Submitted by Here is a page discussing various myths surrounding Firefox. “We have all seen these banners before or heard people say ‘Firefox is faster, Firefox has lower requirements, Firefox is secure, Firefox defends me from all spyware, etc.’ How misleading is it? Read on.” Flame away. And be gentle. That’s an order. And here’s a rebuttal.
Article is old, and debunked.
http://nanobox.chipx86.com/blog/2005/12/re-firefox-myths.php
Firefox is not perfect, but *anything* even Lynx is better than using IE and getting infected daily.
… Isn’t that what is already linked?
Personally, I think both are idiots.
Don’t blame IE because you are too stupid to read a warning dialog saying it is probably not a good idea to install an app, do you want to do it anyway.
Also, Firefox is not faster and has a much much larger memory footprint. Plus it crashes randomly (at least for me it does).
It’s not 2001 anymore. Spyware and viruses install themselves without prompts via IE now.
Hmmm, no they don’t.
They surely did when exploiting the recent WMF vulnerability. FF and Opera needed user interaction with a dialogue while IE would just open the files with the Picture and Fax Viewer with no prompting needed.
The whole Myth site (not just the Firefox section) has rubbed me the wrong way for a long time.
Opening a picutre is not installing an application and therefore does not require user interaction (hell, IE opens pictures constantly, so does every other browser). Such a shame that there was such a blatent vulnerability though.
You can not have one thing happen (which isn’t even installing an application, btw) and then claim that you can install viruses and worms through IE without user interaction. You need to get off of your slant there.
The WMF flaw allowed arbitrary code to be executed. There were sites in the wild actively exploiting this to install malware. If you used IE to visit such a site, you WOULD have malware installed with no interaction required.
Go see this video for yourself:
http://www.websensesecuritylabs.com/images/alerts/wmf-movie.wmv
Note that since WMF files can be embedded, the URL wouldn’t need to show the WMF extension the way the one in the demo does. Everything after that point is fully automatic with a then-current XP SP2 box.
An exploit is not the same thing as allowing people to install viruses and such without user intervention…. which happens to be exactly what I said.
“An exploit is not the same thing as allowing people to install viruses and such without user intervention…. which happens to be exactly what I said.”
Yes it is, and yes it does.
I watched that video and I thought … what a nightmare. I wonder how many people were extorted out of $39.95 a year by that.
How can you sleep at night running a Windows system exposed to the internet?
Hmmm, yes they do, it is called activeX, it is also called WMF.
Pick one type of flaw and Windows will be hit with something downloading and installing itself.
Windows mind you, nothing else, just Windows… ALL versions of Windows, and without user intervention.
And dont say SP2 will stop it, as it won’t, simple as that.
NOOOOO ActiveX control can be installed without user intervention.
It CAN’T be done, and has been that way for quite some time.
“NOOOOO ActiveX control can be installed without user intervention.
It CAN’T be done, and has been that way for quite some time.”
Of course it can. Don’t you even know what “execute arbitrary code” actually means?
How about if a black hat executed on you system some code that pretended to be an admin user authorising installation of an ActiveX component?
But why bother with that indirection – it doesn’t need to be an ActiveX component to let the black hat’s malware into your system – since the black hat can already execute anything he wants directly anyway. The simplest thing would be for the black hat to arrange to have the .wmf file execute code to download and install a rootkit. Own3d in 2 seconds flat – without you even knowing it happened.
I don’t even know why I try, because you are too thick headed to one read my entire comment, and two to have any common sense.
Taking advantage of an exploit is not the same as IE just allowing anyone to install arbitrary code without user interaction. What you all are saying is that IE just allows anyone to install any arbitrary code on the system w/o using an exploit, and this is simply not true. You all always state that IE allows ActiveX controls to install without any goahead from the user, and this is NOT true and has not been true forever.
WMF, unless I am mistaken, also has been patched. So by the same logic I can say that every OS allows arbitrary code execution without user interaction, as at some point, every OS has had a known remote exploit vulnerability (doesn’t matter if it has actually been patched, according to your logic).
IE is to blame because it markets itself to new users while purposely leaving many backdoor features open by default for non-standard web applications (ActiveX, for example) as a matter of corporate convenience.
What you don’t consider is that there are people who are being introduced to the net on a daily basis and for many IE is the first browser.
They go to MSN, and they don’t know what they’re doing.
Like it or not, people with IQs of 100 exist and they outnumber us.
The internet is public domain and I agree that it should be a human right; we have to accomodate at least the first two standard deviations.
We have to educate them but first they have to be introduced. YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE INTRODUCTION SAFE.
Even Yahoo looks like technicolor freaking dreamcoat and Ads that look similar to popular themes confuse those people. They click on banners that we –recognize– as a scam but new users aren’t as well versed as you are.
Firefox is not the answer to everything. Opera is better. BUT FIREFOX IS A HUGE STEP CLOSER TO WHAT GOOD BROWSING SHOULD BE. AND IT IS MOST IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT SETS A STANDARD AND MOST IMPORTANTLY HAS _SPREAD THE WORD_ THAT BETTER BROWSING IS POSSIBLE. Besides, firefox is faster than IE.
I haven’t used Opera since v3.12, in what ways is it better now?
“Like it or not, people with IQs of 100 exist and they outnumber us.”
What a silly silly thing to say.
it is not a silly thing to say, 100 is an average IQ score, and there are far more average people than genius or retards
Funny, I use IE everyday, and I’ve been “infected” maybe twice over the past five years.
I love firefox and use it almost exclusivly, but I do wish it had a smaller memory footprint.
Same here…7 tabs open and I’m at 135 megs/ram, which seems a bit high. That being said, I don’t mind it given all the extra functionality offered by FF (namely extensions). I still have to clean my machine up about twice a month though, and while I don’t have any hard evidence to support it, I still think FF lets some spyware through (I rarely use any other browsers, so it’s a case of ockams razor). Again, worth it IMO.
This issue with this type of article is that it presents only one side painting a very negative picture of firefox without offering a better alternative, all the while implying that there are better alternatives. Firefox is far from perfect and is a tad heavy for my taste but when compared to IE it is the far better browser. Firefox is a good tool to help keep a system secure, not perfect surely but a step in the right direction and it is a shame when articles like this one twist the facts to imply the contrary leaving a web choked with even more spyware and broken web sites.
–Seth
I don’t think it should be read this way.
Saying that FF is not the ultimate browser is different than saying IE is better, and the author gives some references at least, differently to what most FF fans do while screaming it’s the bestest (i’m a happy FF user, btw).
I think that this pointed out some of FF weak points (they exist) and highlighted Opera for me. Guess i’ll give it a try again after version 5.
This issue with this type of article is that it
presents only one side painting a very negative
picture of firefox without offering a better
alternative <…>
It do offers an alternative. Namely Avant Browser
http://www.avantbrowser.com/download.html
An argument that IE is compatible with (almost) all webpages sounds to me like “all envelopes stick to post stamps”. MS do not follow web standarts, but as it is dominant on the web designers make pages to fit IE.
It will not enlarge your penis or make you better looking.
The one about increasing your wallet size when used with the right os may be true however.
Edited 2006-01-25 21:47
Whats the point of this article? Its no myth buster, its just stupid!
Whats the point of this article?
Why don’t you try reading it. That helps deliver the point.
What a joke of an article, he tries to imply IE is somehow more secure or more standards compliant than FireFox!
what a load of crap.
No, he doesn’t.
Read it again. Maybe more. Read it until you get it.
Reality – 15% of web sites aren’t completely compatible with Firefox. Firefox is not 100% Internet Explorer and ActiveX compatible. Web pages that depend on ActiveX or were only tested in Internet Explorer (which there are many) will only render and work properly in Internet Explorer based browsers. Web page features such as Menus, Web forms or other content may not function or behave differently then intended. While Internet Explorer works with 99.99% of all Web Pages. – Source
The author failed to mention those “15% of website” (according to what/who) are badly designed code wise or optimized for Internet Explorer. ActiveX is a well known trojan for spyware, virus and other kind of malware.
AvantBrowser Avant Browser – Download – Home Page
A custom Internet Explorer based browser that utilizes the Internet Explorer Engine for 99.99% web page compatibility and features all the new features of Firefox and Opera. It has a Built-in Pop-up Blocker, Flash Animation Filter, Tabbed Browsing, Built-in Search Engine, Built-in RSS/ATOM Reader, Safe Recovery Feature, User Friendly Interface and Full 100% IE Compatibility. Editor’s Pick
It still retains major secuirty issues found on Trident engine. My problem with AvantBrowser is it requires IE to be functional.
Edited 2006-01-25 21:54
So you have no problem, since you can’t uninstall IE without breaking your Windows installation.
Myth – “Firefox is Faster than Internet Explorer”
[…]
The argument that components of Internet Explorer may load during Windows Startup is nullified by Opera’s start times.
Opera’s performance is irelevant when comparing FF with IE.
Myth – “Firefox Achieved 10% Market Share in 2005”
Reality – “According to WebSideStory, a San Diego-based Web analytics provider, Mozilla’s Firefox closed 2005 with 8.9%
One survey disagreeing with another by one percentage point does not constitute proof.
Myth – “Firefox Extensions are Safe”
Reality – Firefox Extensions can be very unsafe. A vulnerability in older versions of the Greasemonkey Extension…
That’s it? One vulnerability that’s been patched? It’s hardly AciveX. Speaking of which, I won’t quote the whole thing but it discusses some idealised version of ActiveX that always asks permission and compares this to FF letting you downlad an EXE file.
He goes on like this, becoming more subjective and making up a couple of myths towards the end (who ever said FF was first with tabs?). He relys on single sources to disprove all it’s myths. He picks and chooses facts that support his point and overlooks those that don’t. In short, he has an excellent future in journalism.
I read this with an open mind. Then I realised it was bunk.
I agree that the article was… not so good.
Opera’s performance is irrelevant when comparing FF with IE.
Not in this case, as the “Myth” he’s debunking is the implicit claim that no browser could start as fast as IE because Microsoft cheats. Opera puts paid to that line of reasoning.
The author would have been much better served by pointing out that even if IE is cheating, the difference in speed still matters to the user.
(who ever said FF was first with tabs?)
People who only know about IE and Firefox. Most people are not techies.
Opera’s performance is irelevant when comparing FF with IE.
It isn’t, because Opera shows that Firefox should and could do better – it shows that it isn’t only the preloading that makes IE seem fast, it’s also that Firefox really is slow.
I have used Opera on a Pentium 75 with 32 MB RAM, with no problems and no speed issues. I don’t even want to think about running Firefox on it, because even on a Pentium 350 it feels sluggish.
That Firefox is cross-platform is not a valid excuse – Opera is cross-platform too, from Windows to Linux to Solaris/SPARC.
Edited 2006-01-25 23:10
I have used Opera on a Pentium 75 with 32 MB RAM, with no problems and no speed issues. I don’t even want to think about running Firefox on it, because even on a Pentium 350 it feels sluggish.
Naming a browser without the version release is meaninless. I can say the argument like this one:
using a very old Winbook XL (Pentium 166 with 64MB) running Windows 98 SE, Firefox initial starting was more than 10 seconds but the time response on many website is quite fast using three tabs given the memory limit. Does it make sense without mentionning the version? No. The test was done with Firefox 1.0.4.
Given the expertise of Opera team to work of mobile browsrer, their browser is quite efficent memory side. However the source code is still closed. When the user base will increase, that will be a true test to expose bugs much like Firefox.
The most important is use any browser other than Internet Explorer and its derivates.
Edited 2006-01-26 00:01
Not in this case, as the “Myth” he’s debunking is the implicit claim that no browser could start as fast as IE because Microsoft cheats.
No, the myth he’s debunking is that FF is faster than IE (which hasn’t been true since about FF 0.8). Just because Opera starts quickly, that doesn’t mean IE would also start quickly if it didn’t cheat. Not that I’m saying it wouldn’t or that it does cheat, only that Opera is irrelevant here.
Most people are not techies.
And therefore won’t have read this decidedly techy article. And they won’t care who was first with tabs either – certainly not once IE has them.
I’m not saying the story is rubbish, just the article.
Just because Opera starts quickly, that doesn’t mean IE would also start quickly if it didn’t cheat. Not that I’m saying it wouldn’t or that it does cheat, only that Opera is irrelevant here.
Eh? The “Myth” isn’t about which is engineered better, but which gives the user a faster experience. A common (rather silly) counter-argument from the Mozilla-fan side has been IE having that edge because of preloading, as if that makes things all right. Opera is entirely relevant as a counter-counter example.
And therefore won’t have read this decidedly techy article. And they won’t care who was first with tabs either – certainly not once IE has them.
Right, but that has nothing to do with the fact that some people do believe that FF was first with tabs, and thus that it’s possible that the author did not make that “Myth” up out of air. That’s the implication I was originally responding to.
>>Myth – “Firefox is Faster than Internet Explorer”
>>The argument that components of Internet Explorer may load during Windows Startup is nullified by Opera’s start times.
>Opera’s performance is irrelevant when comparing FF with IE.
Not for _this_ argument. Read better.
Otherwise, startup time is not a wise/useful comparison for speed: it’s not often that big issue and both aren’t fast anyway.
>>Myth – “Firefox Achieved 10% Market Share in 2005”
>>Reality – “According to WebSideStory, a San Diego-based Web analytics provider, Mozilla’s Firefox closed 2005 with 8.9%
>One survey disagreeing with another by one percentage point does not constitute proof.
Reliability data is not given, nor information about the population and sampling methods – you can’t tell.
Anyway this is more a marketing claim anyway, and the author succeded in provocating you (:
>>Myth – “Firefox Extensions are Safe”
>>Reality – Firefox Extensions can be very unsafe. A vulnerability in older versions of the Greasemonkey Extension…
>[…]
“FF extensions are safe” != “ActiveX is safe”
One can conclude the author of Firefox Myth is a troll.
This have to be the funniest load of shit i have read, so far
Not a single fact
Firefox IS safer, IS faster and it realy IS A BETTER browser..
Wonder how much microsoft gave him for this…
Safer, granted, but faster? You won’t notice speed issues if your computer is fairly recent. However, it’s fairly heavy on older computers (PII era). Still usable, but requires a bit of patience, especially if you are low on RAM. Many browsers are faster, including MSIE.
That said, given MSIE’s lack of features, standard compliance and cross-platform availability, it ought to be faster!
Firefox is junk. The 1.0.x releases were decent, but 1.5 is complete garbage. Slow, filled with random crashes, and it is broken in many areas. I want to like it. I really do. But I can’t.
Konqueror is more viable for me, and I use Opera when it can’t handle a webpage. Niether of them are great, though.
This have to be the funniest load of shit i have read, so far
Not a single fact
Firefox IS safer, IS faster and it realy IS A BETTER browser..
Wonder how much microsoft gave him for this…
Eh, just look at the overall content of his site. He is a 100% Microsoft troll. Judging by his arguments I bet he hasn’t even touched Firefox OR Opera in his life.
And that’s a key point. People who argue against something cannot argue against reality and user experience.
FACT : When people use a browser other than IE, they are safer. The author CANNOT argue against user experience.
FACT : ActiveX is the source of a number of IE issues. (Heck, search for “Kama Sutra” worm, its the latest issue!)
FACT : The only time when using another browser didn’t help was Windows’s recent “WMF security issue”. This was a Windows issue…NOT a browser issue.
FACT : The author of this article is also a known troll under a number of AKA. Such as “MasterTech”.
Here’s a sample…
=> http://nanobox.chipx86.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=281
=> http://forum.deviantart.com/os/xp/563523/
If you head over here
http://nanobox.chipx86.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=29&postdays=0&pos…
And look at the 7th post from the bottom, you can tell Andrew K. is nothing more than what you call a “Super Troll”.
The intention is to delibrately stir trouble to get ad dollars. He isn’t the only one, George Ou of eWeek does it as well. His one is more wider, covering OpenOffice. He is well known for his pointless tests and results in the form of tables that don’t mean much.
Example: He’ll look at the number of issues of Firefox, but not how critical they are! And look at his articles on the speed of OpenOffice! WTF? Seriously, does anyone care for speed when the majority of people see “free alternative, get it here!”. And yet, this person claims he uses FreeBSD and is help open-source this way…Yeah right, Ou…You’re a twisted FOOL!
What is it about these people that are against open-source solutions? They claim all this BS, and yet, when people use it, we don’t have the problems they’re yacking about!
And FACT : Microsoft only gives you money for a report or article, if they can use it as part of their PR campaign. Why do you see the same companies conduct studies over and over again?!
Thom, my only suggestion is to check the author of the articles. Because this one is a well-known no-clue troll. When you give him structured counter points, he’ll give you BS. And that’s how the cookie crumbles!
Uh, I think there ARE some facts in his article. He’s got some things that are TECHNICALLY true, but presented to make you jump to the wrong conclusion.
On my laptop, Firefox 1.5 starts slower than Opera 8.51 in Windows and Firefox. Firefox is a little slower than IE.
He’s right that Secunia listed 6 out of 26 Highly Critical security flaws. But it goes like this:
……Flaws….Highly Critical…Unpatched
Fx…..26……………..6…………..3 (none highly critical)
IE……91…………….37………….21 (1 highly critical)
Opr….39……………..7…………..0
(That’s Opera 7, Secunia doesn’t track Opera 8 for some reason, so it can probably be ignored.)
(please note, I counted those off myself so I may have counted wrong, plus one critical IE flaw is only partially fixed.)
As for standards… Firefox 1.5 is as he says-not perfect, Opera 8.5 is better (you can see the eyes, there’s a gap just above the mouth still, and red hashing over the eyes.
I fired up Internet Explorer 6 and… it doesn’t even look like a circle. it’s a big red box with a black and yellow stripe at the top, random blocks, and some broken .png images in the bottom.
http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html#top
I’m extremely ticked off about his statement about HTML 4.01. He neglects to point out that Firefox is BETTER than IE at HTML 4.01… If he intended to be unbiased he would have made a big deal about Firefox only having 94% support for HTML 4.01, and incomplete XHTML 1.1
But no.
It IS true that Firefox doesn’t display all pages on the internet properly. Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve gone to one but I tend to avoid those places.
Sigh. This guy knows what he’s talking about; he’s intentionally leaving out other facts that go against the facts (which are all technically true) he’s got here.
Edited 2006-01-26 02:35
George Ou has nothing to do with this.
The stuff George Ou posts is TRUE. The stuff this author posts are blatant lies in some cases. George Ou is certainly not a “troll”, no matter what you think of him.
FACT : The only time when using another browser didn’t help was Windows’s recent “WMF security issue”. This was a Windows issue…NOT a browser issue.
Actually that’s not a fact. Yes, Opera and Firefox opened a dialog box and if you hit “open” you’d be hit, but with IE at default settings you wouldn’t even need to do that; it’d just open up the WMF file automatically. So while alternate browsers weren’t proof against the flaw, they certainly did help.
I may agree. But where are your arguments?
At least he gave some to discuss about, he didn’t just say “yeah brotha! FF is teh bestest!!!1one”
Note: as Internet Explorer the browser is nothing more than a shell around the MS HTML components, the memory listed for iexplore.exe is maybe half of the memory it is using. When you start Windows, you are also loading most of IE into memory. It’s very hard to compare the memory usage of IE and anything as MS hides it in with the system memory usage stats.
Yeah, in explorer.exe.
Legal Notice – Reproduction of this page in whole or in part is strictly forbidden. This guide and ALL versions thereof are protected by copyright under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Feel free to link to this Guide.
Ouch! Don’t bite! Uh oh… am I within my rights to even reproduce that?
http://nanobox.chipx86.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=29&postdays=0&pos…
With any firefox I tend to have problems with rendering (even showing) some websites, possibly because of non-standard HTML, but pages work in IE and opera. Example: http://qstrip.blog.hr/
Crashing? Happens but rarely.
It is much younger browser than Opera, IE, so I still expect it. But it is much more stable and mature than in 0.3 version when I begun using it.
It may also be slower (because UI is written in high-level language), but that is completely irrelevant today.
What IS relevant is it’s extensibility. With it you can do things by far not possible on any other browser, and thus it’s the best browser.
Extensions aren’t a BIG security risk because a) not many people use same extension, b) not many extensions are related to HTML handling (aren’t exposable to security risk by design).
I am using the latest firefox and that example site works
just fine for me. Is it a subtle rendering issue? Maybe I am just missing it.
Don’t take the above as sarcasm as that is not how I mean’t it.
The site looked fine for me too. (FF 1.5.0) Of course, I don’t read that language, so maybe I’m missing something obvious.
I’ve had very few rendering problems with FF since the .9 version, and that is the main reason I’ve stuck with Firefox. Opera often seems like a better browser (for someone with certain advanced needs but not a huge extension user) but I can’t use it because it doesn’t render some websites very well.
What’s wrong with the way it renders? I am using Firefox 1.5 on Linux and nothing seems wrong with the way it is rendered.
Site renders just fine – where’s the problem?
$ uname -a
Linux dragon 2.6.16-rc1-mm2 #1 SMP PREEMPT Fri Jan 20 22:02:24 CET 2006 i686 unknown unknown GNU/Linux
$ firefox –version
Mozilla Firefox 1.5, Copyright (c) 1998 – 2005 mozilla.org
Can’t find any oddities in that website. Looks just fine.
Compare to http://nanobox.chipx86.com/firefox_myths.php ?
So, what division of Microsoft do you work for?
In order,
Requirements – they may state that IE will run on with those requirements, but no one would want to. I assume Firefox would too, they just assume no one would want that much frustration.
IE faster from cold boot – sure, because it preloads the browser on startup.
10% vs 87% percent – who cares, if people had brains they wouldnt use Windows anyway.
Security — Its not what a smart person would use. Grandma can get to CNN.com just fine with both, granted, browsing the open free internet, you’d have to be an idiot or someone who loved reformatting their hard drive.
Extensions — IE doesn’t have any, so they are in fact more secure, but I want extensions, and I won’t install those that are not safe. On the other hand, there are security enhancing extensions.
Spyware – if Microsoft hadn’t made it so easy to do in security mess windows, spyware wouldn’t be a problem.
Bugs – I won’t even respond to this.
Tabbed browsing – IE doesn’t do it, period.
W3 standards — IE openly violates W3 standards
Acid test – I’m betting it does better than IE.
Web pages – granted, firefox doesn’t implement a lot of the Microsoft hacks, for a reason – they aren’t safe.
Overall – what a lame set of ‘arguments’
If you were a lawyer, your client would sue you for negligence.
I use only IE 6. FF is buggy and not worth installing for an XP desktop. It’s only good for niche OSes like BeOS, Linux, OS/2, etc…
i love the smell of a fresh scandal! first the lycoris “issue” and now this. at least they give me things to read ;-p
This is the dumbest thing I have ever seen. The myths the author speaks of don’t even exist. He uses extremes like “fastest, completely bug free, and blocks all popups. I haven’t heard anyone argue those things. What I do hear is that Firefox is faster from a warm start, or firefox has less issues with spyware, or things of that nature, that are arguably true. There are no real myths of the nature that the author speaks of. It’s just flamebait.
Get a newly installed WinXP WITH SP2.
Open IE (any version), go to http://www.serials.ws and pick up any serial. A popup window opens .. and voila! Your shiny xp sp2 has just been infected with some ad crap via an automatically installed activex control.
Now, if your system still runs. Try and do it with Mozilla/Firefox! You see .. no activex, no spyware! It a lot more secure than IE!
For me, thats the most effective answer to all browser security issues.
p.s. Don’t forget the javascript engine of Firefox. It’s times faster than IE’s.
Perhaps it’s a sign that you should use open-source software instead of pirating…
Of course I use open source software at most. I never said that happened on “my” pc
But it truly happened.
What a load of *CRAP*…
Most of you who are attempting to “debunk” the article with such informed statements as “Firefox *IS* faster, more secure, and more comptible!” and “The author is an idiot!” should pay attention to one thing …
The author compares Firefox to IE *for some points*, but not all points. Most of the points are spent debunking a Firefox myth, and no more. When he says that Firefox does not support web standards as well as people say it does, he is *NOT* implying that IE is any better — he’s merely saying that Firefox is not as good as people make it out to be either.
Given that, while IE is still a relatively decent browser, Firefox is the safer bet — but it is not a faster bet. I think I’m a part of a very large crowd when I say that it is too slow, bloated, and leaky.
That’s why I use Opera. I get even better security than I would with Firefox, 95% standards support, and better speed/memory usage than IE.
Most of you who are attempting to “debunk” the article with such informed statements as “Firefox *IS* faster, more secure, and more comptible!” and “The author is an idiot!” should pay attention to one thin
You should read this quote in bolded italic:
After having been in several long discussions with Andrew K. (the author of the Firefox Myths page), I notice that Mike G’s posting style is nearly identical to Andrew K’s. I should also mention that he has posted under many different names on various sites, all claiming to be someone different from Andrew K., but all determined (via I.P. checks, etc.) to be him. Some of the names include: Mastertech, GeneralAres, FFeLEET, Mastermind, Realist, and chiawaikian. Under all of these names, at one point or another, he has pretended that he wasn’t the author or outright lied about it. He also has an extensive history of trolling and ban evasion
http://robert.accettura.com/archives/2005/12/19/firefox-myths/
Draw your own conclusion to not only about the content but the author himself.
What is this, a political campaign? The author’s dubious Internet practices have no relevance to the content. I was defending the author from the resident retards here who think an opinionated statement is enough to pass as fact.
If Hitler said “The sky is blue, and birds are singing”, would he be any less correct than someone else simply because he was Hitler?
No, but I think the second link pretty well covered the problems with all of the authors arguments: Mostly that half his myths aren’t commonly perceived and are even more exceptionally argued.
For example, people don’t say Firefox is secure, they say it’s more secure than IE. Which, while it’s arguable, has been very true over the last couple of years (lately Microsoft may have improved, especially now that they again decided IE was worth spending time on).
People also don’t say it Fully supports standards, they say it’s more complaint; which it indeed is. He then pretends html 4.01 is the most important when it is in fact the tiniest source of real problems with developing web pages.
Anyway, I do agree that ignoring someones arguments simply because they’re a __hygenic product container__ is not wise. Although, had Germany ignored Hitler’s ideas….
Good point.
I guess what he’s doing is debunking Firefox myths as spewed by Firefox zealots. Beating down zealots of any kind is a very enjoyable experience — I can’t blame him for that. 😉
I’ve been keeping my IE security settings on a custom level above medium, have been using the Maxthon Browser and have been updating by Microsoft Update(manually installing EVERYTHING) at least once a week for 2 years now. I have not had one (O N E) case of spyware/adware/trojan/whatever kind of crap you keep telling me I’m getting.
I’ve been using one antivirus or another, depending on mood and available system memory. Ranging from NAV 2004 to NOD32(today).
I run Spybot S&D twice a week and manually debug my registry every month. Except for crap Yahoo! games leave in my registry, I have no problems at all.
What ARE you people talking about?
I think they’re talking about the fact that not everyone is prepared to, or knows how to tweak their security settings, manually clean their registry every month, run spybot at least every week, install a front end that acts like a condom to cut down on the cruft that still gets through even with security settings at their highest, and is prepared to limit which websites they visit to avoid “drive-by” installs.
Anyone who wants to avoid that, or isn’t so technically savvy can use Firefox with default settings instead, and still be more secure.
I do Spybot cleaning time-to-time and used(!) IE with the above-average safety settings, and it does help, but it is only a cure, not the solution.
I can’t speek on eveyone’s behalf, but at least I am talking about an ideal situation, where system tweaking is unneccessary and you can consentrate to the real job at hand, not to the twice-in-a-week in-depth computer maintenance, which is obsolete per se.
Alice’s aventures in the registryland are quite obsolete to everyone else but computer people, don’t you think?
If you have to do that, it is like owning a bad car, really.
“What ARE you people talking about?”
Here is the complete list of things I do to keep my system clear of “spyware/adware/trojan/whatever kind of crap” :
(1) run Linux. Use either Konqueror or Firefox web browser as the mood takes me.
That even keeps “Yahoo games” type things out of the registry, since there is no registry.
Here is the partial list of things I do not have to do:
(1) keeping my browser security settings on a custom level
(2) updating by Microsoft Update or any other method
(3) manually installing ANYTHING
(4) using any antivirus at all
(5) run Spybot S&D at any time
(6) debug my registry at any time
I too have not had one (O N E) case of spyware/adware/trojan/whatever.
Edited 2006-01-26 11:12
I’ve been keeping my IE security settings on a custom level above medium, have been using the Maxthon Browser and have been updating by Microsoft Update(manually installing EVERYTHING) at least once a week for 2 years now. I have not had one (O N E) case of spyware/adware/trojan/whatever kind of crap you keep telling me I’m getting.
I’ve been using one antivirus or another, depending on mood and available system memory. Ranging from NAV 2004 to NOD32(today).
I run Spybot S&D twice a week and manually debug my registry every month. Except for crap Yahoo! games leave in my registry, I have no problems at all.
That seems like a lot of work just to have the ability to browse the web once in a while. I’m not sure everyday users are prepared for these kind of restrictions and requirements.
If you’re a Linux user, give Epiphany a try. I’m using it now, it’s great. Very fast and stable. I was skeptical at first, but now I’m a believer.
Epiphany here too. At first, I sort of hated it, but now, although I like Opera and FireFox, I just like Epiphany better. It might be a misperception on my part, but it just feels lighter, less cluttered, more purpose-driven. Congrats to the Epiphany coders, where do I send my money?
http://www.gnome.org/friends/
“Open IE (any version), go to http://www.serials.ws and pick up any serial.” Done.
“A popup window opens”.Yeah, just saw that.(well, not always. It may happen to block it. Maxthon acts weird on popups. Most of the time it blocks them, a few miss)
“.. and voila! Your shiny xp sp2 has just been infected with some ad crap via an automatically installed activex control.” Really? I just got an “install this shit or not” box, and I said not.
“Now, if your system still runs.” Well, duh..
“Try and do it with Mozilla/Firefox! You see .. no activex, no spyware! It a lot more secure than IE!”if you say so.
Try this simple test.
go to http://www.crack-cd.com
Look up something in IE. You get nothing.
Look up something in Opera. It keeps asking you to download an executable with mirror in the name.
Now is my Maxthon/IE(well, it acts the same way wherever I am) too secure for the web, or is this site browser dependent?
Edited 2006-01-26 01:58
Well, I find that Firefox loads up just as fast as IE, except the first time (in Windows and Linux alike). Who cares about the first time? It’s two extra seconds out of my life. All that matters is that it starts up fast every subsequent time, and Firefox does that.
It does have some memory problems. The excuses that Firefox doesn’t get to use Windows DLLs is bunk. Firstly, those still count, and secondly, just comparing Firefox and Konqueror on Linux (where you can get fairly detailed memory usage information) shows that Konqueror uses significantly less memory. Right now, for example, Firefox is using 54 MB (!!!) of virtual memory for the heap. This is neither shared memory, nor memory used for program code and static data. Granted, not all of that is taking up RAM, but I don’t think single programs as basic as a webbrowser with a mere two tabs open should be using 100 MB of virtual memory.
I also find that it’s a bit difficult to get Firefox to integrate with the system. This is especially an issue on Linux, which is why I have traditionally used Konqueror (where embedded media and special documents and stuff “just works”).
That said, all of these things are fixable issues. What’s important is that Firefox came along and stole somewhere between 8% and 15% of the browser market, despite IEs simplicity and dominance. That shows that it is possible to chip away at Microsoft’s dominance with open source software. Firefox advocates and developers should not rest on their laurels. This is a critical moment. Now that the buzz has died down and negative issues are getting more publicity, the advocates and developers really need to keep pushing, now more than ever. If Firefox can make it over this little hump, then it might finally become an established competitor to Microsoft that won’t easily go away. And at worst, it might just lead to a better IE thanks to MS’s embrace and extend and exterminate policy.
The article is full of some garbage BUT
IE is not as bloated as Firefox. And the “but Windows loads most of it” argument doesn’t hold water. The Mac version of IE is WAY smaller than any Mac Firefox – period. Firefox is NOT a lightweight browser, it’s a clunker.
Firefox is slower compared to most browsers (Opera, Safari, Konqerer, etc), maybe not IE but why should the slow guy set the standard; I didn’t know software was graded on a curve?
But yeah, when you compare the two biggest pieces of crap browsers in public forum, your gonna pssoff a lot of geeks. The real story is why these two browser are the most widely used . . .
Just because the author is obviously biased, does not automatically refute any and all points.
As for standards… Firefox 1.5 is as he says, Opera 8.5 is better (you can see the eyes, there’s a gap just above the mouth still, and red hashing over the eyes.
Internet Explorer 6 doesn’t even look like a circle. it’s a big red box with a black and yellow stripe at the top, random blocks, and some broken .png images in the bottom.
http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html#top
Acid2 test contains some invalid css. Does that mean Konqueror and Safari failed to verify if the css on Acid 2 test are not correct? See the result when using CSS Validator:
– http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html#top“ rel=”nofollow”>http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?profile=css2&warning=2…
Edited 2006-01-26 02:37
Acid2 test IS invalid CSS. The point of the test is to make sure your browser correctly identifies invalid statements as per the spec. The face only appears if the browser fails correctly.
(For this reason I’ve heard it was a stupid spec)
Unless you’re saying some of the CSS that’s supposed to be wrong isn’t actually wrong.
That was just to spice some discussion. =)
“What is it about these people that are against open-source solutions? They claim all this BS, and yet, when people use it, we don’t have the problems they’re yacking about.”
They’re helping out “open-source solutions” more than fanbois like you. If everyone who actually uses software just sits back and accepts whatever crap that gets produced, the overall quality of software, all software, will plummet.
If there’s one problem with open source, it’s people like you, defending your beloved open source software as if every nitpick is a harsh personal attack against you.
If you’re really all for OSS, shutup and listen to people when they complain. There’s a good chance they’re not just being assholes. Telling people they should use a piece of software and then telling them to f–k off and stop trolling when they make a complaint or ask for a feature will kill OSS projects faster than Microsoft can even dream of doing it. If more than 3 or 4 people complain about the same thing, there’s a very good chance it’s a real issue.
I run open source OSes on all of my computers, the newest of which is 4 years old. The complaints these people are making are real. Firefox is a sluggish memory hog compared to other browsers. Even the other ones that use Gecko. OpenOffice IS really slow. Ever try running it on a machine that doesn’t have a gig of RAM and a 3 Ghz processor?
I dont consider Andrew K a troll, he actually put up sources to external links to strengthen his poiint of view. I have posted my point of view here.
http://rjdohnert.blogspot.com/2006/01/firefox-myths.html
Anyone who thinks any peice of software is perfect really needs to get their head into THIS reality and quit living in a fantasy world.
The only thing that i dont like is the Memory Usage,
i disconnect the internet connection and the memory usage by FireFox keep growing after no connection to the internet… How this is posible?
The company that ships it has clearly proven they don’t care about the quality of the product by not updating it for over 4 years after they had successfully killed off all major competition.
The best thing about firefox is that it’s shown Microsoft for what they did with IE; and it’s shown that innovation in the browser world really will win over users when they’re presented with it.
In 2001 Microsoft made the best browser. Since then they’ve had one update (XP SP2) which only covered a few of the requested features (popups).
It’d be quite foolish to use software from a vendor whose shown a total lack of interest in the software once they achieve a strong majority status without major threat. Unless of course you don’t like change, then stick with IE; it promises not to
. Well, except now, since they are working on it again.
I don’t care if people use firefox, mozilla, k-meleon (all gecko
), Opera, Safari, Konqueror, as long as it’s not using Trident to render then good for them. It’s quite obvious that Microsoft wants to keep web applications off the WWW (and on internal webs). I say this because of things like activeX, failure to innovate once Netscape was dead, etc. I’m not going to provide a conclusive argument for it, I’m just throwing the idea out for mass consumption.
The author of the page is on the right track about a lot of stuff:
1.) Firefox is less efficient than IE, and than every other browser. However, via things like http pipelining and a few tweaks to change rendering times it’ll get your pages quicker on a fast machine. Fast is defined by the time to finish a given task, firefox generally wins this question through some semi-legitimate methods. Efficiency is where it fails horribly. Are you concerned with fast, or efficient?
2.) Few things are more ridden with issues than IE. My evidence: The number of administrators who ban the use of it. That’s a big thing to tell a bunch of half-witted users; because admins hate explaining things! Obviously they’re coming from somewhere. Firefox is not perfect, but they also never let websites load executable code INTENTIONALLY onto your machine (ActiveX, before the restrictions).
3.) Firefox is definitely not a spyware solution. The solution to that is pretty easy: Don’t look at so much porn! Quit installing nifty little programs! They’re not nifty! Weatherbug is not helpful!
4.) Popup blocking is vastly better on firefox than IE. Plus things like the extension which helps you whitelist js really helps with those tricky popups
. I believe it’s called SecureFox.
5.) “Firefox has incomplete support of many W3C standards including HTML 4.01, XHTML 1.1, and CSS 2.1. Internet Explorer has very good support (87%) for the most important web standard, HTML 4.01.” That’s idiotic. No one is worried about html 4.01 support; we’re worried about CSS2! We’re sick of formatting pages in tables, and users are sick of the wasted bandwidth and parsing costs! If you want standards support, buy a Mac or run Linux because you need Konqueror or Safari. Opera is a nice browser for standards as well from what I’ve been told.
6.) The author brings up a bolded notice that he uses facts. He doesn’t. He does what all editorialists do: He presents the facts he needs for his position along with some form of argument. If the author wants to win us over with facts than post data and no conclusive statements (or even anti-conclusive statements). Anytime someone claims to bring you the facts and goes on to present an argument: Ignore him, he’s probably telling half truths.
To close with a poignant yet factless quote:
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”
— Benjamin Franklin
The best thing about firefox is that it’s shown Microsoft for what they did with IE; and it’s shown that innovation in the browser world really will win over users when they’re presented with it.
What innovation? There’s nothing innovative about Firefox worth talking about other than it’s “open source.”
Tabbed browsing (in IE 7…to be)
Popup Blocking (in IE 6)
Extensions:
Adblock
Image Zoom
NoScript
Those are just the things I like. Not liking firefox is fine, but pretending there’s nothing innovative going on in and around it shows incredible ignorance.
innovate
v : bring something new to an environment; “A new word processor
was introduced” [syn: introduce]
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/?application={ec8030f7-c20a-46…
That’s where much of firefox’ best innovation happens.
You must be joking.
You must be speechless
.
Tabbed browsing (in IE 7…to be)
In others way before FF, iBrowse for example.
Popup Blocking (in IE 6)
Odd, I had 3rd Party pop stoppers, and been using them for years.
Adblock
This one is rather handy, I suspect there were 3rd Party programs for IE4/5 but to be honest I don’t know.
Image Zoom
Opera had this one.
NoScript
Duuno what this does, exacty. the same as not-allowing scripts in the prefrences?
Anyway, as much as people like FF, I don’t, I find it too slow and too “feature rich” (cept AdBlocker, which I rather like) I don’t find it at all innovative.
NoScript provides a good (preferences is inconvenient, this is in the statusbar) UI for whitelisting javascript by domain.
Popup blocking has been on Mozilla since before 1.0, so, who knows where it started. Anyway, the point is that there is definitely innovation in the extensions of firefox (that’s the whole point of the extension mechanism; and it’s a bit of an innovation for browsers in itself).
You, like most people, are far too picky about what innovative means. It’s just something new.
If Firefox is not innovative then why are web developers coming out of their shell after years of hiding in it with IE? Why, because in contrast to IE Firefox is EXTREMELY innovative; and firefox has enough market share to force people to work with it. Opera, unfortunately, does not.
Other innovative things in firefox. The UI for find, a little bar instead of window. The use of color. The UI for warnings. XUL for cross platform use. I’m not sure, but I’ll say it, dynamic bookmarks for RSS.
Well as IE has been been unchanged (well, almost) in about 5 years…
However, I hate to say this, in the same way I prefer Word97 to WordXP, simpler, faster (almost!) all of the features I NEED, I prefer IE to FF….
I know that makes me sound like a complete ejiot, but I don’t care, I’m going to say it,
“I find Firefox overated”
Oh, and half the extentions break when you update FF, who wants invoations that break down like that?
PS I’m writting this on aWeb lite 3.5.07 beta, Just for your Information.
edit: removed pointless “5” from IE
Edited 2006-01-26 22:22
It’s funny you say that, because many people trash Microsoft for calling stuff innovative when it’s new to Windows. I’m not saying you are, but it seems no one is on the same page.
I’m sure you know this, but the mozilla browser came up with the extension system, not the firefox team (though they obviously are some of the same people).
Firefox really didn’t innovate much, and that’s facts. But that’s Ok. You don’t have to always innovative to produce a good product.
But Firefox is NOT “extremely innovative.” It’s a well produced product.
I’m usually one of the people defending them when people say “they’re copying Mac.” Because usually they’re copying Mac, and taking it a step farther, or two steps farther.
I generally don’t seperate Firefox from Mozilla as it’s largely the same people developing it, the same people using it (excluding the newbs), and it’s almost all the same code (Gecko is huge).
Mozilla = Firefox when I talk. Unless it’s about security issues, obviously there’s more need to be specific there!
TMK though, Mozilla failed miserably in forming a community around their extensions where Firefox has done a great job of it. Even if they aren’t innovating, their community of extenders is; and seperating those folks from the other bazaar that develops firefox seems a bit silly doesn’t it!
I last tried Opera in the Windows 98 days, maybe 5 years ago, and was not very impressed. Tonight I decided to try Opera again.
PLUSES:
– v8.51 is a very small (3MB) download and appears to load pages quicker than IE
– you can hit escape to stop the slow loading ads from _ever_ loading on web pages — I used to be able to do this with IE until flash crap came along
– extremely low ram memory usage — I used a maximum of 6MB when I had 2 sites/tabs open (pcmag.com & imdb.com), IEv6 with just this one window open is using 17MB
– on further browsing it definitely seems to load pages faster than IE, especially when hitting ESC at the right time
MINUSES
– no status line at the bottom by default, so no easy preview of where links will take me (but easily corrected)
– could not figure out how to add/remove buttons on the toolbars (only tried for 3 or 4 minutes) — oh, I saw the area of the preferences where it looked like this sort of thing was doable, but although it previewed toolbar icons I could not right-click to remove, not hit “add” / “remove” buttons to edit them
– no “home” button on default toolbars (corrected, but very inelegant, see multiple toolbar comments below)
– there is a “view” icon on one of the default toolbars but what the heck does it do? I can already see the web page so I don’t get it (and am not going to blindly click on it to find out.)
– why do I also have a google search toolbar?
– it turns out that the normally not visible “main” toolbar has the “home” icon — why isn’t this on the default toolbars?!
– there was no obvious way to have multiple toolbars on one line. This is a major inelegance as I now have 3 already (2 default and the one that has the “home” icon) — yet in IE I have just a single combo toolbar
– what the heck does the “wand” do? It appears on a default toolbar (when the home icon doesn’t) so it must be more important…yet it is not at all obvious what it does and I tried to invoke it (with the control-enter hotkey) and yet nothing happened
– why can’t I right-click on a bookmark to delete it? It was much slower to “Manage bookmarks” and not obvious at first how to stop managing them
Overall, Opera offers definite significant speed and RAM advantages. But the toolbars are sucky.
Yea, I agree. Opera’s engine rocks. But their UI is horrible! It starts up with soooo many features I don’t want.
I suppose their designs preceeded the current predilection with plugins.
I used to be a huge Opera fanatic. But I think it was version 7, or maybe 6, that was very crash prone and I skipped over to Phoenix (now firefox). Of course, Phoenix was worse, but at least it didn’t have ads
.
Interestingly firefox and Opera have the same skinning issue, for me: The menus often don’t work well. In Opera they just never seem to skin menus, and in firefox the colors often don’t cooperate with my gtk theme.
… Have you tried 8.5?
What features does it start up with that you don’t want?
Bizarre. A button is too scary to press?
If you don’t know what it is, then why not go to the Help? (Help->Opera Help, or hit F1)
It’s interesting that every one of your negatives is one borne out of ignorance and not even going to the help to find out about the items you’re so terrified of and the functions you just don’t know how to do.
Since you say you like it the technical aspects, you should really give it a proper go instead of using it, in effect going “this is different!” and stopping.
The biggest topic missed is stability; IE generally only crashes when it’s infected by something… Firefox crashes if you sneeze in the same room (to the point the latest “Stable” is less reliable than the Opera 9 Beta.)
Damn thing leaks memory like a steel sieve (best kind from what I hear), has MAJOR issues with it’s tasking model and javascript implementation, and the people they entrust bug tracking to are such total {censored} I’m amazed anyone can in a right state of mind recommend that steaming pile.
If anyone is actually interested, here are some screenshots of Konqueror on my Linux system passing the acid2 test:
http://members.dodo.com.au/~quiet1/konq-acid2-test.jpg
http://members.dodo.com.au/~quiet1/konq-acid2-reference.jpg
Safari was the first browser to pass this test. Safari uses KHTML as a basis, and the changes to KHTML required to get Safari to pass the acid2 test have now been backported to Konqueror.
And here is Firefox (1.0.7) failing the test:
http://members.dodo.com.au/~quiet1/firefox-acid2-fail.jpg
Try the test for yourself on your own browser:
http://www.webstandards.org/act/acid2/test.html
Edited 2006-01-26 10:00
Well, great “facts”. Even if they were true, this acticle is still worthless since it is nowhere near a complete picture. No-one cares about “fats”. It’s just marketing, so get over it! Let’s investigate Microsoft, IBM, Sun, or whatever “facts”, I bet you’ll get exactly the same result..
Fact is: my uncle is a complete computer idiot, and he used to use IE. Every few weeks I could come by and rid his system form all the crap he had on it. Since I switched him to FF, I only have to come by when he was naughty and used IE by accedent. It really does makes a difference for the ignorant (90%) of the users!
About Opera: might be great, but to me, it just doesn’t feel right. I also never experienced it being any faster than FF, specially with complex pages. but It’s not about speed, since any browser is essentally fast enough on a decent machine. It’s more the feeling I get when using it.
I won’t even start about IE. If you use it: good for you. I think is’s crap, even if 10 other articles say it’s great. It won’t even run on linux (well, it might run in wine, but you get the point
)
Edited 2006-01-26 10:10
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_Internet_Explorer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_Internet_Explorer#Critic…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_layout_engines
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konqueror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabbed_browsing#Tabbed_browsing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer#Proprietary_extensio…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Explorer#Standards_support
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace_and_extend
Edited 2006-01-26 10:48
Well MS funny boy a guess …
But my memory is not short so …
Before Firefox what had IE ?
Tabs ? NO …
Block Pop-Up? NO …
RSS? NO …
Master Password? No …
80% share Market? No … 97%
etc, etc …
IE only wake up when Firefox show up. Suprise how a Multi Milionaire company, that owns “governments” and got all the money and marketing in the world is afraid of mozilla lol.
Strange … Go Go Go Google
All of the Opera “problems” you list are easily solved and are only an issue because you’re not used to the software and you haven’t bothered to learn how to use it. Every app that’s a little different to the mainstream has a learning curve. Your post reminds me of Windows users who try Linux+KDE for 5 minutes then complain that it’s not as good as Windows because the Start menu is a bit different.
I find it hard to imagine how you missed how to do some of those things. For example, you can remove buttons from a toolbar by simply right clicking on the button and selecting the remove option. You can add items to a toolbar by simply dragging and dropping the buttons onto it. That allows you to combine toolbars onto one line by simply dragging all the buttons, search fields, status bar, etc. that you want to the toolbar of your choice, then turning off the others. That seems quite intuitive to me.
Other things like not having particular features shown by default are such minor nitpicks that I wonder why you mention them. I could complain about Firefox or IE not having the exact set of buttons on their toolbars that I would like, but that kind of thing can be fixed in seconds. The most likely reason that the home button isn’t on the default toolbar is that in my experience it’s a little used feature these days, most people type in an URL or use the search toolbar rather than always starting with a particular page. Also you can bring up your set home page by simply double clicking in an empty browser window. If Opera cluttered up the default toolbars with more buttons then people would be complaining about UI bloat. Actually you do that yourself by complaining about buttons that you don’t use being on the toolbars, Opera simply can’t win.
In the time it took you to type the message on here you could have cured your ignorance about useful Opera features like the Wand (it manages passwords BTW). How do you expect to use any new application if you’re not willing to read the help when you come across an unfamiliar feature?
So because you’re ignorant about Opera’s features and you have some minor nitpicks it’s UI is “sucky”? In my opinion the easily customised and very powerful UI is the single best thing about Opera. Amazing that the’ve packed in so many features into such a usable app, which keeping it smaller and faster than the competition.
Thanks for the more helpful reply, Dave_K. Ma_d, you are no longer on my Christmas pound cake mailing list.
My intent was not to nail Opera to the wall over “fatal” flaws. Rather to show my first impressions.
I plan to try again on the button issue.
My home page is a big deal because it is a custom .htm page with the 60 or 70 links I use constantly — faster to show all, in a constant layout than search trees of bookmarks.
Not showing a status line by default is a very poor choice and makes me concerned there might be other very poor choices. That’s all.
Between not-easily-configured buttons, missing toolbars and no-easy-way-I-know-of to stick multiple bars on one line, Opera put me off. This is allowed. In fact it happens 1000% more than most programmers will ever admit.
But I don’t mind. Call me an idiot. At least I gave an honest first impression that was probably helpful for the 350,000,000 people in the world who haven’t tried Opera yet.
If and when I get the Opera interface halfway acceptable to me I shall give it credit for that. Just as I gave it major props for speed and light RAM usage.
Note that half the people who replied to me agree with me about interface. This alone should be enough for any decent development team to revisit the interface. BTW, I have zero issues with the IE interface and last I tried the Netscape interface was sufficiently configurable _at-first-attempt_.
Having to be an expert at an interface to tweak it is completely contradictory to the whole point of being able to configure your interface. Trashing people who have spent 5 or 10 minutes of honest yet failed effort shows even greater levels of stupidity and user hostility. Avoid having kids Dave, lol.
The article is indeed old; the author has tried numerous times to “stir” a debate about these (already proven false many times) “FF myths” in various websites and forums – I guess it was OSNews’ turn this time.
It is getting harder to differentiate between bloggers who write to voice honest opinion and bloggers who pimp a hot topic to get traffic.
My time spent in Firefox has diminished greatly since 1.5 in favor of Opera. I am getting many more crashes and a consistent 60MB+ footprint with extensions uninstalled. The quality of Firefox has dropped off with each update in my opinion. I thought this was the reverse of what should happen with OSS projects. I still recommend Firefox over IE any day, but I am concerned about its quality in future releases.
Here is my take:
IE: Microsoft has become complacent about the technology behind this browser. They won the war against Netscape and they have been sitting on their laurels ever since. Meanwhile the browser has aged considerably and W3C has long since improved the state of standards. As the market share leader, Microsoft has a responsibility to maintain the browser to at least the minimum requirements of the day.
FF: The increasing footprint of Firefox is disappointing. Either Mozilla or the OSS community needs to address the legitimate complaints in this department. The novelty of extensions has worn off for me and now I want the level of quality that I know OSS can deliver.
This is my experience so your mileage may vary.
Yes while in the main interface icons can be removed from toolbars, but not dragged between them, so I still have 3 toolbars taking up one vertical inch of my screen. [It turns out one must click customize, then click outside the preferences page, then drag icons between pages — not intuitive, but workable]
Toolbars can be placed on various edges of the window, but I have still not succeeded in combining them.
“The Main bar is hidden by default.” This is a direct quote from the help file. Can anyone possibly explain why a MAIN item is hidden by default? This is bad interface design. If nothing else, the toolbar name should be changed, say to “Almost not needed, except for the Home button bar”.
Ok so after about 5 minutes more effort I learned how to drag the home icon to Address toolbar and I now have a product that I will continue to test/use in the future. I am very impressed with RAM usage, and speed of page loading. Those who don’t like memory pig browsers like Firefox should definitely check out Opera.
Just before posting this I did a Help | About in Opera and saw that Java was not loaded — so the quick-and-dirty RAM usage figures I observed may not be fairly representative.
More observations:
– Clicking on Cache in preferences did not take me to cache settings (not sure how to do that) but showed me all items in the cache in a clickable list — unusual feature that may come in handy for those sites that disable right-click.
– Opera has too many ways to bring up preferences — some go to the same place (right-click then customize equals clicking customize on the menus). But on the menus there are Advanced [preferences], Quick Preferences, Appearance and Preferences. I prefer the IE (and Eudora) approach of a preference screen with multiple tabs of preferences within it. And once again a fractional glance at the names used by Opera reveals poor (and missing information) choices.
– While in the preferences I missed having a question mark help icon that would allow me to learn about other preferences.
– I did not see a preference to turn on/off flash animations.
– Java is not installed (but it prompts nicely if you go to a java-needed page) yet in the preferences there is a checkmark next to it as if it was installed _and_ active.
– The wand, it turns out, is a potentially very useful web page field filler. Strange though that it asks for “Postal Code” instead of “Zip code” — I’m originally a Canuck, eh, but there are ten times as many Americans.
– overall the various preferences menus allow great flexibility
I consider my initial evaluation complete and I like what I see. But the interface could be improved ;-).
Edited to get rid of weird line breaks…
Edited 2006-01-26 15:31
“My home page is a big deal because it is a custom .htm page with the 60 or 70 links I use constantly — faster to show all, in a constant layout than search trees of bookmarks.”
It’s an issue for you, but most people don’t have a custom page like that and in my experience most people don’t bother with a home page. You shouldn’t assume that just because you use a feature it’s essential for most other people. For people who do use the home button it can easily be added to the toolbar of their choice, or you can just open a new page and double click in it to bring up the home page.
“Between not-easily-configured buttons, missing toolbars and no-easy-way-I-know-of to stick multiple bars on one line, Opera put me off.”
How are the buttons difficult to configure? Right clicking on the button/toolbar and selecting an option seems very easy and logical to me.
The toolbars that you consider “missing” by default would be pointless clutter for most people, in fact people used to complain about UI bloat before Opera cleaned it up. They can’t please everyone with their defaults, so making the UI highly customisable is a good compromise.
As for combining multiple toolbars into one line, I don’t understand what you’re finding so difficult about this. Just put the buttons and anything else on the toolbar that you want to keep and turn off the others. There are spacers and line breaks to let you layout the toolbar buttons exactly how you want.
“But I don’t mind. Call me an idiot. At least I gave an honest first impression that was probably helpful for the 350,000,000 people in the world who haven’t tried Opera yet.”
If your complaints were accurate and reasonably then that might be true, but all of them are easily fixed nitpicks or are simply caused by your ignorance and inability to adapt to software that works in a slightly different way. That kind of complaint could be made about any application with features you haven’t seen before, since they all inevitably have a learning curve.
“Having to be an expert at an interface to tweak it is completely contradictory to the whole point of being able to configure your interface.”
You don’t have to be an expert, you just have to have a little intelligence and willingness to adapt. All the things you’ve complained about are trivial to fix, I think that 99% of people could solve them easily without even using the help system.
“Trashing people who have spent 5 or 10 minutes of honest yet failed effort shows even greater levels of stupidity and user hostility. Avoid having kids Dave, lol.”
I’ve tried to be civil to you despite some of your complaints being so ridiculous that I initially thought you were just trolling. If there was any doubt about your lack of intelligence I think resorting to personal insults like that removes it.
Maybe you should consider not using computers if you’re utterly unable to work out how to remove a button from a toolbar when all it requires is a right click on the button. If I was you I’d be embarrassed to show my ignorance and stupidity by whining about such trivial and easily solved issues.
Insults aside,
this is my story about Opera. I downloaded and installed it just a while ago.
I have to partly agree about what were said about Opera’s poor default system choises.
They were quite unusable, at least for me too. But after three hours(!) work I got them set to my liking.
From UI point of view, the customization method itself is towards right direction but unsufficiently so.
First, it was hard to see what button/area you were fixing – they looked so much alike that more than once I was uncertain where I was. Second, the way switches and scrollbars are laid in customization toolbox is confusing in itself. I guess some people – including mysef – just don’t get that logic easily. Let’s hope we are not majority.
Especially hard was to get rid of the bookmarks button on the left side. That was important, because it was reserving the whole column from the left side of the window. About 20 000 pixels for one button! Isn’t that something. Thankfully I got rid of it finally. Don’t ever give up hope, brothers!
BUT then to the good things.
UI is indeed amazingly customizable. After the hard work Opera works nicely. Two major plus factors for me: First, the search engine integration to the address bar is nice. Very nice. (just type “g Firefox myths” for some serious googling!).
Second, bookmark handling with a pop-up-when-needed-left-side panel or on its own tab (a page, as Opera calls it) is mostly excellent too. I have just a minor problem with having to press mouse button twice when switching bookmark folders on and off sometimes. Firefox needed always only one click.
I haven’t checked the included RSS feed interface seriously, but it looks it could be prettier. Nice to have it at least in some form though.
One of the best things is, that you are allowed to remove almost all of the cutter and unneccessary actions from the bars and have a clean look. That is quite desktop space-saving too.
The most imortant thing to me however is, that Opera looks to be free form commercials now. It was a total turnoff before.
I am basically a Firefox man myself. It is a nice tool. But I am planning use Opera from now on and give it a chance, at least until the next version comes along. If I have to do all the tweaking again, or there are incompatibility issues that I am not yet aware of, then I will probably return to the Firefox. It is mostly useful from the very start.
OK, that was my two cents. Sorry if I went too much into details. The final point is: If you need a specialized tool and are willing to use a couple of hours to make it work for you, use Opera. Others could be better off with Firefox. Dedicated IE users – good luck for them.
Edited 2006-01-28 16:00
In my experience on browsing on Windows machines, the best way is to use Opera with Spybot Search and Destroy, with permanent imunization feature that works perfectly with Opera.
It’s very hard picking up spyware and so on browsing in that way while either with IE after SP2 or with FF, working in conjuction with the aforementioned Spybot Search and Destroy and even other spyware-busters, picking up spyware is quite a common experience.
However, worst nagwares usully works only comes using IE also if i noticed that after SP2 it was really more secure.
As for speed, Opera and IE IMHO are faster than FF expecially, but not only, for starting time (that for IE is due mainly to preloading).
As for compatibility, usually sites built following w3c standards and guidelines will not give problems to any browser, however sometimes there are IE-only sites even if many times it’s enough to say to Opera to identify as IE… humm.. this is QUITE suspect and annoying!
So, I usually browse with Opera and keep IE for those cases, however sometimes I still use FF because of it’s really an interesting project and has plenty awesome extensions (first of all AdBlock).
Right now FF is using 114mb of memory.
X windows is taking 174mb.
Total system memory usage is 210mb.
You see a problem here? You guessed it, something isn’t adding up properly. That’s because neither FF nor X windows is actually taking that much memory. Better said, they aren’t monopolising that memory, they are sharing it. People who complain about memory obviously haven’t taken the 5 minutes to check if there was a discrepency in total system vs. individual application memory usage on their systems.
I’m using FF 1.5 on FC4, Kicks butt and chews gum at the same time. No crashing here.
“Yes while in the main interface icons can be removed from toolbars, but not dragged between them, so I still have 3 toolbars taking up one vertical inch of my screen. [It turns out one must click customize, then click outside the preferences page, then drag icons between pages — not intuitive, but workable]
Toolbars can be placed on various edges of the window, but I have still not succeeded in combining them. ”
You can drag and drop directly between toolbars, you just have to hold down shift when you drag them, Opera’s help would have told you that. I don’t understand why you have unnecessary toolbars open when you can easily turn them off. As for combining toolbars, if you can move the buttons you need onto one toolbar doesn’t that effectively combine them?
“- Opera has too many ways to bring up preferences — some go to the same place (right-click then customize equals clicking customize on the menus).”
Right clicking and selecting customise takes you to the section of the preferences relevant to the object you right clicked on. That’s faster than going through the main menus and tabs.
“But on the menus there are Advanced [preferences], Quick Preferences, Appearance and Preferences. I prefer the IE (and Eudora) approach of a preference screen with multiple tabs of preferences within it.”
Quick preferences are very useful as they allow you to quickly access the most commonly used and often changed options. If this makes Opera too complex for you then clearly you should stick with simpler and less powerful software. In my opinion removing useful features to dumb it’s UI down to your level would be a terrible mistake.
http://nanobox.chipx86.com/blog/2006/01/more-illegal-activity-from-…
http://nanobox.chipx86.com/FirefoxFables/
Added a parody version the first link of “article”.
BTW, the author was caught using multiple accounts on other tech pages and daily editing this “article” to suit his agenda. If he was honest, he wouldn’t need to do stupid activities quoted below:
Since my last update, a lot of new information has come up about Andrew K., the author of the Firefox Myths article. He has posted messages on countless websites under many different pseudonyms, all claiming at some point to be a different person from the actual author or otherwise deliberately misleading about his identity. Some of these pseudonyms include Mastertech, GeneralAres, FFeLEET, Realist, Mike G., and Andrew. Mastertech, who used to pretend he wasn’t the author (notice in this post he deliberately refers to the author as he instead of I) but now openly admits it, still denies that he and “Andrew” are one and the same, although I think anyone with half a brain can put two and two together. The other pseudonyms have been confirmed by the respective sites’ administrations to be the same person.
Andrew K. has trolled on countless websites, has been banned from many of them, and has also ban evaded, which is against his ISP’s terms of use (accessing a service without consent). He has personally advertised his site on about a hundred different message boards without coming straight out and saying that he wrote it (after all, that would be regarded as spamming, another bannable offense). All of this, and he still claims that I’m the one being dishonest. I think the facts speak for themselves.
Apparently, like some posters mentionned, it is OSNews turn.
Edited 2006-01-26 18:22
IE on windows might feel faster because it is starting up faster than firefox. And this is because most of IE’s functionality resides in dlls which are already preloaded at startup.
The memory footprint could indeed be smaller, but since all my machines have plenty of RAM I don’t mind, firefox should feel free to use it.
cheers
Joe
I Love firefox, and now im linux only it is a no brainer. but I do find that it locks/closes itself quite frequently since the 1.5 release, and I leave it open most of the time because it is a bear to startup, around 10-15 seconds first run on a athlon xp 1800 1gb of ram. kind of excessive seeing mozilla is around 5 secs on this machine, and opera around the same. once its running, and as long as I dont want to view many graphically intensive sites, it works fine.
Clear out your history.