7001]

i never do any games in firefox, yahoo pool for example. i use IE for that because of the java issues in firefox.

[PulseDriver]

Netscape have the same security as Mozilla doens't it? Or is it just the the way mozilla parse HTML/JavaScript/CSS?

BUT... Netscape is a pain cause of it's speed. Damn, I don't know any browser which is slower.

EDIT: I misread... forget about it, Netcaptor is a browser I haven't heard of. Might check it out.

[beanboy89]

Originally posted by PulseDriver
Netscape have the same security as Mozilla doens't it? Or is it just the the way mozilla parse HTML/JavaScript/CSS?

BUT... Netscape is a pain cause of it's speed. Damn, I don't know any browser which is slower.

I find that (at least for me) Netscape 7.2 is as fast as Firefox or Mozilla because Netscape uses the same Gecko engine as Mozilla.

[PulseDriver]

Yes, I know they use the same engine, but is all the security issues based only on this engine is my question

[MagnumOne]

Originally posted by PulseDriver
Netscape have the same security as Mozilla doens't it? Or is it just the the way mozilla parse HTML/JavaScript/CSS?

BUT... Netscape is a pain cause of it's speed. Damn, I don't know any browser which is slower.

EDIT: I misread... forget about it, Netcaptor is a browser I haven't heard of. Might check it out.

Like I say..I bought it years ago..Paid for it once and own it for life..

I've spoken with Adam Stiles many times..The browsers designer...Super Guy!

It's super fast.And the cleanup and security system is equalled or excedes anything I've ever tried out..Great tabbed application and all aspects of the browsers options are easily converted to the individuals choices..

Check it out if ya get the chance..I've tried every browser out there looking for something that might match my preferences..Netcaptor's been my choice for 5/6 years.