RF Generation Message Board

I was told to switch from IE to Firefox by a few people over the last few months so i thought i would ask for a comparison of the 2.
Pros and Cons of each.
I was told firefox is more secure so thats a plus right there. If i was mislead tell me. If you use it let me know what you like.
I dont need to much info on Internet Explorer obviously because i have been using it for quite some time.

I was told to switch and I tried it.  I thought it was clumsy and miserable to use.  I absolutely hated the file download interface, and the fact that I had to go and install 9000 plugins for it to get it to work like I already had IE set up kind of irritated me.  Oh, and it doesn't display this site properly.  Sure, there are lots of plugins, but for the most part, I don't care.  I want my web browser to be pretty simple; I don't need it to bake a cake for me and have a toolbar for everything you can possibly imagine.  For me, there was no reason to keep using it, and a lot of reasons to go back to IE.

EDIT: The tabbed browsing was really cool, but not cool enough to outweigh the other things I disliked.

Firefox is out just for those reasons. Mostly the fact that it doesnt run the site the right way.
But i hate having to use space up for something i normally dont need (plugins).
Thanks for the info.

Since Mike tried Firefox, it has been improved a bit, and he's overreacting.

Firefox pretty much handles the same as IE. You can put the buttons at the same places to make it look very alike. The download system is indeed rather annoying; you can't open something in firefox if you chose to download it to your hard disc. You'd have to open explorer for that.
You don't need 9000 plugins though, in fact, you don't need any. I'm not using any at the moment, and I have all the functionality of IE. And plugins are great if you want to have specific things added to your browser. Virtually everything you want is possible with plugins. Nothing that's not already programmed into it is possible with IE.
Another thing is that Firefox is safer. People don't write backdoors, trojans, spyware etc. etc. for firefox. Just think of how often you read about a safety leak in IE and how often you read about one in Firefox.
Surfing with tabs is great. At first it took some effort to get used to it, but now I love it and couldn't go without it. Not having to juggle through all sorts of items on the toolbar makes surfing very comfortable and neat.
IE is many years old, and has hardly changed. Firefox is constantly changing and improving. I have used it since 0.7 and now it's 1.0 and every new release had worthwile changes.
The only problem is that not all sites are compatible. Especially sites with all sorts of lame interactive stuff, like dropping menu's or activex elements.
Of course this doesn't have to be a problem, because if you come across any of these sites, you can just load up IE. You can't uninstall the fucker anyway.

I agree with Arrr.  I only use Firefox.  Even on this site (what doesn't work properly?  I've never tried IE on this site.)

I actually love the download interface of Firefox, but I did miss the option of being able to open what it was I downloaded - so I installed the plugin that let me do that.  I also have a bookmark synchronizer, weather, and Gmail plugin that I use religiously.

I've found Firefox to be vastly superior to IE - not only is it safer, it's actually faster.  Especially with Java content (really a Mozilla benefit anyway).  

The only downside I've found with Firefox is it doesn't know what to do with .wmv files - it tries to view it as a file, instead of launching it in Media Player.

OD

I lied - they fixed the .wmv problem in the new version.  Turns out there are no faults to Firefox :)

OD

Wll i willl check into getting it on here when i have some time next weekend.

This is what I was referring to with the plugins.  I found that to play almost any kind of media file, I had to reinstall something - Flash, Quicktime, Shockwave, etc., etc.  The download thing was what drove me nuts the most.  Most of the other features, such as the supposed speed increases, were not noticeable to me at all.  I'm used to IE and don't really need it to change.  It does what I need it to, and that's the bottom line.  Mac has a few nice features that Windows doesn't, but does that mean I'm going to switch?  No, and the same goes for Firefox.

When you use IE for the first time, you have to install flash, quicktime and shockwave too.  

Arr is right here. With IE i still had to install quictime, shockwave and flash. If i really thought about it i am sure i did other stuff not to mention the number of updates from MS. I have somewhere around 15 of them.
I will give Firefox a shot, maybe i will completely stop using IE at my house.

I use  Firefox 95% of the time., the tabbed browsing, and enhanced bookmark facilities, win the day for me.

Will it work right with RF is one of my biggest questions next to security, which sounds much better with FireFox.

Yes, but I've already done that.  I don't want to have to do it again if I already have a program that will do it for me just fine.

It works perfectly fine with rf generation.

Then Firefox it is.

I redownloaded Firefox yesterday to test a bug in the collection script that Mark found, and while there are still a few things I dislike about it, this version has some great improvements over the last one.  The main thing is that the download manager is a lot better.  It's not the same as IE, but at least I can choose where I want the file downloaded and can elect to open the folder the file is in rather than just opening the file directly.

This version also does a much better job of handling images than the last one I used, which is a big plus on a message board that has lots of itsy bitsy images.  The browser is pretty fast overall, but it's goofy how it loads pages on a site like this: cell by cell.  What's weird is rather than loading them cell by cell formatted as they should be, it first sizes one cell to 100% width, then resizes it when the next cell comes up, then resizes it again.  Strange, but not really a problem.  It does display websites slightly differently than IE, but for some reason it feels a little cleaner.

The options menus in this version are also VASTLY improved over the last one I used.  The other one was just impossible to navigate.  This one is a lot closer to the IE options, and even an improvement over those (though more settings would be nice).  Having an options menu similar to IE will make this browser a lot more attractive.  Sure, you can say that IE sucks and Firefox shouldn't have to mimic it, but if IE users can switch and easily make adjustments in just a few seconds, it's going to go over a lot better than if it takes ten minutes and the download manager still sucks.

So, I haven't really made a decision on what browser I'll be using, but this version of Firefox is a LOT better than the last one I used.  I'm going to be testing it out some more for at least a week or two before I decide.

The advantage of that is that you can already read what's in those cells, instead of having to wait for them all to load, like in IE.

If i have enough free time this weekend i will give it a try.

I am using firefox right now. I like it  so far only thing i don't like is that  i am going to have to get all my favorites from IE and  get them on here.

I was given the option to have them automatically imported when I first started up Firefox.

I've been using this a lot more, and while the download manager is greatly improved, I still hate it more than Barbra Streisand.  Okay, maybe not that much.  It's still really annoying though.

Go to manage bookmarks -> file -> import.

Arrr is the man! You have no clue how much time you saved me. :D

More problems with Firefox:  It may handle images more quickly than IE, but it does NOT handle most scripts and tables faster - quite the contrary in fact.  So, the supposed speed increases end up not really coming through.  The two are about the same.

Also, Firefox does a horrendous job displaying Ohio State's sports web site.  I have to refresh every single page every single time I load them to get them to a point where I can even view them.  Some of the advanced features just don't work on it.

Firefox doesn't display the NFL GameChannel feature at all.  This is important to me since I want to be able to folow lots of games easily and see instant stats.

Back to the way Firefox handles tables slowly - it also handles them downright improperly a lot of the time.  Most of the sizing is right, but all of the borders and colors get screwed up in Firefox.  On this site, OSU's site, and many others that I have gone to in the last few weeks.

What are these color differences you speak of?

I took the most colorful picture i could think of off the  top of my head.

As how Firefox handles images better?  I didn't mean how it displays them, but how it handles them in web pages more efficiently.  On these boards, for instance, IE sometimes leaves one or two of the images not loaded.  Firefox on the other hand always gets them all, and gets them more quickly.  As for displaying them like in the example you have there...  sure they're the same then.

I misunder stood what you were saying ok i got you now though.

When i opened up IE to get that shot i had about 4 other things also reqeust acces to the internet. 3 of them called ABetterInternet.com another was Rebates01 and Rebates02.

It also doesn't work well with eMusic.  I use this site on a weekly basis since I am a paid subscriber, so this is a big problem.  I have also clicked on the "Install Plugin" link for Quicktime about fifteen times, and all of those times it tells me it is already installed.....  but Quicktime features won't work and it always prompts me to install Quicktime.  This version is greatly improved over the last one, but after using it as my default browser for just a couple days and having lots of problems with it, I think I might have to go back to IE again.

The problems you are having are not with the browser.  Uninstall Quicktime, then re-install it.  It probably didn't install the Mozilla plugins when you did the initial install.  Quicktime works beautifully with Firefox.

There is a plugin out there that masks the browser's identity.  Some web pages (good example being Windows Update) will only work when it detects an IE browser.  Simply tell the plugin to use an IE identity, and it'll work fine.  This could be the problem you are having with these sites you noted.

I suspect the reload problems you are having are due to Frontpage's extraneous code it users in html documents.  $20 says the Ohio State sport page was made by somebody using Frontpage.

OD

No, the Ohio State sports page was NOT made with Frontpage.  It is made and run by these people:

http://www.collegesports.com/

They are a rather large company that run a very, very extensive web of other sites, including Ohio State's.  It is a browser problem if the browser can't display the pages of major companies.

The problems with eMusic are also the fault of Firefox.  I tell the stupid download manager to automatically open .m3u files, and yet the popup box comes up EVERY single time I click on an m3u link.  The checkbox to automatically open these files in WinAmp is already checked, so the browser isn't even following its own settings.  It also does the same thing with .emu files when I try to download an album via eMusic.  This stuff has nothing to do with how the browser is identifying itself.

The problems with speed and table display are also browser problems.  IE displays them just fine and much more quickly.  "border=2" is pretty straightforward HTML.  If Firefox can't read that, it has problems.

I think you're pretty harsh about firefox.  I can open files automatically and tables are displayed just fine.
Not all sites work, but that's the fault of the people that made that site, they didn't stick to the 'rules'. Of course that won't suddenly make firefox display them correctly, but I don't think it's fair to blame firefox for the incompetence of certain webmasters.

Arrr's right.  The only sites I've had problems with Firefox are websites I have problems with IE anyway.  I haven't used IE in a long long time (except after the SP2 update as I was curious).  IE just seems sloppy (and buggy, and full of security holes).  Firefox has never crashed on me like IE did, it's as fast as or faster on pretty much every page I compared the two.  I find it easier to setup, and awesome to customize thanks to the extensions.  The themes are pretty damn cool too.  I still haven't been able to find one advantage to IE.

OD

Nep is on the left, Firefox is on the right:

:beating:

Obviously our experiences differ.  That doesn't make me wrong.  Firefox does NOT display many of the sites I frequent properly.  IE does.  That's the bottom line.  You can say it's the coders' fault or whatever you want.  If I was using Netscape 1.0 and none of the sites I went to worked would you tell me that the coders are all doing it wrong?  Of course not.  You'd just tell me to get a new browser that shows the sites properly.  IE has better compatibility than Firefox.  That's pretty much a fact.


If you haven't used IE in forever, how can you really make a comparisson?  Yesterday, Firefox not only crashed itself, but it crashed my computer.  The newest version of IE and the newest version of Firefox (which I have been using side-by-side for days) are about the same in terms of speed.  Some load faster in Firefox, others load faster in IE.

I think this says something about the difference between the two browsers as well.  Both are displaying the same page in idle mode.  The change when a new page is loaded in either is negligible.

The difference between ie and firefox is 5 mb on my computer. I guess that's the price you pay for speed and comfort.
Besides, I've got a gig of memory, If the difference were a 100 mb, I'd still use firefox.

Don't forget IE is an integrated part of the Windows file system.  Add up the memory used by Explorer.exe and iexplore.exe to get a closer figure.

The crashing I was talking about happened when I used IE again after the SP2 upgrade.  That was after maybe 20 minutes of usage.  To be honest, I don't even know if Firefox has ever crashed on me.  If it does, it's so infrequent that I can't recall any specific time - yet it's a browser I have running more than 8 hours a day.

OD

My Fire Fox is only using between 14 K and 25 K