Mozilla FireFox (note the new name) 0.8 is the best web browser ever. The new release has been massively blogged everywhere, but I have to mention it in case anyone reading my blog is still using that sad little tragic, archaic, full-of-security-holes web browser – Internet Explorer. Unfortunately, my website reports suggest that many people still are.
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I had been using Mozilla Firebird for the last few months and had been quite impressed. But the new 0.8 version is significantly better. I’m amazed they haven’t gone to version 1.0, yet. It’s been incredibly stable for me. Even 0.7 was very stable.
The new download manager is exactly what I wanted. The bookmark manager is slightly improved and is a thousand times better than the shockingly awful bookmark manager in IE. The default qute theme is very clean and attractive. Lots of minor fits have been fixed and many cool little features have been added throughout the application. It’s incredibly easy to install.
I can’t say it enough times. Dump IE and use Firefox. Of course Windows users will need to keep IE available in case they need to access some non-standard websites that have been coded to proprietary IE features, but you would be surprised how few of those sites are still left.
February 17th, 2004 at 5:49 am
Im using it but not sure I like it yet. Why does it totally mess up my blog?
February 17th, 2004 at 9:56 pm
Mainly because you have a bunch of Internet Explorer specific code on your page. I checked out your site using the Safari web browser on my wife’s PowerBook, and your site looked almost the same in Safari as it does in FireFox on both Windows and Linux. The main difference is that FireFox shows a border around your banner, but Safari doesn’t.
The snowflake script is specifically trying to detect NetScape 6, IE, or Opera. If the browser isn’t one of these, the script does not run.
The media player control you are using has two problems. First, it uses the Windows MediaPlayer ActiveX control, which usually is not supported outside of IE. Also, the combo box script below the media player is written in VBScript. VBScript should never be used as a browser scripting language. It’s a non-standard scripting language that even Microsoft avoids. Check out their website. They use JavaScript.
DoodleBoard doesn’t fully work on Safari or FireFox because the programmers of the tool don’t support it. From their website – “DoodleBoard has been tested to work with Internet Explorer 6.0, Netscape Navigator 6.2 and 7.0″.
February 27th, 2004 at 11:03 am
Dear FireFox Technical Support Representative:
I installed FireFox on my SuSE linux system, but I can’t start two of them. I get a message about only one profile allowed in use at any time. Yes, I can use tabs (which are WAY cool), but is this a bug, feature, or (my best guess) user error?
On Windows, FireFox works normally. So far it seems reasonably cool – the tab feature is enough to make me think about moving away from IE.
Enjoy,
RB
March 1st, 2004 at 10:51 pm
Hmmm, I don’t think I’ve seen that problem, but I don’t know if I have tried to start two separate instances of FireFox at the same time. Why would you need to do that?
Tabbed browsing is definitely a big reason to abandon IE. Whenever I run into a website that forces me to use IE, it drives me nuts when I can’t browse multiple sites within the same window.
A related, cool feature is being able to bookmark a set of tabs. When you then select that bookmark, multiple sites all open in separate tabs. It’s great if you have a couple sites that you want to visit each day.
March 9th, 2004 at 1:56 pm
Dear Firefox CSR:
.
Me again. It took me a while, but I found the “any” key and was able to successfully complete the install
Actually, the built in google toolbar is way cool – but is there any way to change the size of that widget? I tried all the options I could find in Customize Toolbars, but to no avail.
What do you think?
RB
PS – That cool coffee cup holder that slides in and out of the computer seems to have broken when I placed my new Starbucks coffee cup on it (probably too heavy) – I guess I will need to buy a new one at Fry’s – proving your shopping spree theory
.
March 9th, 2004 at 4:18 pm
Dear CSR:
Please ignore my above question – I got the new cupholder installed on my system. Apparently there is a new version for “DVDs” which must stand for “Devoted jaVa Drinkers”.
Actually, there is documentation on how to change the width, but the real trick is finding your profiles (as there are several possible locations) – but ChromeEdit makes it all easy.
Enjoy,
RB
February 15th, 2004 at 11:15 pm
firebird gets blogged
Alex Bishop, over at mozillaZine gathered up all of the press on the Firefox 0.8 release. If you haven’t seen enough Firefox news, go give Alex’s post a look. Alex’s got the tech press covered, so I took a few minutes to gather up some Firefox feedback…
August 30th, 2004 at 6:43 am
i have used firefox for a few months and love the themes, extensions, downloads, bookmarks, and pop up blocking.