Internet Explorer Vs Firefox

tonc76

Sorry should read Internet Explorer V Firefox!!!

Not sure if I'm in the right forum but here goes.

I am awaiting delivery of a new laptop and am wondering what the main differences are between Firefox and Explorer. Have read on other sites that firefox is much better - opinions?

Also wondering what security to buy for my laptop - have seen Mcafee and Norton slammed on this site so any alternatives/better software/free software?

Ruu_Old

Firefox is more secure than Internet Explorer I believe and has a lot more cool addons and features available.
For free anti virus, spyware apps and firewall go for AVG Anti-Virus, Anti-Vir, NOD32 or avast! choose one, they are all pretty good.
Get Spybot-Search and Destroy, Windows Defender and AVG Anti-Spyware.
For a firewall use Zone Alarm, Comodo Firewall (which I am using at the moment and works great), the bog standard Windows Firewall (built in) or Kerio.
All of those have free versions available.

Dempsey

I've installed Firefox 2.0 on Media Centre edition and I'm have severe stability problem where by at any given time, memory shoots to ~2GB. I have to use taskmanager to terminate the process. Any advice

netwhizkid

I find firefox 2.0 a step backward for the entire firefox series, I am using it for about 2 weeks now and find it tends to freeze etc. However I am going o stick it out for such time as firefox 2.1 becomes available and these kinks get ironed out. For Stability I would go for an earlier version I found version 1.5 to be excellent.

However it lacked the MS Word like spell checker that is now built into FF 2.0. All in all I would not go back to anything but version 2 despite a few finicky bits. The Google toolbar plus Firefox spell checker means even the worst typers can pass as an English grammar teacher.

woolymammoth

firefox does have its ups and downs, i still much prefer it to IE though! you could always try opera!

also, spywareblaster is a good extra to have!

conzy

Firefox is better.

Mr. Presentable

conzymaher wrote:

Firefox is better.

It's not. It's just different. Each has its weaknesses, and strengths.

I don't know how companies manage to get people to be so passionate about something so mundane as the difference between one web browser and another, one game console and another.

killbillvol2

I've always liked Firefox but 2.0 is bugging the sh1t out of me. It crashes/freezes at least once a day so I've been drifting back to IE 7. Hopefully they'll fix the bugs.

mensreas

ive being useing ie7 for about 6mths now and its still surprising me i got hardship wit opera in secure sites so kicked it to the curb ie7 is very good for a microsoft product though they should have an option of minimizing it to the sys tray!

Giblet

nipplenuts wrote:

It's not. It's just different. Each has its weaknesses, and strengths.

I don't know how companies manage to get people to be so passionate about something so mundane as the difference between one web browser and another, one game console and another.

Try some web development...

rogue-entity

Web development is a b1tch with Internet Explorer, and websites look horrible in all the other browsers. Lack of support for internet standards as well as security concerns has lead me to kick IE to the kerb. Just try using a fully valid standards complient website in IE, with PNG images with transparent backgrounds... that said, IE7 finally can display PNGs with transpencies properly.

Firefox or Opera FTW!

Mr. Presentable

Giblet wrote:

Try some web development...

Yeah, but happily 99.99% or more of all browser users are not web developers.

As an end user I have tried Opera, Firefox, IE. My favourite to use from these was Opera, but IE is the only one that displays all the pages I visit correctly, so it's the one I use.

To the OP. I don't believe one is "better" than another. Just different.

Firetrap

There's nothing to stop you installing both browsers and trying them out. I have both (and Opera) on my computer.

Firefox takes a bit longer to load up but once it is, it works like lightning. I love the extensions you can download for it (my fave being one which enables you to save video clips from YouTube) and have tried out different skins. It also has tabbed browsing, something Internet Explorer has only introduced recently. The only snag I find is that occasionally you will find websites won't work with it but it's easy to fire up IE for those. It's disgraceful that there are websites out there that only work with one browser though.

I'm still trying to make up my mind about the new Internet Explorer. It's got new features and a new interface

kaimera

Prefer Opera over both.

Occasionaly dabble with FF2.0 now but I'd use IE7 more than it.

Plus for FF: The range of plugins and themes etc.

IE7's tabs are done better imo.

Opera is just more refined I guess.

Zombrex

nipplenuts wrote:

My favourite to use from these was Opera, but IE is the only one that displays all the pages I visit correctly, so it's the one I use.

That is exactly how Microsoft get people to be so passionant about (hating) IE, because it breaks standards.

There is a body called the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) who define how things like HTML and CSS (the code that makes up the webpage you are viewing) work. Most browser companies attempt to stick to these standards, so if you as a web developer write a page following the standard you can be sure it will work on most browsers that also follow the standards.

Except Microsoft on the other hand don't like standards, because they get in the way of its monopoly.

So they half heartly attempt to support the W3C standards, while not really bothering and inventing their own. Which means a whole load of sites have to have non-standard code put in them so they can support IE properly. And because it is non-standard it doesn't work well with browsers that have actually bothered to follow the offical standards.

Aside from the ethical problems with this it simply drives people nuts, both users and web developers (especially web developers). Which is why a lot of people hate IE and Microsoft (actually it is one of a long list of reasons to hate microsoft)

aidan_walsh

Except Microsoft on the other hand don't like standards, because they get in the way of its monopoly.

In the past, yes. They are making great efforts in interoperability these days, and more recent formats designed by them have been published openly.

unnameduser

i am the only who finds firefox slow to open a new window?

In what way is firefox more secure?

Ruu_Old

from the Firefox FAQ re: security;

# It is not integrated with Windows, which helps prevent viruses and hackers from causing damage if they somehow manage to compromise Firefox.
# There is no support for VBScript and ActiveX, two technologies which are the reasons for many IE security holes.
# No spyware/adware software can automatically install in Firefox just by visiting a web site.
# Firefox doesn't use Microsoft's Java VM, which has a history of more flaws than other Java VMs.
# You have complete control over cookies.

Serbian

The majority of reasons why Firefox is 'better' than Internet Explorer just aren't appreciated, or a concern of the average user. That, and the fact that Internet Explorer comes with Windows and just works, would be the main reason why people don't change.

I for one find Firefox a lot better because I can add all sorts of plug-ins to the browser that help me do my job. Sure, it's a bit slower to open up than IE and it crashes a whole lot more than IE (although I have found it a lot better since FF2.0), but it's interface isn't a cluttered mess and it's a whole lot more secure.

Why is FireFox more secure? Firstly, you need to look at how many vulnerabilities have been discovered in either application:

IE6.x: 106 (17% remain unpatched)
FireFox 1.x: 38 (11% unpatched)

Security is more than just a list of bugs though, simple things like colouring the address bar when on a secure site, warning users of potental phishing attempts and not having hotkeys on confirm dialogue boxes are all things that Firefox / Opera introduced. IE has copied most of these features for IE7, but the fact is the competition will always be ahead of IE in terms of security as IE doesn't introduce smart features like the above, it just copies them further down the line.

In the end, I'll be a lot happier if you stop using IE as it gives Microsoft more motivation to improve their browser if the competition is gaining ground on them, but ultimately, just use whatever you're comfortable with, IE isn't going to go away any time soon.

Wertz

Windows update d/led and then asked me to install IE7 last night....so I did.
I ran it and took a look at the new UI; not particularly impressed.
I closed it again, and went back to FF which I've used for 2+ yrs....my PC does an auto shutdown at a fixed time every night...but last night it didn't due to some process called font grabber which would not terminate without an OK from the user. Turns out font grabber is some windows utility that AFAIK can only have been installed alongside IE7....so I uninstalled IE7 and problem solved.

Coincidentally, WMP11 also d/led updates (I have the beta version) and since then, the player has been unstable and causing problems...also they don't seem to have ironed out many of the niggles I came across in comparison to WMP10.
M$ piss me off to the point of using an alternative product to all but their OS (for the simple fact that I CBA to learn a linux UI)

Currently running FF 1.5.0.8 with a million extensions and 20+ tabs open...hasn't crashed in weeks....I'm not upgrading to 2.0 from the stories I've read...

MyPeopleDrankTheSoup

To all the people who've upgraded to FF 2 and are having stability problems like browser freezing and stuff like that, do you have the Google toolbar installed and is advanced features (pagerank) turned on? I and a lot of other people have had the same problem, but if you turn off pagerank it seems to work (for me anyway). Havent had a freeze since. Google are working on a fix, more info at the Google toolbar newsgroup

Capt'n Midnight

Serbian wrote:

IE6.x: 106 (17% remain unpatched)
FireFox 1.x: 38 (11% unpatched)

http://secunia.com/product/12434/ Firefox 2.0 (100% unpatched Less critical)
http://secunia.com/product/12366/ IE7 ( Unpatched 100% (3 of 3 Secunia advisories) Moderately critical )
http://secunia.com/product/10615/ Opera 9 Unpatched 0% (0 of 2 Secunia advisories)

Opera 9 is the most secure
Firefox has the most teaks and close on security
Internet explorer can view the most sites, though this is more because the sites have been tweaked to work with it, rather than any special magic in the product

Internet Explorer like Microsoft Exchange is extremely good at doing certain things, the problem being that they aren't so good at doing what people expect them to do. Exchange is great for workflow , colloboration, forms, centralised contacts and scheduling etc. it's just way too complicated, and idiosyncratic to justify it's use as a pure email server. Likewise IE is good as a frontend for data entry to microsoft backoffice systems, it's good if you want a standarised interface for your products, it's good if you have active X type applets to manage other computers on your WAN. With all that non-browser functionality and code built in, just like the way Exchange has lots of non-email stuf, it's a good jack of all trades, but it's not a best of breed browser ( or in exchanges case standalone mail server)

The other little niggle with IE is that since it's built into the OS you have to patch it and about 50% of critical, install and reboot ASAP patches are related to IE, so it's a major cause of downtime on servers, on one site I've to reboot them in sequence so if there is a problem I don't loose the whole lot and some depend on services on others. Takes about an hour and a half to approve, install , reboot and make sure it's up before the next one. So yes I loose a lot of time, and the painful thing about it is there isn't really any need for IE on a server - patches can be done with WSUS and I'm still annoyed with Veritas for insisting on using IE for the interface on backup exec and them not letting you downgrade to an earlier non-IE version. /RANT

oh yeah - use opera too
and get the open in IE and open in FF extensions so you can right click between browsers - you don't have to choose one or the other - with FF you can even choose to view in IE so some sites you see with the IE engine in it's own tab - handy

Oh yeah if you have anything other than a PC firefox and opera provide consistant interfaces across all the computers you use.