Mozilla Firefox

[Katie43]

Is Mozilla firefox any better than internet Exporer?

 

[Richard Urban]

Try it. Use it. Find out. It's all a matter of preferences. You can have
both Firefox and internet explorer on the computer at the same time. I use
them both - for different purposes. But I would NOT say it is better.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Leythos]

Is Mozilla firefox any better than internet Exporer?

To answer your question, we moved our clients and residential types off
od IE as their primary browser to using FireFox as their primary
browser, keeping IE for banking sites, and have found a large decrease
in problem calls since doing it.

FireFox is the primary browser on all of my workstations and servers at
home and the office, it's painless and works well with about 99% of the
sites we utilize.

If you try it, from www.mozilla.org, you may find the same results.

 

[Bob Harris]

It is mostly a matter of personal perferences. However, Firefox does appear
to have fewer security flaws, although not zero.

I have both and find that Firefox appears to be able to handle a wider range
of websites. That is, some that do not display correctly in IE6, work fine
in Firefox.

Since Firefox is free, try it and decide for yourself.

Note that as part of the Firefox installation it will copy all IE6 favorites
into Firefox, where it calls them bookmarks. It may also copy cookies, so
first clean those you do not want copied.

A good free program that cleans both IE6 and Firefox temporary file, and
optionally some/all cookies is called CleanCache 3.2 and is here (do not be
put off by the name of the website):

http://www.buttuglysoftware.com/

 

[Mike Hall \(MS-MVP\)]

Katie

IE never fails me (that I know about)..

 

[Leythos]

Katie

IE never fails me (that I know about)..

Yea, but if you run it as a standard home user would have it configured,
then you're likely to have all sorts of problems - as most home users
don't know about IE Security settings, don't have firewalls, don't have
real-time AV software, don't know to block ActiveX.

As a IT security manager/designer I also use IE without ANY problems,
but I also have it PROPERLY setup for browsing in the wild. With FireFox
I didn't have to make any special settings in order to safely (for the
most part) browse the web, it came with default settings that prevent
most of the crap that IE allows (not to mention that it's not ActiveX
aware).

For an MVP or other MS representative to suggest that their ability to
configure and use IE safely on their computers some how relates to any
typical home users setup/security is ridiculous.

 

[Stan Brown]

Is Mozilla firefox any better than internet Exporer?

That's like asking, Is Christianity any better than Islam? This
newsgroup can't handle religious questions. I have my own preference
of browser, but it _is_ a matter of personal preference.

Download Mozilla, try it, and see which you like better. There's no
problem with having both on your system.

 

[Ken Blake]

Is Mozilla firefox any better than internet Exporer?

Like so many similar questions, this one will get you different answers
depending on who you ask. Much better than asking others is to try both and
decide for yourself which *you* prefer.

While you're trying, let me suggest another choice you might want to also
try. Internet Explorer with the Maxthon shell (www.maxthon.com). That's my
personal favorite.

 

[Fishb8]

I have IE, Firefox and Opera and find Opera to be the best. Has much better
features - better tabbed browsing with multiple pages, a zoom feature to
enlarge, the magic wand, to auto-fill details and passwords. Favourites can
be imported from IE. Altogether a better browsing experience.
Roy Price

 

[Richard Urban]

But the question was, is something better than something. A pleasant
browsing experience doesn't make it better.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Fuzzy Logic]

Yea, but if you run it as a standard home user would have it configured,
then you're likely to have all sorts of problems - as most home users
don't know about IE Security settings, don't have firewalls, don't have
real-time AV software, don't know to block ActiveX.

As a IT security manager/designer I also use IE without ANY problems,
but I also have it PROPERLY setup for browsing in the wild. With FireFox
I didn't have to make any special settings in order to safely (for the
most part) browse the web, it came with default settings that prevent
most of the crap that IE allows (not to mention that it's not ActiveX
aware).

For an MVP or other MS representative to suggest that their ability to
configure and use IE safely on their computers some how relates to any
typical home users setup/security is ridiculous.

My experience is that it's not the setup of IE but the user that's the real
problem. Doing user support for 600+ IE users I have found that the user
gets malware because they said yes to something they shouldn't have. This is
typically a dialog box that comes up saying your machine is infected with
something, do you want to install our software to fix it? The other one is
your computer clock is incorrect, do you want to install some software to
fix this? Nieve users seem to be happy to say yes to these types of events.
Low and behold they have a ton of malware. Switching to the 'more secure'
Firefox will likely get these people into more trouble becuase they now
believe they are 'invincible'. Security is a process not a piece of hardware
or software. Regardless of the browser you use it will have vulnerabilities
and no amount of security will protect you when you do something stupid.

 

[Fuzzy Logic]

Like so many similar questions, this one will get you different answers
depending on who you ask. Much better than asking others is to try both
and decide for yourself which *you* prefer.

While you're trying, let me suggest another choice you might want to
also try. Internet Explorer with the Maxthon shell (www.maxthon.com).
That's my personal favorite.

Or Avant which is very similar to Maxthon <http://www.avantbrowser.com/>

 

[Fuzzy Logic]

But the question was, is something better than something. A pleasant
browsing experience doesn't make it better.

It might depending on the criteria. Unfortunately the OP didn't specify any
critera. What's 'best' for you may be useless to me and vice versa.

 

[Leythos]

I have IE, Firefox and Opera and find Opera to be the best. Has much better
features - better tabbed browsing with multiple pages, a zoom feature to
enlarge, the magic wand, to auto-fill details and passwords. Favourites can
be imported from IE. Altogether a better browsing experience.

FireFox and IE render sites better than Opera but a wide margin.

 

[Leythos]

My experience is that it's not the setup of IE but the user that's the real
problem. Doing user support for 600+ IE users I have found that the user
gets malware because they said yes to something they shouldn't have. This is
typically a dialog box that comes up saying your machine is infected with
something, do you want to install our software to fix it? The other one is
your computer clock is incorrect, do you want to install some software to
fix this?

Well, you've pointed to what I would suggest is two problems, one is the
User, the other is the network firewall not protecting the users from
content in HTTP sessions. For home users, IE has always been a problem,
even MS came out and suggested people stop using it for about a month
while they fixed a bunch of exploits (that was more than a year ago).

Since the target uses Active scripting and ActiveX to compromise systems
more easily, we have to look at the exposure level and what each
interface brings to the table.

IE provides more entry paths than does FireFox. IE has more installed
base than FF. More people using IE have lower security settings that
recommended by MS, and are more vulnerable than if the install FF in the
default mode.

Nieve users seem to be happy to say yes to these types of events.
Low and behold they have a ton of malware. Switching to the 'more secure'
Firefox will likely get these people into more trouble becuase they now
believe they are 'invincible'.

Yes, but, that's only one path - how about the drive-by attack?

Security is a process not a piece of hardware
or software. Regardless of the browser you use it will have vulnerabilities
and no amount of security will protect you when you do something stupid.

Actually, we do a lot of HTTP session filtering and find that even IE
users are protected against malware with a proper firewall appliance.
Since we use the HTTP_Proxy service in our WatchGuard Firebox units we
can disallow content directly in the HTTP session - so we can block the
downloading of files based on their type, remove cookies if needed,
ActiveX, etc.... We do the same in SMTP sessions.... So, with a real
firewall, and with things properly setup, users can't get to content
that will cause problems at their systems. Too bad it's to expensive to
install at residential locations.

 

[Stan Brown]

FireFox and IE render sites better than Opera but a wide margin.

Huh? That will be news to the folks on
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.html and
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.css.

 

[Stan Brown]

Thu, 27 Oct 2005 10:02:42 -0700 from Fuzzy Logic

My experience is that it's not the setup of IE but the user that's the real
problem. Doing user support for 600+ IE users I have found that the user
gets malware because they said yes to something they shouldn't have.

<rant>
Yes, but what choice do they have, realistically, if they're using
that browser? When they see "scripts are usually safe to run. Do you
want to enable scripts?" six or seven times PER WEB PAGE, they're
going to get tired of that pretty quickly and just blanket-allow
scripts. Sure, they "shouldn't", but that's what it takes to get the
tool working.

(It's not just stoopid MSIE. Windows Media Player gives me that same
stupid message several times when I try to play an MP3 file or a CD.
Whether I say Yes or No, Info Center still doesn't work.)

And to make matters worse, some of MS's own KB articles say you have
to disable IS security features to make some things work. (I'm
thinking of Windows Update, but there was more. It's been a couple of
months, so I don't remember any details.)
</rant>

 

[logan]

somedays.....and your welcome...


I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you?
http://www.polesoft.com/refer.html

 

[Sparda]

somedays.....and your welcome...


I choose Polesoft Lockspam to fight spam, and you?
http://www.polesoft.com/refer.html

I think that Microsoft should ethier:

1. Supplie windows with no web browser, so people can get there own
from else ware.

2. Supplie windows a several web browsers, giving the advantages and
disadvantages of all of them from a non-bias point of view (in this
way, they would have to state the IE is full of security holes).