revenge of the geeks

[lazarus corporation]

for those of you who have rolled your eyes at us computery-types who start threads here proclaiming the benefits of using Firefox, I'd suggest you scroll down to the bottom of this page on this site.

you know it makes sense.

[Dark]

They have a point. Firefox = God's Own Browser.

[Obviousman]

Nice

And he knows why

But does he also use firefox then? (which I switched to earlier this week and am very happy with)

[eastmidswhizzkid]

i saw that earlier -good on him. i changed to firefox ages ago on the strength of the HLer recommendations -as far as i'm concerned the geeks hereon know more about computers than all of my other mates put together; and like mr fiend says, anything's better than using microsoft stuff.

[aims]

I agree entirely

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1. Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.5

I want my Gentoo back

[Dark]

I WILL use Windows, because Linux would be pointless on my computer, since it's used solely for music (hören und machen) and gaming.

[emilystrange]

i have no idea what you're talking about.

[scotty]

for those of you who have rolled your eyes at us computery-types who start threads here proclaiming the benefits of using Firefox, I'd suggest you scroll down to the bottom of this page on this site.

you know it makes sense.

Does that mean "Fire Fox" won't let anything new through for 15 years?

[vicus]

... anything's better than using microsoft stuff.

that's why i'm using Opera 8.5.
(Don't know why I should use that Firefox)

[Obviousman]

... anything's better than using microsoft stuff.

that's why i'm using Opera 8.5.
(Don't know why I should use that Firefox)

Some of us have been keen Opera users as well, and mostly enjoyed that experience very much as well However, Opera doesn't get you on every site, Firefox does...

[Silver_Owl]

I use Opera but Frefox has a nicer ring to it.
End of non-geek logic comment.

[Ocean Moves]

... anything's better than using microsoft stuff.

that's why i'm using Opera 8.5.
(Don't know why I should use that Firefox)

So, *why* are other browsers "better" ?
I've never really got to the bottom of this.

I don't see why I should use Opera.

My IE6 retrieves html and composes it
into a page I can read and interact with.

What else does yours do ??

[eastmidswhizzkid]

firefox gives you little pictures next to your favourite bookmarks.....

[Ocean Moves]

firefox gives you little pictures next to your favourite bookmarks.....

Wow.

[eastmidswhizzkid]

you are hard to impress, aren't you?
if you expect intelligent company at this time in the morning then you got it; if you want sensible as well.....computer says no.

[Ocean Moves]

you are hard to impress, aren't you?
if you expect intelligent company at this time in the morning then you got it; if you want sensible as well.....computer says no.

Fair enough......I'll take your word for it that there's a host of
other great features I'll just never know about

You're burning the candle late...even the quiffs turned in for the night
I reckon....

[Dark]

Firefox is also more secure than IE6.

[aims]

My IE6 retrieves html and composes it
into a page I can read and interact with.

Unless it contains anything more than basic CSS or PNG transparency, in which case you're very lucky if it does

And its HTML rendering isn't exactly renowned as anything more than possibly acceptable. Apple is furthest in front here, since their patches to KHTML mean that Safari passes Acid2. (Not that I'd use software starting with a K [/gnome-militant] ).

Finally, IE p!sses on the whole mime-type system. If the server sets a mime-type but the file extension disagrees with it, IE goes (in contravention of the HTTP standard, I might add) with guessing from the extension. As someone who used to download a lot of Gzip archives prior to switching to firefox, that was a major pain, it would just dump the binary to the page instead of prompting me to save it

[Quiff Boy]

yes, but...

90% of web designers code to make their site look how they want in IE, with the rest of the browsers as an afterthought (if you're lucky)

thus browsing using IE is more often than not going to give you exactly the experience the web site's creator wanted you to have.

[Obviousman]

But IE is the slowest of the three, and the least tweakable, right?

[Quiff Boy]

absolutely, but would your mum or gran really bothered about "tweaking"? or would they rather something that looks like the rest of Windows?

[Ocean Moves]

But IE is the slowest of the three, and the least tweakable, right?

Surely the speed of your internet connection is going to be the
decisive factor in this - not your browser.

I've used Firefox afew times and I've never noticed it to be "faster"
than IE.

[markfiend]

90% of web designers code to make their site look how they want in IE, with the rest of the browsers as an afterthought (if you're lucky)

Do they? Dude, that's slack.

I always preview in all of IE, FireFox, and Apple Safari to (try to) make sure everything looks the same in all three. If it does, then chances are any other browsers will see it the same way.

[Obviousman]

But IE is the slowest of the three, and the least tweakable, right?

Surely the speed of your internet connection is going to be the
decisive factor in this - not your browser.

I've used Firefox afew times and I've never noticed it to be "faster"
than IE.

Well for some reason or another they seem to get the page in a faster way, don't ask me how, but they do. Of course it depends on which pages you're trying to load and also your connection, I presume when you don't have broadband it comes out more obvious. I know back in the days I really found Opera to be faster then MSIE, didn't notice any big differences when I switched from MSIE to FF though.

@QB: But there's where the (grand)son comes in who knows all about computers. Thus we can make computing a more pleasant experience, or something...
And isn't there some IE-lookalike thingy for FF around? (don't know as I can't bother to use themes)

[Quiff Boy]

heheh

sorry, couldnt resist playing devils advocate. i'm actually in favoutr of this stuff too, and like mark code to FF, opera and IE on that basis that almost everything else is a port or a wrapper around of one of those...

but its a fair point i was trying to make. we're all coming at this from a techie point of view. in the real world, people like my dad dont give as crap about open source, web standards, etc etc

they want an icon on the desktop that they can click, and that shows every website they look at as the designer intended - and a lot of personal website coders and fansite coders arent really that techie, so they do actually just code to the browser they use. which tends to be IE.

and there's a decent enough number of sites that use propriotary technologies like active-x (boo hisss!) that only IE can support.

and security - we all know IE is less secure than many other browsers out there, but its written by the same company who did the o/s. we've all heard of them. for a non techie there's a huge comfort factor.

also, many coporate websites endorse IE, guarantee their security based in IE's security model, even show FAQ guides using IE screenshots...

IE comes with windows o/s. its just there. for someone like my dad thats more than enough for him.