Firefox

[Kevin Lichtsinn]

I replaced IE with Firefox. WOW! Firefox rocks!!!

[Wiz Feinberg]

I replaced IE with Firefox. WOW! Firefox rocks!!! :D :D :D

No shit, Sherlock! I've used Firefox since the first release. In fact, I also use it on my smartphone. Did you know that you can set it to synchronize if you use it on multiple devices? This syncs the bookmarks and logins.

[Don Poland]

I haven't used IE in almost 15 years, don't miss it at all!

[Kevin Lichtsinn]

I replaced IE with Firefox. WOW! Firefox rocks!!!

No shit, Sherlock! I've used Firefox since the first release. In fact, I also use it on my smartphone. Did you know that you can set it to synchronize if you use it on multiple devices? This syncs the bookmarks and logins.

Holy Cow Batman! When I replace my busted smartphone (left it on the rear bumper of my truck and drove off } I am gonna put Firefox on it. I am just trying to decide what phone to get.

[Jack Stoner]

On one computer forum I visit many are talking of leaving Firefox because of their planned ads.

[Dave Potter]

On one computer forum I visit many are talking of leaving Firefox because of their planned ads.

This is the first I've heard of this. It's unclear to me at this point exactly how this will shake out. One release I just read on it included the statement

"Novice Firefox users now see nine blank tiles when they open up the browser, which fill in over time with their most-visited or recently visited websites. Now, Mozilla intends to display the most popular sites by location, as well as sponsored websites that will be clearly labelled as such."

I've seen those "tiles" before, after version updates as I recall, and one certainly does not have to retain that display as the default - any page you want can be your start page. And, will this "initiative" be focused only on "novice Firefox users", as above?

At any rate, I don't access the internet to be barraged with unwanted and distracting advertising, and I've used Adblock Plus which works nicely to avoid them. It will be interesting to see if Adblock deals with this development, or if the wheels come off the train and I too will have to go to Chrome or an alternative.

Wiz: The little smartphone screens don't have any excess space to use for "advertising".

[Wiz Feinberg]

Wiz: The little smartphone screens don't have any excess space to use for "advertising". ;)

Huh? I never mentioned anything about the tiles or ads. I just said that you can sync your mobile, desktop and laptop versions.

[Dave Potter]

I never mentioned anything about the tiles or ads. I just said that you can sync your mobile, desktop and laptop versions.

I know. I was referring to the proposed "new" direction Firefox is apparently taking to integrate ads. My phone's display is small enough without ads in there too.

[Jack Stoner]

Here is the link to the thread on the Firefox ads on the Windows8 forum.

CLICK ME

[Harold Dye]

Will switching from IE to Firefox solve any problems associated with the dropping of support for win XP or is the OS too risky for internet use?

[Jack Stoner]

FF is safer than older Internet Explorer browsers. But I don't know about other XP security issues and what kind of potential problems that are still involved.

Even if Microsoft kept up support for XP it still has vulnerabilities that can't be fixed or compensated for. For that reason it is really best to got to Windows 7 or 8, which is designed with the Internet in mind.

[Wiz Feinberg]

Will switching from IE to Firefox solve any problems associated with the dropping of support for win XP or is the OS too risky for internet use?

In my sticky topic about the end of support for XP, I published a list of items people can use to improve the safety of their XP computers (see my reply on March 5). This assumes that you have applied the remaining patches and updates from MS.

While an unpatched operating system is more vulnerable, such as will be the case for XP computers, not using the most exploitable parts of it (e.g. Internet Explorer), along with my other tips will allow you to continue surfing the interwebs until you can afford a newer operating system.

To the quick of the matter: Firefox, with the NoScript Add-on installed is much safer than any version of IE, with ActiveX enabled. But, if you do allow a friendly web page to run scripts and that page contains a malware component placed there by stealth, your browser could still be attacked. The Firefox browser receives frequent security updates, resulting in a new version number each time. These updates occur every month or two, depending on the severity of the bugs reported to Mozilla.

The next version, Firefox 28 I believe, will disable all plug-ins by default, except a few that have been and continue to be tested for security worthiness. These will be added to a whitelist. If a plug-in, like Flash, becomes zero-dayed, it may be disabled by the browser until a new version has been released. You will be told to update that plug-in at that time.

Java plug-ins will not be whitelisted by Firefox. They are just to exploitable and allow content to jump out of the safe sandbox and into your OS. People will have to perform a custom configuration change to allow Java to run in Firefox. In fact, Java is already force-ably disabled by Firefox 27.

[Matthew Walton]

Did you know that you can set it to synchronize if you use it on multiple devices? This syncs the bookmarks and logins.

I tried that once, but I could never get it to keep in sync as well as Chrome does. For all I know, it may be way better at this point. The other thing that turned me off from Firefox (after using it since 2.0) is the update numbers. I know it's stupid, but it really bugs me that they release a whole number update just for bug fixes upsets me somehow (yes, I'm incredibly weird). I remember when the 3.5 update was a BFD.

I'm using Chrome now, but there are still some things that I don't like about it that Firefox does better. Anybody want to whip up a new internet browser to my specifications?