Black Xero

Join Date 10/2001

+21

The Fox Is in Microsoft's Henhouse (and Salivating)

FIREFOX is a classic overnight success, many years in the making.

Published by the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit group supporting open-source software that draws upon the skills of hundreds of volunteer programmers, Firefox is a Web browser that is fast and filled with features that Microsoft's stodgy Internet Explorer lacks. Firefox installs in a snap, and it's free.

Firefox 1.0 was released on Nov. 9. Just over a month later, the foundation celebrated a remarkable milestone: 10 million downloads. Donations from Firefox's appreciative fans paid for a two-page advertisement in The New York Times on Thursday.

Until now, the Linux operating system was the best-known success among the hundreds of open-source projects that challenge Microsoft with technically strong, free software that improves as the population of bug-reporting and bug-fixing users grows. But unless you oversee purchases for a corporate data center, it's unlikely that you've felt the need to try Linux yourself.

With Firefox, open-source software moves from back-office obscurity to your home, and to your parents', too. (Your children in college are already using it.) It is polished, as easy to use as Internet Explorer and, most compelling, much better defended against viruses, worms and snoops.

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For the first time, Internet Explorer has been losing market share. According to a worldwide survey conducted in late November by OneStat.com, a company in Amsterdam that analyzes the Web, Internet Explorer's share dropped to less than 89 percent, 5 percentage points less than in May. Firefox now has almost 5 percent of the market, and it is growing.

Read detailed article from New York Times at Link

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CerebroJD

Join Date 01/2003

As a recent Firefox convert, I can say that I'm sorry I didnt make the switch sooner. Microsoft should seriously consider bundling it with Windows, or at the very least, computer manufacturers should include the latest version with their computers. It would help Firefox get better known, and users would realize that there IS a better choice, and for free!

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All, I have to say, is once you give Firefox a chance, you'll never regret it.
0 I mean 0- ZERO spyware, on my machines since I installed the FOX.
My wife was a little wary at first but now she loves it.As well as the other family members, I have turned on to Mozilla,and the Fox.

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Firefox 1.0 with Tabbed Browser Preferences is *WAY* better than IE or any of the IE shell browsers (Maxthon, etc). I've never, ever, had a single piece of spyware/adware installed.

Last week I accidentally loaded IE and within 1 hour, I had 5 attempts of trojan downloads through IE web page exploits on my machine! IE and IE shell based browsers are simply NOT VIABLE anymore!

I pity people still using them. Now all I need is an Alexa plugin for Firefox and i'm set.

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Congrats Team Mozilla/Firefox....now if only they could make Firefox with toolbar changeability support I'd be all set! Thx!!

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Eat your heart out Microsoft. You wouldn't read the writing on the wall. Now it looks like you lose. Firefox is (as Tony the Tiger says

) GRRRREAT! Keep up the good work Firefox.

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Citizen Kobrano - You can add Alexa to the list of searches in the Web Search feature if that helps.

George Rogers Jr. - You can change themes in firefox and you can also edit the toolbar icons you wish to display. I'm not sure if either of those are what you're reffering to

I learn something new about Firefox daily and I've been using it for a while now. It's the best browser I've ever used.

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I love Firefox!! No spyware!!

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Mouse over Iben for my reply.

Tell me about the spell checker

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as a long time user of firefox trust me you want it!!!!

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I beg to differ with those who think Firebird/fox/bat/whatever they call it this week is the penultimate among browsers.

Ladies and gentlemen, please try Opera. Link
Sure, Mozilla is open-source, and that's cool, but do you really want to feel more secure using a browser whose code is freely available to anyone?
From the same people who brought you Netscape? From those who brought you the AOL browser?? Come on, people, you've made the first step away from the IE heap, now let's take it one step further. To the top of the pile.

What makes Opera so much more than a browser, then? Well, to detail every capability and innovation would take quite a while, but suffice it to say that without Opera, the current Mozilla wouldn't exist. How about this: Every good thing about Mozilla Opera does better, with a fully-customizable user interface, hundreds of skins, a top-notch integrated mail, chat, and news program, and the code is so slick it's smaller and loads EVERYTHING faster. You think mouse gestures are a complicated add-in that you'd like to try but can't get a grip on? Try downloading Opera, and then when you're in a page, hold the right button down and click the left one. Boom, you're back a page. Hold the left and click the right, you're forward. Want it to be the other way around? You got it, just go and tell it what you want it to do when you do whatever you prefer. Don't like a feature? Turn it off. The program doesn't even include the code, and those CPU cycles are free again.

How about having your browser read the pages to you, and/or you controlling it with only your voice? Thanks to some IBM creativity, Opera can do it (7.6 Preview 1 and later, not the one you find on the main page). What about tabbed browsing? It's fairly popular anymore, and you ask anyone who started it and who's on top of it, you get "Opera" every time. Don't like tabs? Quick as a wink, you're using SDI mode, or even popping in and out of modes in separate windows. You want it, you got it. Need I go on?

Give it a shot, guys.

30 Days To Becoming An Opera Lover - Link

Opera 7.6 Preview 4 for Windows - Link

TP4 for Linux/FreeBSD - Link

Opera for your phone/mobile/PDA (Symbian OS) - Link

Opera Standard for Windows, Solaris, QNX, OS/2, Mac, Linux, FreeBSD, BeOS - Link

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Firefox is the best browser I've ever used by miles. It blocks popups and anything that might be nasty. You can still use Roboform with it too, which is also amazing. THere are loads of extensions and themes for it. My favourite is Weather Forecaster. See my article here > Link

Keep up the good work, Mozilla. Get thunderbird too!

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I have to disagree with Citizen 1ke. I just tried Opera and dont like it at all.

1) It is only free if you have ads on it. (Yuck!)
2) I could not write this reply in Opera browser. (D'oh)
3) And it is not faster than Firefox at all.
4) You can get Mousegestures with Firefox anyway.

I have uninstalled it already (2 mins later!)

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GreenReaper

Join Date 05/2001

+32

I agree. I won't even abide ads on the pages when I use Firefox, so I use Mozilla/Firefox Ad Blocking. Just make a userContent.css or open it up if it's already there in the Profile directory and paste it in. It just works! (most of the time)

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I tried FireFox and couldn't stand its rendering. And not just the pages that it messes up, but the way it loads EVERYTHING one item at a time, like IE 2.0 and old Netscape browsers did. It gives me a headache.

I use Maxthon and love it. I've never had a single piece of spyware/adware on any of my computers, nor have any of my clients who all use IE.

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Also, this article has a very misleading last paragraph.

It implies that the only change made to IE in SP2 is the by-default blocking of activeX controls.

However, countless changes were made to the browser itself, along with its APIs, to harden them against attack. That's why the IFRAME exploit, which affected earlier versions of IE, did not affect SP2. They also took many security enhancements from Windows Server 2003, particularly those that harden system services (like RPC) from attacks.

I'm not saying that IE isn't in need of updating... I agree, it is. But to downplay the steps taken by SP2 is ignorant at best.

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im one of the few that does not like firefox at all nothin on made me want to switch in my view avant is all around the best browser to get the fastest by far

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Firefox will never win over any significant market share. Why?

Because businesses will never use anything but IE. (and most home users dont even care) Anyone who takes their corporate IT issues seriously will understand somethign about switching your users browser......you don't gain anything.

People can go off for hours about how IE is not as secure as other browsers, etc etc etc. But the simple fact is that most organizations have at least one critical appplication that relies on IE. 3rd-party developers integrate IE into their programs in DROVES. No other browser software offers robust AND supported browser controls that can easily be used in their programs.

This being the case, you still have to make sure that IE is fully patches with all latest security fixes. After all, even if your users are using Firefox to look at the web...it doesnt mean they aren't retrieving updates to their accounting software using IE.....or posting payroll information to the bank, using IE. They probably don't even know they are using IE, and worse, there's probably a lot of Admin's who dont know either.

As soon as you have discovered one critical application in your organization which uses the IE controls, it makes little sense to use an alternative browser. It only serves to increase your security overhead.

The moral of the story: Microsoft wins AGAIN, by catering to developers. I wonder when the linux people will finally "get it".

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By the way...i think Mouse-Gestures are a really poor feature.....even back to when they were used in the game "Black & White".

Why are they bad? Cause they assume people use a mouse. Not only do I use a pointing device as little as possible, but when I do I use a trackball. Gestures are pretty much useless to trackball users.

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I've been using the Mozilla Suite forever. I love it, and will probably use it as long as they make it. I've tried switching over to Mozilla Firefox every time they hit a big milestone, but it still seems kind of clunky compared to Mozilla (atleast to me). I always end up sticking with Mozilla suite. I do like what they've done so far with Thunderbird though. It's sticks pretty close to Mozilla -mail. from what I've seen.

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I use Maxthon and love it. I've never had a single piece of spyware/adware on any of my computers, nor have any of my clients who all use IE

This is 100% NOT TRUE, and you know it.. Maxthon is nothing more than a buggy cheap IE shell browser, and as such, is vulnerable to the entire internet, just like IE is. A mere hour of web browsing with IE is all you need to have a half dozen pieces of spyware/adware installed on your PC.

Maxthon is no different than the 20 other cheap IE shell browsers. Whats the point of using Maxthon over Firefox? Firefox has better tab support (with Tabbed Browser Preferences), is faster, doens't infect you with spyware, and has much more stability.

Bottom line, anyone that still uses IE, is either in denial, or just doesn't understand computers very well.

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Kobrano, disabling ActiveX support in IE makes it so much more secure in that case. It kind of amuses me that Firefox is considered more secure because it does not have ActiveX support. It's a LACK and NOT security feature. It's not there not because Mozilla coders are so brillian, but because they would not be able to make it work across all the platforms Gecko runs at. You CAN disable ActiveX support in IE. Using that same logic the most secure way to view web pages in would be downloading them and viewing their code in notepad.

Disable ActiveX + use a tabbed shell to IE and you have more or less matched standard Firefox (no extensions).

That said - I use Firefox as my primary browser but all the myths around it are kind of funny. I am impressed how well Gecko (the rendering engine) works, though I am MUCH less impressed with their GUI toolkit. It simply does not look well with almost all dark WindowBlins skins and even MSStyles. Not to count it's other sizing and painting bugs. I can live with them - because as a whole it's really a decent and well put together set but in my understanding there is nothing in Firefox Microsoft could not match within a month of development.

As someone said it once: When in doubt - throw money at it.

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Firefox is very good. Opera is better

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Firefox is the best. What I like the most about it is the built-in download manager, and accelerator on it, because you wouldn't belive how many downloads I have on my PC. But, really, I hade NO clue that IE's share dropped less then 89%!!! I also like the theme manager, too. The WebBlinds for IE really does kind of stink. Firefox has everything (maybe more then) I need. Thanks for the info, Sir Black Xero.

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I've heard a lot of good things about Firefox then I try it and I've been using it since 0.9.3 ,it has lot of useful features like tabbed browsing and you can add search engines from google to dictionary.com, and if Firefox crashes there is a safe mode. For people who still uses dial-up

(like me) will think twice before converting to DSL. I'm very happy with Firefox and I wonder what feature can they add in the future 'cause for me it is already complete

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Such a tempting topic... Yummm...

1. As SkinStudio mentioned, you can make IE just as secure. The problem is, out of the box, IE does come out less secure than FireFox. But then again, FireFox is less compatible. I'll vote for more compatibility and more care during browsing.
2. @Kobrano: HOLY CRAP! "A mere hour of web browsing with IE is all you need to have a half dozen pieces of spyware/adware installed on your PC." What the hell kind of web sites do you regularly browse? I have not had any kind of crap on my computer for about four years straight now. On the other hand a family friend's computer is contaminated by thousands of stuff just because their 15 year old downloads every crap that's forwarded to them. I'd say that's quite a user issue. Don't download porn and cracked software, and you won't have problems with that much crap.
3. Maxthon: I've been using it for a long time now (since it was MYIE2). I'd beg to differ with the notion of Maxthon being a cheap IE shell. Yes, it is an IE shell but I think it's a very useful one indeed. Mouse gestures? Got it... Tabbed browsing? Got it... Search toolbar that highlights search terms and searches the engine of your choice without having to find and download extra toolbars from here and there? Got it... Crashes? None in the past several months. I think Maxthon is definitely an alternative to using vanilla IE. And it still gives you all the compatibility that IE browsing provides.
4. JeremyG has a great point. All of these browsers are focusing on browsing only. Note that IE is used in many programs as an HTTP provider and even some programmers use it as a file viewing control on their forms. It makes developing very easy and when you deploy it on pretty much any Windows machine, you get results easily. FireFox, Opera, and the likes never address any of these needs from programmers and hence will never "replace" IE (unless attitude change happens) but merely be an alternative browser.

</2cents>

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