I much prefer Opera myself, but I think it's just a matter of preference. I don't think anyone could make a great case for one being superior to the other.
To me, Opera feels faster and smoother and more "finished" and the customization is more intuitive. A newbie can fiddle with Opera for an hour or so and have it exactly the way they want it, where Firefox needs a bit more knowledge coming in. Though I haven't tried Firefox for a year or so and could be wrong today... oh, and Opera 7.51 is butt ugly out of the box so it WILL take a bit of fiddling to get the clutter out of the way. Just play with the controls for a while. The same pretty much goes for Firefox as well, if I recall - it just seemed a bit more of a way of life rather than a mere browser. Maybe I just read Slashdot and it's regulars proselitize so much that it kind of turns me off.
Whichever one you pick (and I can't think of any concrete reason to say one is better than the other in any objective way), there is little or no question that they are both miles ahead of IE in every respect... unless you're talking to someone who likes archaic, broken, insecure junk, that is... and as someone who spent way over a decade with the Way, I feel like I may be starting to throw stones so I'll quit now.
Krys- I just switched to mozilla because of all the IE warnings and the advice on this board- I had used it before- it is excellent at blocking popups- I haven't had one since I switched back. It has interchangable skins and one is supposed to be just like IE. Mozilla doesn't take mutch tweaking it can be a lot like IE in look and feel if you want. It is good at asking you if you want to do things for specific sites also.
I have heard that firefox is probably the most secure at this time.
I use both Opera and Firefox and keepm IE for things like MSN email and upgrades only.
Firefox doesn't seem to like loading some java chat programs at time though so it's more of a backup to Opera than anything else. Both are good at handling popups but as I also have a firewall I don't know if this does more than the browsers do.
The one FireFox extension you simply have to have is Adblock. While Firefox does a great job at handling 95% of all popups, Adblock can kill banner ads, Flash animations, or anything you tell it to nix.
I'm disappointed that they don't talk about Opera, but that may be a corporate thing: Go ahead and promote the free thing but for God's sake leave the commercial one out of it... oh, and Opera's killing MS in the portable market too. They're tiny but more of a threat to MS than most people recognize.
Again, they're both great browsers and equally secure in most respects (we could get into the open vs. closed source debate here but it's not a crusade to me as it is to some).
Fireox is installed and running and I really like it. It is a little too soon to say whether it's faster than IE - but that is a minot consideration as far as your truly is concerned.
I love the certificate validation (Ipurchased something from a vendor I don't know)I really like being able to adjust text sizes to a point where I can read them comfortably without craning my neck - and finally somebody has developed a way for me to go through all my bookmarks and re-organize them in a meaningful way!
NOW - how much have I really reduced my chances of picking um nasty little junk from websites? Exactly (or as near as you can predict) how much safer if my computer now.
Also, do I really need IE for anything or can I get rid of it?
Thanks - you guys are great - and it was so easy - anybody can do it althouh it may take a while for me to figure out all its ins and outs and "customize it" I am thoroughly pleased.
Is there any potential harm in "flash"? I went to a favorite card sight and found I needed to download the flash plug in (via Netscape?) and I hesitated.
krys: Now for the fun part of Firefox. Hit Ctrl-T and you'll open up a new tab in the same browser window! Now you can have one site open, check another momentarily, then click back on the first one's tab to go right back to it. Or, you can put your top few favorite sites in a Bookmark folder then open all of them in separate tabs with one click when you open your browser. Very cool.
Just downloaded Firefox, and so far I'm impressed. Yes, it is quite a bit faster, and I like the tabbed browsing (which is becoming standard on new browsers nowadays).
Now whether it totally replaces IE still remains to be seen, but I think that browsers like this, as well as that government agency recommendation that IE be replaced, should act as a big kick in the butt for Micro$oft to get up off its complacency, put some work into their security problems, and quit hiding behind the 'innovation' term as a catch-all excuse as to why it is still sucky in a lot of areas.
I just read where roboform will work with FireFox! I'm about to switch!!! It's non-compatability was what kept me from using Opera.
FYI - Roboform www.roboform.com automatically fills in passwords, contact info, even credit card info on web sites. It's very smart and safe. All info is saved on YOUR computer (even a keychain USB disk if you want) you can encrypt and password protect all or individual entries. It doesn't have spyware. I've been using it for years and it's wonderful.
If you want to be extra impressed, here are a few extensions (plugins) that make it a lot better:
AdBlock, for blocking advertisements. There are sites on the web that can show you some default things to put in there to block, but I like to buid my list from scratch. It even lets you block flash advertisements.
BugMeNot, allows you to get usernames and passwords for sites like the NYTimes that ask for you to register.
TinyURL Creator, if you've not used this it may not make much sense, but basically it allows you to create shorter URLs for really long ones. E.g. if you have something like www.gscafe.com/blah/blahblah&blah&blah&blah you can set it to be something like tinyurl.com/b445.
UserAgent Switcher lets you spoof servers to think that you are using IE or whatever browser you want. I use this with my bank website because they only allow IE, however the site works fine with FireFox.
There are probably a few others I missed, but those ones are really good all-purpose extensions that I think you would like.
NukeAnything is a good extension, too. If there's an annoying image, popup, scrollover, animation, whatever, just right-click on it and Nuke it. Poof--gone!
AdBlock rules. SpiderZilla is pretty cool, too. If you want to download an entire site, just load up the home page in Firefox and tell SpiderZilla to grab the whole thing.
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Zixar
Krys: Firefox.
:)-->
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Jason P
I much prefer Opera myself, but I think it's just a matter of preference. I don't think anyone could make a great case for one being superior to the other.
To me, Opera feels faster and smoother and more "finished" and the customization is more intuitive. A newbie can fiddle with Opera for an hour or so and have it exactly the way they want it, where Firefox needs a bit more knowledge coming in. Though I haven't tried Firefox for a year or so and could be wrong today... oh, and Opera 7.51 is butt ugly out of the box so it WILL take a bit of fiddling to get the clutter out of the way. Just play with the controls for a while. The same pretty much goes for Firefox as well, if I recall - it just seemed a bit more of a way of life rather than a mere browser. Maybe I just read Slashdot and it's regulars proselitize so much that it kind of turns me off.
Whichever one you pick (and I can't think of any concrete reason to say one is better than the other in any objective way), there is little or no question that they are both miles ahead of IE in every respect... unless you're talking to someone who likes archaic, broken, insecure junk, that is... and as someone who spent way over a decade with the Way, I feel like I may be starting to throw stones so I'll quit now.
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ckeer
Krys- I just switched to mozilla because of all the IE warnings and the advice on this board- I had used it before- it is excellent at blocking popups- I haven't had one since I switched back. It has interchangable skins and one is supposed to be just like IE. Mozilla doesn't take mutch tweaking it can be a lot like IE in look and feel if you want. It is good at asking you if you want to do things for specific sites also.
I have heard that firefox is probably the most secure at this time.
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WordWolf
I'm currently fiddling with FireFox.
So far, so good. We're still getting to know each other.
Seems for every thing I preferred on IE, there's one I like better
on FireFox. Plus, it's nice not to have to sweat security as much.
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Trefor Heywood
I use both Opera and Firefox and keepm IE for things like MSN email and upgrades only.
Firefox doesn't seem to like loading some java chat programs at time though so it's more of a backup to Opera than anything else. Both are good at handling popups but as I also have a firewall I don't know if this does more than the browsers do.
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Zixar
The one FireFox extension you simply have to have is Adblock. While Firefox does a great job at handling 95% of all popups, Adblock can kill banner ads, Flash animations, or anything you tell it to nix.
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Jason P
Couldn't resist coming back with this funny and informative article, from Slate (owned and/or operated by Microsoft):
Are The Browser Wars Back?
I'm disappointed that they don't talk about Opera, but that may be a corporate thing: Go ahead and promote the free thing but for God's sake leave the commercial one out of it... oh, and Opera's killing MS in the portable market too. They're tiny but more of a threat to MS than most people recognize.
Again, they're both great browsers and equally secure in most respects (we could get into the open vs. closed source debate here but it's not a crusade to me as it is to some).
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krys
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!
Fireox is installed and running and I really like it. It is a little too soon to say whether it's faster than IE - but that is a minot consideration as far as your truly is concerned.
I love the certificate validation (Ipurchased something from a vendor I don't know)I really like being able to adjust text sizes to a point where I can read them comfortably without craning my neck - and finally somebody has developed a way for me to go through all my bookmarks and re-organize them in a meaningful way!
NOW - how much have I really reduced my chances of picking um nasty little junk from websites? Exactly (or as near as you can predict) how much safer if my computer now.
Also, do I really need IE for anything or can I get rid of it?
Thanks - you guys are great - and it was so easy - anybody can do it althouh it may take a while for me to figure out all its ins and outs and "customize it" I am thoroughly pleased.
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krys
P.S.
Is there any potential harm in "flash"? I went to a favorite card sight and found I needed to download the flash plug in (via Netscape?) and I hesitated.
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WordWolf
I'm not aware of any problems resulting from using Flash.
(If there are, I should really be in the soup by now.)
I would hang onto IE as a backup. There are a few websites that run better in IE,
and one or two that won't run in Mozilla-at least, that was true a few years ago.
Most viruses, trojans, etc. attempt to use security flaws in either Windows or
Internet Explorer, or both. One govt agency just issued a warning about 2 IE flaws,
and recommended using something else. Microsoft released a hotfix within hours of
the announcement, proving that they CAN release timely security patches when they
WANT to. They'd left that one alone for over a month from the time it was discovered.
EXACTLY how secure you are, I can't say. MOST secure is all the stuff that's been
recommended before, plus a Linux operating system instead of Windows, and a Mozilla
browser rather than IE. Someone else will have to chime in.
(I take it as a given you're already using a firewall, antivirus, AdAware, and
Spybot S & D. If not, get thee to the Registry Keys thread.
:)--> )
=========================================
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Zixar
krys: Now for the fun part of Firefox. Hit Ctrl-T and you'll open up a new tab in the same browser window! Now you can have one site open, check another momentarily, then click back on the first one's tab to go right back to it. Or, you can put your top few favorite sites in a Bookmark folder then open all of them in separate tabs with one click when you open your browser. Very cool.
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GarthP2000
Just downloaded Firefox, and so far I'm impressed. Yes, it is quite a bit faster, and I like the tabbed browsing (which is becoming standard on new browsers nowadays).
Now whether it totally replaces IE still remains to be seen, but I think that browsers like this, as well as that government agency recommendation that IE be replaced, should act as a big kick in the butt for Micro$oft to get up off its complacency, put some work into their security problems, and quit hiding behind the 'innovation' term as a catch-all excuse as to why it is still sucky in a lot of areas.
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My3Cents
I just read where roboform will work with FireFox! I'm about to switch!!! It's non-compatability was what kept me from using Opera.
FYI - Roboform www.roboform.com automatically fills in passwords, contact info, even credit card info on web sites. It's very smart and safe. All info is saved on YOUR computer (even a keychain USB disk if you want) you can encrypt and password protect all or individual entries. It doesn't have spyware. I've been using it for years and it's wonderful.
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Mister P-Mosh
If you want to be extra impressed, here are a few extensions (plugins) that make it a lot better:
AdBlock, for blocking advertisements. There are sites on the web that can show you some default things to put in there to block, but I like to buid my list from scratch. It even lets you block flash advertisements.
BugMeNot, allows you to get usernames and passwords for sites like the NYTimes that ask for you to register.
TinyURL Creator, if you've not used this it may not make much sense, but basically it allows you to create shorter URLs for really long ones. E.g. if you have something like www.gscafe.com/blah/blahblah&blah&blah&blah you can set it to be something like tinyurl.com/b445.
UserAgent Switcher lets you spoof servers to think that you are using IE or whatever browser you want. I use this with my bank website because they only allow IE, however the site works fine with FireFox.
There are probably a few others I missed, but those ones are really good all-purpose extensions that I think you would like.
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Zixar
NukeAnything is a good extension, too. If there's an annoying image, popup, scrollover, animation, whatever, just right-click on it and Nuke it. Poof--gone!
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WordWolf
I've been using AdBlock for all of a few hours, and I think I'd
freak if I had to give it up forever.
:D-->
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Zixar
AdBlock rules. SpiderZilla is pretty cool, too. If you want to download an entire site, just load up the home page in Firefox and tell SpiderZilla to grab the whole thing.
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WordWolf
Ok, I dowloaded all of those, except Spiderzilla which I'm not
ready for.
(Including NukeAnything, which did not have a handy little link.
Bad Zixar. No Code Red Mountain Dew for you.
;)--> )
Now that I'm running the whole shebang, where do I FIND my copy
of NukeAnything?
(I tested everything for viruses and adware and spyware and stuff
already. Nice to see they were all clean.)
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Zixar
WW: Right-click on an offending item on the page and select "Remove this object". Poof. Nuked.
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WordWolf
Oh, there it is.
I downloaded something that supposedly allows you to right-click
on things that disabled the right-click, but I haven't seen that
one in action yet.
*click*
Hm-I could have SWORN there was a post above mine with instructions...
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Zixar
WW: The Allow Right-Click plugin doesn't always work.
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