July 02, 2006

Firefox vs Internet Explorer

I have a friend (honest, I do *SOB* I really do *SOB SOB*) who I'm trying to convince that the Fox is better than Explorer. He says it's just as easy to switch between windows as tabs. How do I convince him that it would be, no joke, silly not to switch?

  • bbspot is the worst website in the world.
  • Pffft! Let him wallow in his ignorance. I lubs me some Firefox.
  • Give him a virus?
  • Give him a virus? Hey! He's a god friend but i'M NOT HAVING BUTSECS WITH HIM!
  • Firefox alone without extensions is basically garbage to me. I certainly don't see how so many people can bear to use it stock. The real advantage comes when you trick Firefox out with two dozen or so extensions, to scratch all the particular itches of your browsing habits. But on a more general level if someone is happy with what they are using now I don't think shoving an alternative into their face is really going to do much for the image of Firefox supporters as a bunch of ignorant fanboys.
  • Mock him.
  • In practice, I find Firefox to be much faster at getting a web page up on screen than IE. Add Adblocker and FiltersetG and see how they go. If they miss ads and really crummy render times then *shrug* it takes all types.
  • > convince that the Fox is better than Explorer. better hurry, ie 7 (at beta 2 level now) includes tabs and is really quite nice.
  • OK, OK. Some of you realize this was a humour thread. The literal-minded seem determined to start another pointless browser flame war. This isn't Win v. Mac, and it isn't IE vs. Fox. It was funny. Thanks for the link. BTW, I use a Mac and a combination of Safari, Firefox and Camino, depending on the needs and my mood, but I'm typing this on my wife's desktop PC. IE isn't on either machine.
  • But but but browsers are IMPORTANT. (no really, I'm not humour impaired.....)
  • I gotta say that I really like Adblock (which I use with a nicely-chocked hostfile) and Forecastfox (especially with my tweaked doppler). I want to see only what I want to see on my browser, and I laugh when I think of all the advertisements that someone else is paying for that I will never see. The NoScript and Flashblock are pretty handy, too. My point: IE doesn't let you filter out the crap as easily as Firefox does.
  • One must point only to this extension to prove Firefox's superiority.
  • Give him a virus? Hey! He's a god friend but i'M NOT HAVING BUTSECS WITH HIM! posted by Berek at 07:59AM UTC on July 02, 2006 OMG AIDS jokes are teh funny!!1!!!11!!!
  • As a designer, the arguments in favor of Firefox over IE are many and quite clear. Better standards compliance, fewer CSS issues, etc., etc. As a user, much less so, except in the area of security. While Firefox may have security problems, they are usually fixed much more quickly than those on IE. The actual number of security problems is probably lower in Firefox, but until their market share is equivalent to IE, we won't know. The Firefox developer community also seems much more responsive and enthusiastic than the IE developer team. If I have a problem, I can submit it to them and it may or may not get fixed, but I'll probably find out why they've chosen not to address it. The IE team, OTOH, maintains a blog, but turns comments off, except for the most recent items, which leads me to think that they care what people think about what they think, but not what people think about their product. If you have a bug in IE, you're screwed. If you have a suggestion for improvement, you're screwed. So I choose Firefox. Opera? Nope. It tries to do everything, rather than doing one thing well. It's a good browser, but I prefer narrower focus. One other strike against Opera. When Apple introduced Safari - the CEO of Opera started whining about how Apple was trying to put them out of business. If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
  • One must point only to this extension to prove Firefox's superiority. This is by far the single best reason to use Firefox and is the reason I use it. HM, I wonder if Abe has an Iowa connection?
  • I'm sure hoping that was an attempt at humor. I have to say that I am tired of MS vs. ("your-favorite-non-MS-product-here") because it's easy to poke holes in software, and still way trendy to mock Microsoft. Feh.
  • Is it trendy to mock ball point head?
  • Could be. But what if I did it myself? /contemplates self
  • But, but, but, if you did it yourself you would deprive us of our fun!
  • :^)
  • There are far too many links in this FPP. And not a single one goes to youtube. I quit.
  • You can't quit, you're fired!
  • I have the attention span for one link. After that I just...
  • I have the attention span for one link. After that I just... I do and I do for you children, slaving over a hot computer, braving the googlefields and exploring teh internets to bring you linkage goodness and this is the thanks I get! I can see that I'm going to have to beat some goodness into you all. Go out back, cut yourself a switch, and bring to me. Let the beatings commence!