BlackadderII

I've finally got the spec sorted for my new PC and hopefully everything should be here by the end of the week.

However, a few friends have advised me to use Firefox as my "browser". Can someone please explain to me why i should use Firefox (if at all) and what pro's and con's i can expect.

Please understand that i'm IT thick and need it in laymans terms

Cheers

Chris L

In a nutshell: Firefox is just another browser - like Internet Explorer, Opera etc etc. It has taken a decent market share away from IE, because it is generally considered to be better written (closer to established standards than IE - Microsoft tend to invent their own ). It is certainly more secure in it's basic configuration. That is not to say it is perfect, but it is better. I've have found some minor issues with some websites that have been optimised for IE - nothing major though.

It is now in a stable release (v1.0.4). It's free, so there is nothing to lose. Download it and see if you like it.

I have both on my PC, but Firefox is my preferred browser (actually I run a recompiled, optimised version of Firefox for Pentium M processors, but that's probably more than you need to know!).

Chris (IT Security Consultant)

john_s

iTrader: (1)

I have both firefox and IE on my computer too, though I use FF 99% of the time.

It's more secure (at least until the ********* decide it's popular enough and start to exploit it more), more configureable, and seems faster than IE. There's loads of plugins available for it.

Give it a go

John.

BlackadderII

Aaah okay, thanks guy's i'll give it a go

Is this something i can configure to only use for myself?

The problem being that there are memers of the household who enjoy cluttering up IE with allsorts of gimmeky add ons.

This could be a good browser just for me to use, can it be made password accesable only and leave the IE for the others

BlackadderII

Okay, i'm using Firefox now and its really a lot quicker than IE Superb

Cheers Chris and John

If anyone could let me know if i can password protect it i would very grateful

Many thanks again

Chris L

Another convert This is the great thing about Firefox - because it has been adopted as the preferred option of the open source community, there are all sorts of great add-ons available - you'll need this one

The other thing to do is (I'm assuming your PC runs XP) is setup different user accounts for each user (and don't give them admin rights! - see sticky at the top of this section). If you don't want to do separate accounts, make sure you create (at a minimum), a normal restricted user account for yourself, an admin account and a restricted user guest account.

Chris

Iain Young

Don't really see what the fuss is about firefox. I've got both installed (I develop x-brower code for ie, firefox, mozilla, opera, netscape etc), and I still use IE 99% of the time for general browsing. I find firefox to be slow, bug ridden (especially when rendering certain dhtml elements), and it's just as insecure as ie.

Hopefully IE7 should sort out any wrinkles in the current version, but of course it'll probably add a few more as well

BlackadderII

Hi Iain

Yes there are a few glitches compared to IE but overall i'm more than happy with the speed of page loading, it's so much quicker than IE has been

As an aside, could someone please explain to me how i can tailor each user account on XP.

There are 5 user accounts but only mine gets used as none of them are passworded and everyone has admin rights

sorry to be a thicko

Chris L

As you say Iain - hopefully v7 (!) will sort it out. Firefox is only at 1.0.4 and it is already outperforming IE. I run a recompiled and optimised version for the P4 processor and it is noticeably quicker than IE (and it looks nicer). The 150 or so reported security holes and vulnerabilities in IE 6 reported since last year, don't exactly fill me with confidence either. It's a much smaller download too

BAII - go into Control Panel and click on the User Account icon. If you have admin rights, you should see all of the other accounts on the PC. You can then change them to limited user accounts. Once you've done that, change the password on your account and they won't be able to get in. Remember to create an admin account aswell though - there will be some tasks that require those rights.

Iain Young

True, but as firefox is becoming more popular, there are more and more holes being exposed in it, (some of them quite nasty). Luckily they've all been fixed fairly quickly so far, but I suspect it's no more or less secure than ie.

The hackers have just had more time to attack ie and so it is percieved as being less secure (when in fact it is probably more secure as a lot of the holes have been already found and closed)...

p.s. you can get other browsers which look just as pretty as firefox, offer tabbed browsing etc but use the ie engine to drive it. Avant for example..

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Uh oh.






Do you run any adware/spyware programs?
If you don't download the microsoft one FREE MICROSOFT STUFF and let it run. You might want to stop them downloading the free toolbar accessories in future.

BlackadderII

Milamber

I use Zone alarm, Norton Antivirus, Ad-Aware and pop up stopper

I could just do with letting them bollox up their own accounts and let them run dog slow. I'm sick of finding crap written into my registry which i cant 100% identify as being sh1te so this way seems best lol

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

Just checking

Milamber

iTrader: (2)

BTW another vote for firefox from me.

Markus

I have FF and I use it from time to time. Why not a complete switch? Well, I'm on a Mac, so 99% of things that would effect me on a PC does not do so on a Mac. I have not used IE for ages, mainly as it's at some silly early version on the Mac. I tend to use Apple's own Safari, which is pretty good, but does fall over on certain sites, at which point I whip out firefox.

All the PC's I have here run FF, end of story. I do not allow anyone to run IE anymore, even though the machines are patched to the latest versions of IE and the OS, and there are hardware firewalls in place, and virus protection too.

I got my parents switched over to it at xmas. Let's put it this way, I put FF on there and didn't say a word. All their bookmarks were there, and they surfed away happily, their only comment was things seemed faster and there were no more annoying pop up windows appearing. I did eventually confess to switching things on them, but they were very happy indeed. I seem to recall mum going into work and trying to persuade the IT chaps to let her use FF at work, but alas they would not

Iain Young

I'm not knocking FF (it's not bad, and they are gradually fixing the numerous rendering bugs and crashes), but it's very worrying that people are putting so much blind faith in it's security. It is not really any better than ie in that respect at all. Some very serious security problems have been found recently (giving low level access to the pc and all your details). Luckily, they've all been fixed very quickly so far, but it does make you wonder how many more there are....

In fact there is an argument that ie may be safer because a lot of the major security holes have now been found and closed.

No browser is 100% safe, and they should never be treated as such.

In an office environment, especially when using microsoft products (sharepoint for example), you have no choice but to use ie as the software requires it. Most IT departments will not allow users to install their own software, and many more will not allow ANY open source products on their networks. Too much of a liability / security / support risk. I guess that's why they wouldn't let your mum use it...

drjsd

First time I've ever heard of Firefox, but willing to give it a go. Are there any must have extensions (one mentioned up above)?

jowl

Heard of Firefox for a while but was generally happy using Opera and IE.

Tried FF - as it's free and I've not looked back. Think I'll remove Opera soon as FF is now my main browser.

I use IE for the 1% of sites I visit that require it (mainly my banking)

Going back to IE and the pages seem MUCH slower to load than in FF.

drjsd

Is there any way to get the backward and forward buttons on my mouse to work with Firefox? (Logoitech DiNovo mouse etc)

john_s

iTrader: (1)

It works fine with the forward and back buttons on my Logitech mouse, and that's without any drivers installed for it.

John.