Soo.. switching to Firefox..

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » December 22, 2005, 7:49 pm

And it's so weird

Small little differences are freaking me the fuck out. For instance, mouse wheel scrolling. It goes in such smaller increments compared to IE. Can I fix this? The way it displays images is odd, but I can probably fix that one. And even on this pace.. the boxes for inputting are weird. Odd borders!

Sargeras · Post by **Sargeras** » December 22, 2005, 7:59 pm

http://www.tweakguides.com/Firefox_1.html

Enjoy!

miir · Post by **miir** » December 22, 2005, 8:01 pm

I use it from time to time, but I don't dislike IE enough to use Firefox exclusively.

My favorite thing in Firefox is the middle mouse click.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 22, 2005, 8:15 pm

best option for browsers right now, based on the IE engine:

http://www.maxthon.com/

Gonzoie - Luclin · Post by **Gonzoie - Luclin** » December 22, 2005, 8:23 pm

i prefer Firefox to IE, and even Opera. I used Opera after it was made readily available for free and despised it for the most part, but ive found Firefox to be a near perfect browser for how you want to browse..

With mods like SessionSaver, Flashgot, Fasterfox and FLST.. i always have the same 12-15 tabs open, even after i open firefox after i close it. all i do is hit refresh and the screen is refreshed with updates and shit.

I rarely ever have a need to browse, and if i do, i just middle click on a link and open it in a new tab and start from there. Ive found Firefox to be the best browser out there atm, and with more sites starting to recognize that, you rarely run into a site that doesn't support it.

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » December 22, 2005, 8:57 pm

Oh, that middle click to a tab is nice.

Post by **Sylvus** » December 23, 2005, 8:21 am

FYI, Firefox is for homosexuals.

Merry Christmas!

Mr Bacon · Post by **Mr Bacon** » December 23, 2005, 9:02 am

I'm gay then.

Dregor Thule · Post by **Dregor Thule** » December 23, 2005, 9:07 am

Sylvus wrote:FYI, Firefox is for homosexuals.

Merry Christmas!

I'll see you at the parade, honey!

Kylere · Post by **Kylere** » December 23, 2005, 10:38 am

IE doesn't run under Fedora Core 4, but Firefox does!

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 23, 2005, 7:31 pm

Winnow wrote:best option for browsers right now, based on the IE engine:

The latter part of your statement negates the first part.

valryte · Post by **valryte** » December 26, 2005, 3:50 am

Well, I've been using Firefox for about 2 weeks. I'm converted. I used Firefox when it first came out, but didn't want to deal with the bugs and limitations it had back then, so I stuck with IE. But right now, this thing is solid. All the addons are so nice. Hell, I even converted a friend of mine that liked Firefox, but couldn't live without one feature of IE which is when you open a new window the new windows makes a copy of your history thus allowing you to go back and forth in both windows. Don't ask why, this is just one feature he uses when surfing. Anyways with a quick look at the mozilla addons, we found the addon to duplicate a session in a new tab, thus Firefox suddenly has the 1 feature keeping him from switching. I even found colored tabs! Real nice

In the two weeks I've been using, I have yet to find a single problem or annoyance with it.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 26, 2005, 7:22 pm

I'm happy with Maxthon, but in the interest of fairness, am willing to try out Firefox. Does it hijack anything or cause problems when uninstalled? IE and Maxthon share favorites so no matter what you use, your bookmarks are the same. That the case with Firefox?

What exactly does Firefox do better than Mathxon?

http://www.maxthon.com/

With Maxthon I have:

-advanced tabbed browsing
-mouse gestures
-ads, pop-up blocking etc
-sidebar with RSS reader, etc
-plug-ins galore if desired
-no need for a Firefox plug-in to read pages like Firefox needs an IE plug-in
-highly customizable UI along with smart copy/click and drag functions
-stability
-skins

What will Firefox do for me besides "stick it to the man" which I have no desire to do. Bill Gates and Microsoft rock. I can't stand people that hate an entity just because it's on top. There needs to be more of a reason than that.

valryte · Post by **valryte** » December 27, 2005, 5:09 am

Does it hijack anything or cause problems when uninstalled?

Nope.

IE and Maxthon share favorites so no matter what you use, your bookmarks are the same. That the case with Firefox?

Firefox imports them, has to do with the fact that the browser runs on multiple OSes.

What exactly does Firefox do better than Mathxon?

I really couldn't tell you aside from the fact that Maxthon uses the IE engine which MS has neglected for a long time. Guess you could say Firefox helps promote innovation. You can thank them for many of those features.

-no need for a Firefox plug-in to read pages like Firefox needs an IE plug-in

As a developer I have to say, this is really an unfair statement. Both browsers have bugs and you can't expect one to implement a work around for someone elses bug. Or the fact that some standards aren't followed. The shit that IE would let slide is incredible. Or the shit you have to do (to overcome bugs) for things to look right.

What will Firefox do for me besides "stick it to the man" which I have no desire to do. Bill Gates and Microsoft rock. I can't stand people that hate an entity just because it's on top. There needs to be more of a reason than that.

I'm a software developer with about a decade of experience, all MS based. I'm a strong Microsoft follower, so I'm definately not rooting for the demise of MS by any means and never will. In fact, if I did, I wouldn't have a job. The fact is, when MS won the browser wars, it clearly showed why there must never be a monopoly of any kind. Once they did, they slacked off big time. Very little innovation from their side.

I'll probably check out Maxthon as well. I briefly looked it over and so far I can see that the plugins management and installation is much better on Firefox than Maxthon. In Firefox you just click the install link on the plugin site and restart the browser, versus having to download a file, then uncompressing it and then installing. It's more integrated with Firefox than it is with Maxthon. No matter what, it's still based on the IE engine which won't get much more development support versus Firefox which actually does. I know IE7 is coming out and we'll just have to see what happens. Even though there is no "war" to worry about, Firefox isn't going anywhere. Linux is much bigger now that it was several years ago. I've looked at the beta of IE7 and all I can say is, um Firefox's beta was better so better hope they make some major changes before release.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 27, 2005, 7:19 am

valryte wrote:
I'm a software developer with about a decade of experience, all MS based. I'm a strong Microsoft follower, so I'm definately not rooting for the demise of MS by any means and never will. In fact, if I did, I wouldn't have a job. The fact is, when MS won the browser wars, it clearly showed why there must never be a monopoly of any kind. Once they did, they slacked off big time. Very little innovation from their side.

I'll probably check out Maxthon as well. I briefly looked it over and so far I can see that the plugins management and installation is much better on Firefox than Maxthon. In Firefox you just click the install link on the plugin site and restart the browser, versus having to download a file, then uncompressing it and then installing. It's more integrated with Firefox than it is with Maxthon. No matter what, it's still based on the IE engine which won't get much more development support versus Firefox which actually does.

First, I'm all for competition. I always hope people buy ATi cards during periods when nVidia have the best cards and vice versa. You need uninformed people buying brand X to keep the research and development ball rolling. The same can be said for Intel and AMD.

Your only comment about Maxthon so far is that plug-ins aren't integrated more. To install a Maxthon plug-in, you click on the rar or zip and decompress it in the Maxthon plug-in folder. That's it. It's not that hard. The reason this isn't a big deal is because the plug-ins that 99% of the people will find useful are already integrated into Maxthon when you first install it. I haven't installed anything else except to play around with a plug-in that creates a thumbnail image of your google search results to give you a visual of the page. Kind of neat but I won't be using it. As probably with Firefox, Maxthon gives you a ton of customization with its preference options. Fix up those mouse gestures, get those tabs working exactly as you want them, etc.

There is no development going on with IE but there are shells and plug-ins for IE that are in as much development as Firefox is. Check the release history for Maxthon for verification of that. Hmmm last update: 12/27...that's today. I'd say that's active development and bug fixing.

v1.5.2 build 21 [2005-12-27]
* Fixed a problem that may cause AdHunter block normal popup
+ Added 'Free memory regularly' option to Maxthon Options->Advanced.

v1.5.1 build 39 [2005-12-17]
+ Improved Popup Blocking
+ Improved Start page
+ Added "Pin to start page" from RSS side bar
+ Fixed Some internal bugs

v1.5.0 build 95 [2005-10-05]
* Fix a bug in Page Zooming
* Fix a bug with Homepage button

v1.5.0 build 90 [2005-09-30]
+ Set as default browser will also take over links in msn messenger, windows update, and more...
+ Friendly 404 error page.
* Fixed a bug that may cause some script to fail.
* Fixed 'search engine loses problem'.
* Fixed 'rss tooltip appears even the rss side is off' problem
# Improved float ads removal

v1.3.3 [2005-07-31]
+ 'more rss' button on rss sidebar.
+ Search drop down.
* Fixed a user object leak which cause 'error load menu' message.
+ Podcasting support.
+ Online update will remember item's check state.
* memory usage adjustment.
+ feed.maxthon.com , Maxthon feed directory.

v1.3.1 [2005-05-31]
+ New RSS notify popup.
+ New appreciation service - favorite service.
* Do not change focus away from address bar when inputing addresses.
+ 'Open offline' to start dialog.
+ Advanced option: Do not auto-refresh current tab.
+ Do not need confirmation when exiting Maxthon, if only 1 blank page is opened.
* Click on status bar IP address pane to copy the ip to clipboard.

Firefox isn't going to create any new standard that IE can't access. They'll wait for IE7 and take their cue from that. I agree that IE6 by itself isn't worth using anymore but Maxthon more than adequately makes up for its dated UI.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 28, 2005, 2:09 pm

Firefox Myths:

Myth - "Firefox has lower System Requirements than Internet Explorer"

Reality - Internet Explorer 6.x has much lower minimum System Requirements than Firefox 1.x.

------------

Myth - "Firefox is the Fastest Web Browser"

Reality - Opera (now 100% free) is the fastest Web Browser.

-------------

Myth - "Firefox is Faster than Internet Explorer"

Reality - Internet Explorer 6.x is clearly faster than Firefox 1.x overall and is significantly faster from a cold start. The argument that components of Internet Explorer may load during Windows Startup is nullified by Opera's start times.

-------------

Myth - "Firefox is Faster than Mozilla"

Reality - Ironically Mozilla is faster than Firefox 1.x overall. Considering Firefox is supposed to be the lighter, leaner version of Mozilla, this is very surprising. - Source

-------------

Myth - "Firefox is Secure"

Reality - Firefox is anything but Secure with multiple unpatched vulnerabilities allowing exposure of sensitive data to local users. You only need one vulnerability to be insecure. Since Firefox was released users have been exposed to 26 security vulnerabilities and counting. 6 of which were market as Highly Critical.

--------------

Myth - "Firefox is the Most Secure Web Browser"

Reality - Opera (now 100% free) is actually the most Secure Web Browser.

--------------

Myth - "Firefox is Bug Free"

Reality - Firefox is like any other software application and has plenty of bugs and problems.

---------------

Myth - "Firefox was the first Web Browser to offer Tabbed Browsing"

Reality - Tabbed Browsing has been around a long time. Netcaptor offered Tab Browsing back in 1997. Opera (Now 100% Free) developed it back in 1995 and added it in Opera 4 in 2000. Other Popular Browsers such as Avant Browser and Maxthon also had these features way before Firefox officially arrived in 2004.

----------------

Myth - "Firefox fully support W3C Standards"

Reality - Firefox has incomplete support of many W3C standards including HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.1, and CSS 2.1. Further analysis shows that Internet Explorer has very good support for certain standards such as HTML 4.01 with 82%, while Firefox supports a slightly better 86% and Opera 92%. Ironically Internet Explorer supports changes to the XHTML 1.1 standard better than Firefox, 39% to 24%, even without fully supporting XHTML yet.

-----------------

Myth - "Firefox is the Most Standards Compliant Web Browser"

Reality - Opera (now 100% free) is the most standards compliant Web Browser.

-----------------

Why not "stick it to the man" by using Opera?

Fairweather Pure · Post by **Fairweather Pure** » December 28, 2005, 3:28 pm

Why not "stick it to the man" by using Opera?

I would, but only if it was 100% free.

Voronwë · Post by **Voronwë** » December 28, 2005, 4:34 pm

how does not putting food on the table of people who develop awesome software that you can use for your entertainment "stick it to the man"?

does Opera still suck as bad as it did in 1999?

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 28, 2005, 4:54 pm

Voronwë wrote:
does Opera still suck as bad as it did in 1999?

Who cares? It's not IE!

Whoever took the time to come up with that list was obvioulsy an Opera supporter. After looking it over though, Maxthon with the fast IE engine appears to be the best overall, most advanced browser solution. Just posted the list due to reasons given on this message board in the past as to why Firefox was used, and to cause trouble.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » December 28, 2005, 5:44 pm

Funny list.

Big Cat Myths:

Myth - "Cheetahs are the fastest animals on earth"

Reality - Hummingbirds are nearly ultra-sonic, clearly faster.

-----------

Myth - "Lions are dangerous man-eaters"

Reality - Hippos kill a lot more people every year than Lions, which are just big cuddly pussy-cats if you don't piss them off, shame on you!

valryte · Post by **valryte** » December 28, 2005, 9:10 pm

Not really sure why you brought up that stupid myth list. I've never heard about any of those from anyone who actually knows what they are talking about. They sound like crap that someone without a clue would say.

Myth - "Firefox has lower System Requirements than Internet Explorer"

Can't see how anyone outside of Microsoft could possibly say for sure.

Myth - "Firefox is the Fastest Web Browser"

Any statement about something be the fastest, should always raise some flags. Fastest at what exactly? What versions are they talking about? When was this statement made? Oh please...

Myth - "Firefox is Faster than Internet Explorer"

Reality - Internet Explorer 6.x is clearly faster than Firefox 1.x overall and is significantly faster from a cold start. The argument that components of Internet Explorer may load during Windows Startup is nullified by Opera's start times.

Never used Opera so I can't say. All I can say is from my experience, by comparing (non-scientifically, just looking at it) I can clearly see that Firefox is rendering the sites faster than IE. Slashdot for example is like a 2 second difference. Very noticable.

Myth - "Firefox is Secure"

Reality - Firefox is anything but Secure with multiple unpatched vulnerabilities allowing exposure of sensitive data to local users. You only need one vulnerability to be insecure. Since Firefox was released users have been exposed to 26 security vulnerabilities and counting. 6 of which were market as Highly Critical.

Was secure through obscurity...As soon as it got popular, it became a target just like IE. Code is code, it will have bugs. There is no difference between the coders of IE and the coders of Firefox, they all make the same mistakes.

Myth - "Firefox is the Most Secure Web Browser"

Reality - Opera (now 100% free) is actually the most Secure Web Browser.

Yeah, because not enough people use it to make it worth while to waste time looking for exploits hehe.

You want something really secure? Write your own browser and don't give it to anyone!

Myth - "Firefox is Bug Free"

Reality - Firefox is like any other software application and has plenty of bugs and problems.

These are exactly the same BS statements that don't even deserve responding to.

Myth - "Firefox was the first Web Browser to offer Tabbed Browsing"

Reality - Tabbed Browsing has been around a long time. Netcaptor offered Tab Browsing back in 1997. Opera (Now 100% Free) developed it back in 1995 and added it in Opera 4 in 2000. Other Popular Browsers such as Avant Browser and Maxthon also had these features way before Firefox officially arrived in 2004.

Who the fuck cares who had it first? Who would even use that as a reason to switch? hehe All I know is, any browser I use now better have it. It's just one of those features that make or break a browser.

Myth - "Firefox fully support W3C Standards"
Myth - "Firefox is the Most Standards Compliant Web Browser"

Eh, I wouldn't go so far as saying any browser fully supports any standard or most of them. Most have their issues, but, Firefox as well as other browsers that still have ongoing software development at least fix things, unlike IE which barely gets updated.

All I want is equal support for at least 2 browsers, that's the only way we the consumers will win.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 28, 2005, 10:33 pm

Firefox takes longer to OPEN with NO tabs, than Maxthon does with 13 tabs open.

Maxthon allows the quick and easy disabling of active x, scripting, and java, either globally or per tab, removing the MAJORITY of IE's security issues. I can even do windows updates with Max. With FF you can NEVER have active x capability, even when you need/want it.

Opening a new tab in FF must be done manually all the time. Maxthon has a number of tab behavior options that can be preset.

I have seen NO evidence that FF loads pages any faster than IE.

Is that part about the tabs true? If you can't customize the way tabs open and behave in Firefox, it's basically useless to me. Maxthon has great customization for working with tabs...how they open, switching between them, refresh options, shortcuts, etc. All this combined with extensive customization within mouse gestures and keyboard/mouse button cutomization.

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » December 29, 2005, 5:01 am

Winnow wrote:
Firefox takes longer to OPEN with NO tabs, than Maxthon does with 13 tabs open.

Maxthon allows the quick and easy disabling of active x, scripting, and java, either globally or per tab, removing the MAJORITY of IE's security issues. I can even do windows updates with Max. With FF you can NEVER have active x capability, even when you need/want it.

Opening a new tab in FF must be done manually all the time. Maxthon has a number of tab behavior options that can be preset.

I have seen NO evidence that FF loads pages any faster than IE.
Is that part about the tabs true? If you can't customize the way tabs open and behave in Firefox, it's basically useless to me. Maxthon has great customization for working with tabs...how they open, switching between them, refresh options, shortcuts, etc. All this combined with extensive customization within mouse gestures and keyboard/mouse button cutomization.

If you count plug-ins; FF has plenty of tab options.

The ActiveX claim is laughable. I never want it, ever, at all, ever, ever, ever. A browser is not the tool for having that much access to my computer. <insert analogy>

*shrug* I use Opera and FF, mostly because I refuse to use IE; the most coherent argument I've ever heard in this "browser war" garbage was that IE development (or lack of it) shows exactly why we shouldn't let someone like MS win a monopoly.

valryte · Post by **valryte** » December 29, 2005, 5:16 am

With FF you can NEVER have active x capability, even when you need/want it.

you can NEVER? BS statement. There are plugins to add Active X support.

Opening a new tab in FF must be done manually all the time.

Again, BS, there are several different ways to open links in as new tabs. And besides pre-configured tabs that open when the browser opens, unless your browser magically opens links for you, you are going to have to perform some sort of physical activity to open a link...

Come on, at least verify your facts before you spew someone elses BS...Your a smart person, I can't believe you would read that and not realize that they are full of crap. Statements like NEVER WILL HAVE are clear indicators that any of their statements should be flushed down the toilet.

I'm trying out Maxthon. So far here are my thoughts.

WTF, it won't honor my Start Page. Keeps sending me to some Maxthon page. Oh I see why, there are "Internet Options" which has a start page there and then their is Maxthon's option which also has a start page. What kind of a rig is that crap? LOL Come on, I know even you can't say yeah that's kind of stupid.

I did like how it detected the RSS feed and asked me if I want to subscribe. There may be a plugin for Firefox, I'll have to look.

I like those options it has for search where you can specify where you want it to do the search. But, as they are check boxes for each search engine, I expect it to do a search on each one and open a tab for each results. But guess what, it doesn't, it keeps using only Yahoo for some reason.

I right clicked a link and at first I was like, WTF where is "Open in new Tab". Well guess what, The "Open in new Window" is actually the open in new tab. There is no open in new window. Um, great UI there, real intuitive.

I see they have the same bug that IE has where it won't show the site logo icon in either the address bar or the toolbar when you have a favorites. Instead you get that generic IE icon. NM, it NOW has started to display it in the address bar and in the tabs, but the favorites in the toolbar have not updated. In fact I can't seem to be able to drag a link to the toolbar. I have the toolbar unlocked, but I still can't do it. Even IE lets you do that. Don't tell me I have to enable something, this should be enabled by default.

It looks like the tabs have a fixed length, even though in the settings I increased the max number of characters.

I disabled the text labels in the toolbar, but I still see "Address" and "Search" Aren't those test labels as well?

I think the tabs look better in Firefox. They are clearly defined. The ones in Maxthon seem to blend too much with the toolbar.

As for speed, well again I'm only judging by how fast Slashdot loads and it still loads faster in Firefox than Maxthon. Try it out yourself, I can't see it running any different on your machine than mine, I think we have a very similar setup. If you want I'll record it so you can see. Maybe you can figure out why.

I'll keep messing around with Maxthon, but I can't see how it really is that much better than Firefox. I'd say each browser has something or does something better than the other, but I'm leaning more towards Firefox.

Adding plugins is still much cleaner and easier in Firefox. You simply click on the install link on the add-on page. You may think that oh, downloading a zip file, opening it and dropping the contents in some folder is easy, which it is, but it's still several more steps than in Firefox.

My preliminary overall impression is that Firefox is cleaner and seems to have more thought put into it than Maxthon, which is expect as one is written from scratch and the other is just an IE hack. Don't care what argument you use, at the end of the day it's a hack around IE. Things like the two separate places for a start page, and the search with checkboxes not working how they are implying that they would work, or how the plugins are added are all clear examples that they didn't put enough thought into it. I will say this, between Maxthon and standard IE, I'd definately use Maxthon. No reason at all anyone should use the standard IE.

Gonzoie - Luclin · Post by **Gonzoie - Luclin** » December 29, 2005, 6:23 am

one solution to make firefox the fastest browser i can think of is an addon called fasterfox.

it makes sites render marginally quicker and even shows you just how long it takes to render. I am a firm believer that FF could be the best browser on the market at the moment. Ive tried some of the others and i didn't like them after about a week of use i always go back to FF. I always have 13-15 Tabs open now, even when i open my firefox thanks to an addon called sessionsaver. After you close FF, you just open it and it leaves off on the last page you were on with all the tabs intact and active. It doesn't take FF long to open, even with all 15 tabs.

You can easily automatically open a link in a new tab.. by middle clicking on the link... thats automatic as opposed to manually clicking on the new tab, or hitting ctrl + T.. but honestly whats the difference, when you open a new tab ( except middle click ) it automatically takes you there.. not much of a time saver.. i only really use middle click if i intend on closing the tab at a later time.

Get FireFox, Get Plugins, Get A Cool Skin.. It's The Best.

valryte · Post by **valryte** » December 29, 2005, 7:54 am

one solution to make firefox the fastest browser i can think of is an addon called fasterfox.

Yeah, but I don't agree with pre-fetching. I say no to pre-fetching. It just puts unneeded load on the web servers.

This is what I currently have installed:

AdBlock

Gmail Manager - notifies you of new mail on your gmail account (slow popup though)

Click2Tab - open in new tabs when you click on bookmarks, history, etc...

Colorful Tabs - adds color to the tabs

Duplicate Tab - duplicates a tab plus all it's session information (same behaviour as IE when you say Open new window)

Greasemonkey - have not played with this yet

Dictionary Tooltip - opens a pop up with a dictionary lookup when you click on a word

CuteMenus - adds all sorts of icons to menu items

SessionSaver - saves your session, so when you open it restores Firefox just how you closed it (all tabs that were opened are reopened)

Tabbrowser Preferences - lets you customize the tabs more

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 29, 2005, 1:19 pm

I hope it didn't take you too long to figure out how to set your home page Val! : ) Maxthon has it's own settings which are quite extensive. Home page happens to be one of the crossover options with IE preferences.

The search engine can be defaulted to Google. All of those search options are nice but I only use google so in Maxthon preferences, i set the "*" generic search option to google (instead of the yahoo one you must be seeing)

The more options a browser has, the more time you need to customize it to your liking. I'd rather have a browser I can customize to my liking than be stuck with something I'm not happy with. Mouse gestures are something that people should take the time to customize on Maxthon and FF.

I'll quit quoting people that use CAPS to EMPHASIZE. It appears to me that Maxthon and Firefox both will get the job done. My point was that the IE engine is just fine. Firefox uses plugins and Maxthon basically does the same although it comes with more useful plugins/extensions already as part of the package so you don't have to bother installing more for the most part like you do with Firefox. IE6 development is dead, of course, IE7 is right around the corner. IE7 won't have every little thing that every user wants but it will have plug-ins and shells again that can enhance it. I love the built in RSS capability of Maxthon. IE7 will have that built in as well. I don't know if Firefox's plug in solutions are as well done or not but RSS is here to stay so hopefully it gets some attention.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 29, 2005, 3:04 pm

I've recently noticed that my Firefox 1.5 browser has been sporadically slow and less responsive. This is particularly noticeable on various forums, and places where Javascript has been used. I decided to do a complete uninstall, thorough cleanout and reinstall of Firefox 1.5, and retweaked it, and now Firefox is back to being fast and responsive. My conclusion is that even uninstalling older versions of Firefox before installing 1.5 is not sufficient - if you are experiencing slowdown issues like I have been, I strongly recommend you do a full uninstall and cleanout of your old Firefox profiles/files and start afresh as detailed on page 3 of my Firefox Tweak Guide. Make sure to backup your bookmarks file first, but don't keep any of your other files/settings. Then after installing Firefox 1.5, carefully tweak a few settings at a time until you're happy with Firefox's speed.

Sounds like a hassle!

Aslanna · Post by **Aslanna** » December 29, 2005, 5:27 pm

Try a few and use whichever one you like more. Who gives a shit what other people are using.

(I use Avant/IE. Tried Firefox and didn't care for it.)

valryte · Post by **valryte** » December 29, 2005, 7:32 pm

The search engine can be defaulted to Google. All of those search options are nice but I only use google so in Maxthon preferences, i set the "*" generic search option to google (instead of the yahoo one you must be seeing)

What exactly are the check boxes for then? Is there a way to get it to perform the search across multiple search engines?

I've recently noticed that my Firefox 1.5 browser has been sporadically slow and less responsive. This is particularly noticeable on various forums, and places where Javascript has been used. I decided to do a complete uninstall, thorough cleanout and reinstall of Firefox 1.5, and retweaked it, and now Firefox is back to being fast and responsive. My conclusion is that even uninstalling older versions of Firefox before installing 1.5 is not sufficient - if you are experiencing slowdown issues like I have been, I strongly recommend you do a full uninstall and cleanout of your old Firefox profiles/files and start afresh as detailed on page 3 of my Firefox Tweak Guide. Make sure to backup your bookmarks file first, but don't keep any of your other files/settings. Then after installing Firefox 1.5, carefully tweak a few settings at a time until you're happy with Firefox's speed.

I haven't run into this. Could be the plugins that he's using. I know some have memory leaks or are just bad code. Not really Firefox's fault

I'd rather have a browser I can customize to my liking than be stuck with something I'm not happy with.

you don't have to bother installing more for the most part like you do with Firefox.

It's called customizing it to your liking

I don't know if Firefox's plug in solutions are as well done or not but RSS is here to stay so hopefully it gets some attention.

Yeah, I haven't checked them out either. But I agree, RSS is here to stay.

Try a few and use whichever one you like more. Who gives a shit what other people are using.

You should give a shit. If everyone used IE we'd get screwed just like we were before all the other browsers came around. It's discussions like this that get other people to try other browsers which in turn tells Microsoft to get off their ass.

I use Avant/IE. Tried Firefox and didn't care for it.

I'll have to try Avant out, never heard of it. See, if we didn't have these discussions, I wouldn't have found out about Avant or Maxthon for that matter

Hey, before all these browsers came out, there was this other IE wrapper. Might have been the first to do it. I believe it was Neo? Anyone remember those guys.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 29, 2005, 8:01 pm

valryte wrote:
I use Avant/IE. Tried Firefox and didn't care for it.
I'll have to try Avant out, never heard of it. See, if we didn't have these discussions, I wouldn't have found out about Avant or Maxthon for that matter

I tried Avant before Maxthon and stopped using it due to memory leaks and something else I can't remember that was annoying. I think it had to do with how the tab/windows were handled.

It looks like Avant gets regular updates as well (last one was 12/25/05) so it may have improved. From using both, Maxthon seems to be more customizale and to my liking. If I can't get Aslanna to switch to Newsleecher, there's no hope of a switch to Maxthon!

Drolgin Steingrinder · December 29, 2005, 8:36 pm

I've heard lots of stuff about HEY I CAN MAKE UR FIREFOX GO TWICE AS FAST. Here's some stuff I found...

There appear to be a bunch of optimizations circling around which claim you can speed up your surfing if you're on a broadband connection. Before you apply any such tweaks, it's important to understand which category they fall into:

Pipelining Tweaks
These usually take the form of telling you to adjust settings in the "network.http.pipelining..." tree. These are quite safe, but may cause problems with older web servers which do not understand pipelining properly. Pipelining works by sending requests simultaneously over a single connection - this avoids the delay incurred by the latency between you and the server. Traditionally, HTTP clients go:
Code: Select all
REQUEST ->
        <- RESPONSE
REQUEST ->
        <- RESPONSE
Pipelining changes this to:
Code: Select all
REQUEST REQUEST ->
                <- RESPONSE RESPONSE
This is a good optimization/tweak to apply as it increases speed for both you and the web server.

Connection Tweaks
The "other" type of optimization commonly seen instructs you to alter the "network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", "network.http.max-connections-per-server" and other related settings. These are EXTREMELY DAMAGING "optimizations" to apply and should be avoided at all costs. These settings violate the HTTP protocol, which recommends a limit of 2 connections per server. When you increase it beyond that, a lot of bad things begin to happen:

The web server is often the hardest hit. The Apache web server maintains a number of "slots" which are processes lying around to handle requests as they come in. Since they usually come in at a steady rate, the server can create and destroy extra processes as needed to handle the load. When you and your "optimized" settings hit the server however, almost all of the slots that are idle are suddenly taken up by your browser. This forces the server to suddenly create a bunch of new processes to handle other traffic which is a CPU-intensive task. When you are done hogging up the slots, the server suddenly finds itself with way more processes than are needed for normal traffic, so it will kill off the extra ones.

What's worse is that since most tweaks involve such a high number of connections, once one element has been transferred, the connection is never used again. This forces the web server to hold all the connections in "keepalive" state as under normal circumstances, more than one request is sent per connection. TCP never gets a chance to automatically find the best RWIN for greatest speeds, load on routers between you and the server is increased thanks to all the extra packets... the whole basis of the HTTP/1.1 specification was to get away from the "one connection per element" days of HTTP/1.0, by applying these tweaks you are simply going back to the 1.0 days.

It's also worth pointing out that there exists an Apache module and netfilter settings that could cause your additional connections to be blocked from the server, resulting in very slow page load times, broken images and possibly even a complete IP ban for this "flooding" behaviour. Please, stick with pipelining and do not touch these settings. There is a very good reason why they are not the default.

If you have read and understood this entry thoroughly, you will notice that enabling pipelining will give you HIGHER performance than increasing the maximum number of connections! This is because with pipelining, even though there are only 2 connections to the target web server, you are still sending all your requests at once. Since you are re-using the same connection, TCP has a chance to tune the Receive Window, keep-alive is made useful and everyone is happy.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 30, 2005, 6:03 pm

Duplicate Tab - duplicates a tab plus all it's session information (same behaviour as IE when you say Open new window)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but opening a new window in IE just opens the current page in a new window. Using that plug-in for FF actually duplicates the entire session in a new tab. So you could use go back and such. New window in IE you can't.

For adblock alone I use FireFox, though there are several other reasons I'd use it regardless.

Also add DeskCut to the list of FF plug-ins to get. It adds the "Create Shortcut on Desktop" feature that IE has.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 30, 2005, 6:32 pm

Siji wrote:
For adblock alone I use FireFox, though there are several other reasons I'd use it regardless.

Also add DeskCut to the list of FF plug-ins to get. It adds the "Create Shortcut on Desktop" feature that IE has.

Maxthon has an excellent ad and pop-up blockers, easily disabled with a single click for specific pages or single instances.

Firefox can't create a desktop shortcut for a link as part of the standard package? I thought that feature would be just common sense to have as part of a browser.

If Maxthon's name wasn't so lame it would gain more market share. Changing the name to SquirrelNutsBrowserXteme would be a little more flashy.

valryte · Post by **valryte** » December 30, 2005, 7:38 pm

Correct me if I'm wrong, but opening a new window in IE just opens the current page in a new window.

Ok, I'll correct you. You are wrong

IE has that behavior by default.

If Maxthon's name wasn't so lame it would gain more market share.

I doubt the name is the only reason. Might have something to do with the fact that IE is involved

Zaelath · Post by **Zaelath** » December 30, 2005, 9:33 pm

Eh, it's a bit like those body kits you can buy that make a VW bug look like a Porsche 911, calling it "the cleavage" wouldn't make it any sexier.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » December 30, 2005, 10:52 pm

Zaelath wrote:Eh, it's a bit like those body kits you can buy that make a VW bug look like a Porsche 911, calling it "the cleavage" wouldn't make it any sexier.

I disagree. Marketing is everything. Maxthon is just as good as Firefox.

Siji · Post by **Siji** » December 31, 2005, 3:02 am

Winnow wrote:Maxthon has an excellent ad and pop-up blockers, easily disabled with a single click for specific pages or single instances.

It's still based on IE. If I wanted an IE product I'd use Avant.

Winnow · Post by **Winnow** » January 3, 2006, 6:18 pm

Here's an article covering Microsoft's lack of develoment on Internet Explorer.

Microsoft employees ponder the fate of Internet Explorer
1/2/2006 5:23:52 PM, by Jeremy Reimer

The saga of Internet Explorer, the piece of software that once brought the Department of Justice to the brink of breaking up Microsoft, continues to eat away at the company. Several Microsoft employees have been reporting on their blogs that they feel the browser is not receiving adequate attention from upper management, and that it reflects badly on Microsoft as a result.

Rory Blythe, after posting a rant complaining about how many people seem excited about switching Firefox simply to "beat the man," admitted in a comment that the lack of new features in Internet Explorer was embarrassing:

I think IE is horribly behind the times. When every other browser on the planet that's worth a damn supports tabbed browsing, it's just crappy that I still have to have different copies of IE open to have multiple sites open at once. As of right now, my favorite browser on the planet is Apple's Safari. That's hardly a defense of IE.

Others have joined in with similar comments. Windows Live developer and creator of RSS Bandit, Dare Obsasanjo stated his feelings quite clearly:

We haven't innovated in the browser for almost a decade. Given that Microsoft views IE as a defensive option to make Windows an enticing product, there is less incentive to make it the ultimate browsing experience as products whose bread and butter is the Web browser. Why do you think there are so many Google employees working on Mozilla?

The struggle for the promotion and development of Microsoft's web browser isn't new. Back in 1995, Microsoft had just finished shipping their most popular version of Windows ever, and the company was riding high. Immediately afterwards they got blindsided by the rise of Netscape and the sudden popularity of the World Wide Web. Bill Gates, whose own book The Road Ahead had largely ignored the Internet, went on a two-week retreat and returned with a memo entitled "The Internet Tidal Wave" that prompted the rush development of Internet Explorer.

But that was over ten years ago and the Browser Wars are long over. Netscape sold itself to AOL in 1998 and after a long slide into irrelevance was then effectively disbanded by its parent company in 2003. Internet Explorer rose to 90 percent marketshare and remains close to that figure today.

However, with Firefox recently passing 10 percent marketshare and even being preinstalled on some new computers (such the announcement that it would be installed on Dell PCs sold in the UK) the momentum seems to be steadily moving away from Internet Explorer. The IE 7 beta, which is to be included with Windows Vista as well as available as a standalone download for Windows XP, adds some Firefox features such as tabbed browsing, but does not appear (in current betas, at least) to offer anything really new or compelling. There are shells for IE such as Avant Browser and Maxthon that offer a plethora of features on top of IE, including tabbed browsing, but their adoption rate has been slow. For most people, IE is still IE 6, the same browser it was five years ago.

Why would Microsoft ignore Internet Explorer for so long, and be so slow to react to competitors such as Firefox? Some have speculated that the answer lies entirely with marketshare, and if IE ever drops below a certain point the company will move massive amounts of resources towards regaining the lead. In the mean time, the browser may be seen as a project that makes no money and therefore does not deserve any more than the minimum investment. As a public company, Microsoft is required to make these sorts of decisions. But are they ignoring long-term trends? Jorg Brown, who was on the Microsoft IE for Mac OS X team before it was disbanded, summed it up:

Then why on earth did we pursue IE in the first place? Just so that the DOJ would sue us?

Maxthon > Avant