Mozilla and IE

[Derald]

I've downloaded Firefox and will set it as default as u
suggest.

Don't do it, sez-I. Stick with Mozilla (v1.6); you may install the
browser (and HTML editor) only and need not junk up your HDD with the
(loser of a) mail/newsreading client, if you don't want to. Reason: the
standalone spinoff, as with Nescape, is based on less-current, less
stable code than the current release of the "real" Mozilla. I imagine
that will be the case as long as the "suite" product is under
development because that's where the grownups are playing, if for no
other reason. IME, Mozilla (Windows) has been reliable since v1.3
(although, the sidebar still doesn't work "right", IMO), as is the
online updater. Personally, recently installed the prefsbar along with
the Multizilla 1.6 AWA the "preferentials" extensions and really wish
I'd known about them earlier-on. The first two are cool for new guys but
if you want to use the prefs extension, you must, must, must read and
understand the available prefs files documentation available online.
Last time I looked, Mozdev.org's shit seemed to be scattered rather
badly so may sort of have to ferret out end-user docs. Expect no support
beyond user<->user (pretty good online "magazine" wwwsite, though).
"Support" newsgroups exist on Netscape's secure servers but aren't worth
the power bill; the UUNET (NNTP) newsgroups are, by-and-large for
developers; the only end-user group that I've found really is an
advocacy group populated by youngsters and rah-rah twits.

 

[Derald]

How does one access Windows Update if one has entirely eradicated IE?

Exactly how many more updates of obsolete software are you
expecting? See that "98" part in "98Lite"? Check the 98Lite docs and
you'll see that all of that crap may be re-installed from the Control
Panel, as should always have been the case anyway.

 

[Andy]

Christopher Jahn wrote:
And of course, 3/4 of the updates are for IE flaws, so once it's gone, you
don't need them.

Christopher Jahn
I think you generalize too much.

 

[Andy]

I agree, Mozilla (Fire Fox, Fire Bird, Kmeleon, etc.) cannot and do not
handle bookmarks effectively. They need to borrow a page from IE.

 

[Andy]

Exactly how many more updates of obsolete software are you
expecting? See that "98" part in "98Lite"? Check the 98Lite docs and
you'll see that all of that crap may be re-installed from the Control
Panel, as should always have been the case anyway.

Obsolete?? compare how many people are using Win98 as compared to XP or
Linux. Whole heck of a lot, I would think.

 

[myself]

Don't do it, sez-I. Stick with Mozilla (v1.6); you may install the
browser (and HTML editor) only and need not junk up your HDD with the
(loser of a) mail/newsreading client, if you don't want to. Reason: the
standalone spinoff, as with Nescape, is based on less-current, less stable
code than the current release of the "real" Mozilla.

Agreed. I was excited by Firefox at first but some very annoying problems and
limitations surfaced when I started using it for day-to-day browsing.

However, let's not forget that it's still a beta. At the rate it's been going
I'm guessing between six months to a year before it'll finally be ready for
prime time.

 

[Deb]

I agree, Mozilla (Fire Fox, Fire Bird, Kmeleon, etc.) cannot and do not
handle bookmarks effectively. They need to borrow a page from IE.

Couldn't disagree more (unless your winking smiley means you like FF
handling of bookmarks, in which case I couldn't agree more) . FireFox
has a much better bookmarks manager than IE, with many more features.

I've not experienced the problems others mention with Firefox. I do note
that it runs all of the websites that didn't work in Mozilla for me (eg
on-line banking); since going with Firefox I've started IE twice, both
times because a page didn't appear to be loading correctly in Firefox -
both times I found that it didn't load correctly in IE either, so not
Firefox's fault

 

[donutbandit]

I agree, Mozilla (Fire Fox, Fire Bird, Kmeleon, etc.) cannot and do not
handle bookmarks effectively. They need to borrow a page from IE.

But Netscape 7.1 does, using the same engine. So, one has to ask - how hard
would it be to fix the bookmarks in Firefox/Mozilla, since Netscape
obviously did it.

I have brought that up several times on the Mozillazine boards, and have
been told that it will eventually be done, but that it's not a big
priority.

I get the sense that there's a fair amount of ego involved in the
development of Firefox/Mozilla, and that the people working on the project
are so determined to "roll their own" that they are not all that interested
in user isuues.

 

[donutbandit]

(e-mail address removed) (bluemoon) wrote in

You accurately pointed out sevral deficits that became immediately
apparent to me. There are also other issues too numerous to mention,
but prime examples are the extremely awkward/annoying bookmark
functions, inability to move toolbars to location of choice &
disabling of my wheel mouse autoscroll function.

That's odd. My wheel mouse works just fine in Firefox, Mozilla, and
Netscape.

Netscape 7.1 sorts bookmarks just fine.

Toolbars? Move them to where? And just how and where can you move the
toolbars in IE?

 

[David Simpson]

One doesn't need to in most cases.

Good question... I wouldn't recommend removing IE.. You never know when
you might need it..

I've never really needed it. I removed IE in 1999 and have never had
it in operation since.

 

[bluemoon]

All comments based on Win98se, IE 5.5sp2

That's odd. My wheel mouse works just fine in Firefox, Mozilla, and
Netscape.

I specified that I was referring to the "autoscroll" function of the
wheel mouse. All I can tell you is that my Logitech optical mouse
autoscroll function was inoperable within Firefox.

Netscape 7.1 sorts bookmarks just fine

I thought we were talking about Firefox? Anyhow, more power to ya if
you're satisfied with the way Firefox handles the overall bookmark
situation.

But apparently several people agree that the bookmark
features/configuration of Firefox have been sadly neglected.

Toolbars? Move them to where? And just how and where can you move the
toolbars in IE?

What's the mystery? Anywhere you want within the toolbar area.

The Firefox toolbars are fixed in place. Very inflexible. I
appreciate the IE ability to reposition and/or combine toolbars. I
also much prefer the free standing Google toolbar to the Firefox
version.

I've condensed the content of 4 IE toolbars, including the Google
toobar, into a virtual 2 toolbar setup, which automatically form drop
down menus for the functions that run out of space.

Like I said before, I relate to the resentment towards MS, but I'm
trying to remain objective. It's illogical to me to criticize the
basic design of IE or it's good features out of hand just cuz you
don't like MS, expecially when you consider other popular browsers are
patterened after it, including Firefox.

Agreed. I was excited by Firefox at first but some very annoying problems and
limitations surfaced when I started using it for day-to-day browsing.

However, let's not forget that it's still a beta. At the rate it's been going
I'm guessing between six months to a year before it'll finally be ready for
prime time.

Is that so?? If in fact it is a beta, I'm feelin' kinda dumb, but I
found no obvious indication of that at the Firefox home or elsewhere.
The omission of such info would be a major oversight, doncha think?

If an important detail like that exists & is available, I most
certainly shouldn't have to dig to find it.

blue

 

[dszady]

Many people on this ng seem to favour Mozilla as the internet browser and,
as such, I am inclined to load it. But are there any conflicts that I might
then have with IE (v6). Do I have to disable IE in some way?

(Currently running Win98SE).

Just re-installed 98 (broken memory module) using Firefox as the main
browser. IE is not checked as the default browser. No problems.

And to make sure IE or WinUpdate (have all patches on disk) don't call
out until I'm ready to "IEradicate" it I've set my firewall up to not
let them call out.
Then I'll get back to Linux where I belong.

 

[Art Iculos Libres]

All comments based on Win98se, IE 5.5sp2

Is that so?? If in fact it is a beta, I'm feelin' kinda dumb, but I
found no obvious indication of that at the Firefox home or elsewhere.
The omission of such info would be a major oversight, doncha think?

If an important detail like that exists & is available, I most
certainly shouldn't have to dig to find it.

blue

Hey, Blue.

I think the Mozilla projects with version numbers less than one (as in
FireFox 0.8) will be considered alpha / beta type projects. After a project
reaches 1.0 or greater, "beta" will usually be applied to a project to
differentiate the versions (Mozilla 1.6 vs. Mozilla 1.7 beta).

There isn't a hard and fast rule as developers of other software may use
various versioning schemes, but if you are considering software with a
version number less than 1.0, you might want to check further to see
whether it's really ready for prime-time. Sometimes it is, other times you
will find it to be a "beta" in every sense of the word (as in "unstable at
any speed").

Consider this discussion about MyIE2's version numbering to see what I mean
about "no hard and fast rule":

http://m2.overseasky.net/forum_posts.asp?TID=9111&KW

Later.

 

[donutbandit]

(e-mail address removed) (bluemoon) wrote in

Like I said before, I relate to the resentment towards MS, but I'm
trying to remain objective. It's illogical to me to criticize the
basic design of IE or it's good features out of hand just cuz you
don't like MS, expecially when you consider other popular browsers are
patterened after it, including Firefox.

I'm more concerned with the major security issues that were (and still are)
related to IE than any resentment of MS. Personally, I'd rather use a "not
ready for prime time" browser that's safe (even though I haven't had a
single problem with Firefox).

Agreed on the bookmarks issue, but there's an extension to fix that now.
Toolbars are something I do away with as much as possible - same thing for
sidebars. I do not need useless clutter compromising my viewing space.

There are so many ways to customize any of the Mozilla based browsers that
I couldn't even consider going back to IE now. Like Adblock, for example.
Tabbed browsing, themes, mouse gestures, etc. In my opinion, it's IE that
is crippled and not ready for prime time, not Gecko. To each his own.

BTW, there is an extension to enable the autoscrolling you mentioned.
Perhaps you didn't look deeply enough.

 

[myself]

Like I said before, I relate to the resentment towards MS, but I'm trying
to remain objective. It's illogical to me to criticize the basic design
of IE or it's good features out of hand just cuz you don't like MS,
expecially when you consider other popular browsers are patterened after
it, including Firefox.

Microsoft hadn't even conceived of the idea of a web browser when Netscape was
placed on the market. IE was originally almost an exact copy of Netscape, of
which Firefox is a descendent. MS later added eye candy, scripting
vulnerabilities, and nonstandard HTML to IE, but they've never done anything in
the way of true browser innovation that someone else didn't do first.

Is that so?? If in fact it is a beta, I'm feelin' kinda dumb, but I found
no obvious indication of that at the Firefox home or elsewhere. The
omission of such info would be a major oversight, doncha think?

If an important detail like that exists & is available, I most certainly
shouldn't have to dig to find it.

From the announcement page:

<http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/>

"Firefox is a Technology Preview." <---- In big red letters!

"While this software may work well enough to be
relied upon as your primary browser, we make no
guarantees of its performance or stability in its
pre-1.0 state and it should not be relied upon
for mission- critical tasks. See the License
Agreement for more information."

 

[Christopher Jahn]

Yep, that's a good combo. I'm afraid I still use Outlook
for email. And I doubt if I'll ever change. I like it..

Keep on top of those updates from MS and and your antivirus
vendor - you'll need them.


--
Christopher Jahn
:-(

http://home.comcast.net/~xjahn/Main.html

And so it begins that some things last forever...

 

[Christopher Jahn]

Is that so?? If in fact it is a beta, I'm feelin' kinda
dumb, but I found no obvious indication of that at the
Firefox home or elsewhere. The omission of such info would
be a major oversight, doncha think?

It's mentioned clearly in two places:

Halfway down this page:
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

At the top of the Release Notes:
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/releases/

--
Christopher Jahn
:-(

http://home.comcast.net/~xjahn/Main.html

The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds.
The
pessimist is afraid that it is.

 

[Christopher Jahn]

Microsoft hadn't even conceived of the idea of a web
browser when Netscape was placed on the market. IE was
originally almost an exact copy of Netscape, of which
Firefox is a descendent

Actually, Netscape and IE share a basic code base, while
Firefox shares absolutely no code with earlier versions of
Netscape. It's a completely new program.



--
Christopher Jahn
:-(

http://home.comcast.net/~xjahn/Main.html

Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.

 

[Donkey Agony]

Microsoft hadn't even conceived of the idea of a web browser when
Netscape was placed on the market. IE was originally almost an exact
copy of Netscape, of which Firefox is a descendent. MS later added
eye candy, scripting vulnerabilities, and nonstandard HTML to IE, but
they've never done anything in the way of true browser innovation
that someone else didn't do first.

You must be repeating something you heard in the romper room. You have
no idea what you are talking about.

Firefox is in no way "a descendent" of the original Netscape.
Mozilla/Firefox shares absolutely NO code with any of Netscape Navigator
versions 1 - 4.x. That's a good thing too, because the Mosaic/Netscape
code base was so severely crippled that some of its developers
recommended it be "taken out back and shot". Hence the Mozilla project,
and a *complete* rewrite of a brand new browser from the ground up.

Nobody paid any attention to IE versions 1 and 2. But IE3 caught some
people's attention because it introduced the first implementation
anywhere of the W3C's Cascading Style Sheets. By the time IE4 came out,
it was by far a superior browser (engine-wise) to anything from
Netscape. It was the first (and at the time the only) browser that had
a *complete* Document Object Model. It offered superior CSS, while
Netscape only begrudgingly implemented a "sort of CSS" called "JSS"
(Javascript Style Sheets), which meant (among other things) that if you
disabled Javascript, you disabled CSS.

The rest is history -- IE kicked Netscape Navigator's rear to kingdom
come.

It's a different story now. IE6 is indeed a "descendent" of IE4: it's
still using that aging -- and by now decrepid -- "Trident" engine.
Having won the browser wars, MS has sat on its laurels, finally (after a
number of years) allowing newer and in many aspects better browsers to
appear.

Not liking Microsoft or IE is one thing; re-writing history is another.
You can make up history if that's really your thing (this is, after all,
Usenet), but don't be surprised when folks call your bluff.

 

[myself]

Actually, Netscape and IE share a basic code base,

As I remember it, Netscape's founder and most of their early programmers had
formerly worked on Mosaic. Together they wrote a faster in-house version of
Mosaic to use for Netscape. For IE, Microsoft licensed Mosaic from Spyglass
Technologies.

At any rate, a "basic code base" is just a core around which you wrap your own
choice of UI and features. Microsoft could easily have used a UI and feature
set all their own, but instead copied Netscape's choices almost verbatim.

while Firefox shares absolutely no code with earlier versions of Netscape.
It's a completely new program.

It may not share any code with the original Netscape but it appears to share
some with the more recent versions - you can compile Mozilla from the Firefox
source package just by changing some files that control the build process.
Doing that with Firefox 0.7 gave me a functional copy of Mozilla 1.5.