Browsers
 

Hi guys i am getting tired of IE and am thinking of switching browsers,now most of you that know me from this site know that i am not the brightest on the computer.

That being said i have been playing around on the compouter for years now and have basic knowledge and have always used IE.

I know that using LINUX compared to Windows there are so many programs that you need to do different,I know that Linux is an operating system but is there going to be a lot of different things i will need to change if i switch browsers(hope you know what i mean :roll: )

what are some of the better browsers and what are you using

thanx

Mozilla Firefox...

Yep. Firefox is the best :)
Here's the link btw: http://www.mozilla.org/

-kwag

Thanxs guys and for the link

One question Can you install firefox and still keep IE on the computer in case i can't get used to it

Yep :)
And I suggest you do keep IE, because there are some sites that are "IE Only" (:x) so you'll need IE on some rare ocassions.

-kwag

http://www.opera.com/

payware or freeware with an ads banner (but you don't even notice it :lol: )
a lot, lot, lot of things can be done in opera :P

Thanx Jason for the link

After trying firefox for a few days all i can say is WOW,the pages load so much faster and the tab broswsing is cool.

Opera still bombs every now and then. I stopped using it a very long time ago.
I think Firefox is now way ahead of the pack :!:

-kwag

What do you mean with "still bombs every".
I use Opera and I have not problem. It is wonderful.
I installed Firefox once, following you advice and I found many less functions than Opera.
I uninstalled it inmediately.
It was not so many time ago.
Only one thing I would wish. Only block undesired popup windows, but I don't know how to configurate undesired popup windows. :D

Use it heavily, for like 3 to 4 hours continuously, and I it will crash.
Unless they have fixed it!, but every version I tried never lasted more than 3 hours in my "browsing" hands, and than means with 10 opened tabs or so, doing heavy browsing.
It always bombed somewhere.
Miind you, Firefox has crashed on me too, but maybe once a week :!:
But I was able to crash Opera daily, and I got tired of that very quickly.

-kwag

Opera is still a killer for any slower (and older) computer. IE and Firefox both like lots of memory.

Yes indeed :!:
Firefox IS slow as a pig on slow machines.
I'll give Opera a try. Maybe they have fixed the previous bugs :)

-kwag

Running Opera now :)
Let's see if I can crash it :cool:
It is indeed WAY faster than Firefox.

-kwag

Karl, check people's avatar previous to answer :rotf:

(BTW a pig can run at 25 MPH, it is not slow) :-D

(BTW2 : do you knwo something that is not slow on a slow machine ?)

Hell, I'm a "Pig on the Wing" so I'm faster. Actually I'm pink, large and inflatable. And stolen from Pink Floyd's album "Animals" :lol:

The photo's a more recent one.

I was going to say something about that :rotf: That's true :lol:
People should say "FAT" as a pig :lol: Yes. DOS, Windows 3.1, BEOS. Remember? :D

-kwag

Well, as I expected, Opera didn't last an hour on my hands before bombing :!:
This was the OS X version running on my iBook :roll:
I will now test it on WiNdOzE

-kwag

Karl jr, stop playing with your dad's PC while it is not at home.

And you expect WINDOWS to last more than one hour ? :rotf:

:lol:

Well, to tell you the truth, I also had several crashes of Firefox on OS X :!:
More than on Windows, believe it or not :!:
On OS X, "Safari" is the best browser, both in speed and stability.
So maybe the cross platform components that are used on Firefox are not so good on OS X.
But let's see how Opera behaves on XP :)
I'm running with 5 open tabs right now, and so far, so good.

-kwag

Woke up this morning to a very slow PC (My PC is a 2.8GGhz P4), and when I maximized Opera's window, it was just blank :!:
When I looked at the task manager, Opera was consuming ~100MB 8O
After killing the process, everything went back to normal.
I'm Back to Firefox :!:

-kwag

Hi Karl :),
That's strange.
I can't say the same happens to me with Firefox, but it is very similar.
Sometimes I keep Firefox minimized for sometime and I use other stuff.
When I maximize FF again it takes AGES to respond!
It is similar to Opera's behaviour, right?
Cheers

I don't know why it is but IE6 works fine on my computer :lol:

Yes, that happens to me too, and I guess it's normal with Firefox.
It probably releases a lot of memory when it minimizes, and when you maximize it, you see your hard disk light on for a while until the program wakes up :) No. In this case, there was no HDD activity at all, but the task manager showed over 100MB on Opera.
So whatever was screwed up, was in memory already.
I waited for a couple of minutes or so, and then decided to kill the program.

-kwag

Works fine here too :), but I hardly use it because of worms/viruses, etc. that target IE.
This doesn't exist when using Firefox.

-kwag

I don't know about you but I find a constantly crashing browser more annoying than possible viruses (which are dealt with the background scanner) or security holes (which may be abused by some "suspicious and questionable" sites).

I've had broadband connection for about three years and during that time, I've had zero virus infections or any other security issues. I don't know if I'm smart enough to not get these problems or just plain lucky.

Yep, that's it.
You're right, there's probably a lot of mem flush to the hdd when FF is left in the background or minimized.
There should be an option to turn it off.
Other than that it's pretty good under Windowze.
But it already has it's own worms also.
That's why we saw so many betas...
At least that's what I read.
Cheers

I never had any virus managing to enter my PC in 20 years I'm involved in computers. It's not a matter of luck (some adaware or spyware did).

But I have to say also that I never had Firefox or IE bombing on my PC. So I really don't understand what you guys are doing with your toys :-D

(the only thing that makes FF nut on my PC is the inline acrobate reader. But this is the Adobe's plugin taht sucks !)

Rui: you read bad news !
Worms aimed to FF started with 0.9 and lead to have 0.9.1 up toi 0.9.3. Before this, there was nearly 0 virus affecting FF.

BUT... there is a new security breach in a COMMON LIBRAIRY of windows that affects ANY programm using it. And that includes ALL programms taht you all know because it is the librairy used to display bmp !

Hrr..every time I open a pdf document online, I cross my fingers. Their plugins are really a piece of crap :x

Yep, I also couldn't believe it until last year it also happent to me:
I was using BlackIce Defender as my soft firewall and it had a vulnerability :sad:.
More than 500.000 PCs were infected on that weekend all using BlackIce.
One was mine :(.

We're just doing some HEAVY browsing with more than 10 IE windows (now, because now it supports block popup ;-) otherwise could have more) open at the same time.

Now I understand why you have this avatar. Sorry, I have only two eyes and can't read more than 2 windows at the same time :-)

But seriously, with FF I always browse forums (like kvcd) by opening a tab for each new message posted since my last visit. So sometimes I have more than 30 tabs opened. Then I answer to each message... never have any problem (and I use to do that since Netscape 6). It's weird...

BlackIce is known to be a bad firewall, has been for years already. Steve Gibson has written some interesting articles about their problems and how they only patched their product so that it would appear to pass Mr. Gibson's firewall test 8O

:lol:
I can only read one window at a time, but broadband here is slow 128/128.
So while I'm reading something, I am already opening other stuff to read next.
I do almost the same.
I open up the forum opening page and open several topics on different tabs.
And I do use FF regularly for several months now.
I love the plugins.
But honestly, I never go over the 10 tabs open at the same time.
And for me, that's already heavy browsing ;-)
Cheers

I "know" Mr. Gibson, from Gibson Research Corporation.
For some reason he has never said anything about the big Firewall vulnerabilities in Cisco products (only on the cheap SOHO) :roll:.
And all IT professionals from the security area know that Cisco has 10.000 different IOS for any hardware appliance, wether if it's security related or not.
And they do know that roughly half of these IOS releases were coded because of security vulnerabilities...
So I don't know why I should trust all that he says.
Nevertheless, if he has said something about Blackice, he was right :lol:.
But only for that particular software release.
From then on, I know many people that kept using the product and nowadays are happy ISS customers.
I sold my BI license to a friend and he told me that he ran antivirus and Malware/Trojan tools lately without discovering "bugs" on his PC.
But since I wasn't happy for having lost many GB of information from my HDDs, I tried Kerio PF v4.
It's good, as I never had problems with it for many months, but it's slow as hell.
I know there was a v2 that was as good as v4 and much "lighter" but I just didn't want to keep using a software firewall.
So I bought a Soekris board+case and installed m0n0wall on it (powered by FreeBSD) and NOW I have a:
-DHCP Server
-Router
-Firewall+Traffic shaping
-VPN Server (PPTP/IPSec/OpenVPN)
etc..., all in 8MB.
Yep 8MB of a 32MB CF card :).
This baby rocks.
All based on XML file configuration.
Ask Karl if he likes his m0n0wall ;-)
Cheers

the problem have been solved, now. but you're right, I don't trust such a firewall. you can test your firewall here : http://grc.com/lt/leaktest.htm
(he's talking about blackice, but look at the "last updated" line )
and sorry for my english.

His idea is/was to concentrate on the software firewalls regular users use. There's no need to start checking every corporate product because there's money to earn in that area.

What I meant by my comment on BlackICE was that I certainly wouldn't trust a company which doesn't fix the actual security hole but only fools a firewall tester to think it works OK.

Yes, he's more into desktop firewalls.
Well, I don't use it anymore, so I was saying what I've been told from others.
Apparently they solved that major problem, but maybe the firewall still leaks.
And yes, in that case it is very bad behaviour if they are just shielding from GRC's :evil:.
Cheers

Netscape Browser v8.0 BETA
 

To add to the confusion of browsers, here's Netscape v8.0 BETA :lol:

http://browser.netscape.com/nsb/download/default.jsp

-kwag

There is also a Mozilla 1.8b on mozilla website.

I'm very happy with firefox and one thing about it that I really like is all the plugins available for it. I have chatzilla (irc client), smiley xtra (emoticons :wink: ), dictionary search and forecastfox which links up to weather.com to put the weather forecast in your browser; heres a screenshot i took:

http://www.digitalfaq.com/archives/error.gif

I find this the most useful plugin ever because I work outside (usually). IT ROCKS! :D :D There are also other very useful plugins like one that tells the alive/dead status of Abe Vigoda :lol:

You're right Ren :D
I think Firefox will take the world by storm. It's just a matter of time :cool:

-kwag