Is Firefox the way to go??

What is the difference between IE and Firefox?? What are the advantanges of having one over the other? Can you have both?? I see that the tech person at the school I work at has firefox on the comps there now. Actually both Icons are on the puters(IE and Firefox). Anyway, I'm just wondering if it is something I should do. Thanks!! Doug

Firefox is, in general, safer due to a lack of ActiveX and BHO (Browser Helper Object) support and due to the fact that it is less integrated into the Windows operating system than Internet Explorer is. The real safety in it used to be due to its obscurity, or lower popularity. Now that Firefox and the underlying Gecko rendering engine is becoming more popular with the general public it is also being targeted more by black hat hackers or crackers.

If you really want security through obscurity (one of the best ways to go) I would recommend trying Opera which has an enormous slew of features that Mozilla Firefox does not, or at least requires extensions to match. Opera, like Firefox is more stable than IE and renders pages very quickly.

However, I find Firefox more usable, though I use both Opera and Firefox, and so I would definitely recommend Firefox more, if not for the stability and speed inherent in the newer and more modern browsers over IE, then for the tabbed browsing. Once you get used to tabbed browsing it is very difficult to turn back and use IE.

Firefox is supposed to me more secure. I finally switched over to Firefox when IE started to get unbearably slow. I thought it was my connection, but when I switched to Firefox, it was really fast. Also, I like the multi-search bar on the upper right of Firefox, which you can add your favorite search engines to and switch between them with a click.

I'll second OPERA, only browser I'll run now, works great!!!!

I use Firefox because it has fewer security problems and seems, to me, to be a much "smoother" system, i.e. I can move around easier without reading instructions. I keep IE because there are a few programs which can only be downloaded with it, and because it seems to work better with eBay Turbo Lister. Ninety percent of the time, though, it's Firefox. Please understand that I'm not a computer geek; in fact, I just blunder my way around. Firefox seems to fit me best...:laughing:

In one word: Yes!


In a few more: When I used IE, I'd run Ad Aware every day and usually return ~30 items to be deleted. Since I switched to FireFox, I run Ad Aware monthly and usually return ~5 items to be deleted.


Cheers! :buddies:

carrot said:

...I find Firefox more usable .... for the tabbed browsing. Once you get used to tabbed browsing it is very difficult to turn back and use IE.

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Amazingly, I know at least one person who think this is a nuisance and prefers to use a single screen and go back and forth between links... I don't understand... :shakehead:

I've used nothing but firefox for over 2 years on this computer since it was new. No infections of any kind. Fast, doesn't bog the os, tabs rock, I have no reason to use IE. Actually it makes me spend too much time on the pc!!

I agree with everyone above regarding security and speed. If you haven't used Tabbed Browsing before, give it a try and you'll never go back.

Another vote for Firefox. A lot of the extensions (pick your own features/special functions) are very useful.

I may have to try out Opera one of theses days. I've heard lots of good things about it.

IsaacHayes said:

I've used nothing but firefox ... doesn't bog the os

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Mine has the "memory leak" problem... I've done all the tweaks in the book and it still does it...

Okay, I'm now using firefox, we'll see how it goes. Anything to look out for?? Doug

use Firefox with no script extension, you will be save to surf the net.

dtsoll said:

Okay, I'm now using firefox, we'll see how it goes. Anything to look out for?? Doug

Click to expand...

Yup, Trolls, LOL

Opera 9 is the way to go. I dumped FF long ago. Opera 9 is the most secure browser as of late.

That's the main reason I dumped FF. The memory leak has never been resolved.

greenLED said:

Mine has the "memory leak" problem... I've done all the tweaks in the book and it still does it...

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What is the memory leak? I have no idea what to look for or what that means. Not very computer saavy over here!! Doug

I downloaded the script extension that says at the bottom "scripts currently forbidden" Is that what I want to do. Is that an extension I want?? Doug

Best explained here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak

dtsoll said:

What is the memory leak? I have no idea what to look for or what that means. Not very computer saavy over here!! Doug

Click to expand...

Its supposed to be more secure and more user customizeable...but I second Opera...

Which one I use depends on which side of a quarter lands first

The security of any browser will ultimately depend on the end user.
ex: if the user [no offense] has a habit of downloading porn, no browser is safe...