This story lists a number of problems with IE and suggests to switch to Firefox. Elsewhere, Neowin interviews a member of the Firefox team.
Why you should switch to Firefox
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
http://secunia.com/advisories/12526/
Mozilla and firefox have been having a lot of security holes. While they’re miles ahead of Internet Explorer security-wise, they’re still far from what I’d call secure.
http://secunia.com/product/11/
If you’re using IE, please switch to Firefox – but Firefox isn’t a cure-all.
I’m already using Firefox, and have been since it was called Phoenix. I really don’t think this has to be posted on OSNews over and over again. Post it in a newspaper instead!
Mac users now know why they should use Camino. Thanks to this interview.
Ludo
—
http://perso.hirlimann.net/~ludo/blog/
really, it gets boring already.
I agree. I’ve been using it as long as you have. But its getting very tiring of all these commentaries saying to switch, especially from CNET/ZDNET lately. People have been switching for a quite a while now, yet these guys are just now figuring it out and are now trying to exploit it. Now if only they could catch up to the rest of us living in 2004.
Firefox might not be perfect, but what browser is better?
Mozilla’s patching behaviour is by far better than Microsoft’s.
Regarding the article:
What’s about Microsoft’s Office viewer applications?
They are never included in the listings Microsoft’s vulnerable programmes.
Besides the MS windows update page, does anyone know of a list of sites that don’t render correctly in FF?
> I like firefox it opens pages really fast however like Netscape, Mozilla, etc tab browsing is very slow compared to what I use. Try to open 10 or 12 tabs at onces.
I just did that; it was fairly fast. It does take a few seconds, and it could be faster, but it’s not exactly what I’d call slow.
> I currently use windows to surf the web because of a prog named myie now called maxthon. I can open 30 tabs in seconds and I do all the time.
I often have > 30 tabs open, but I always take more than a few seconds to open that many… I mean, short of asking Firefox to open a whole set of pages at once [ie, a category of bookmarks] I’m a bit surprised at the idea of opening 30 pages in, say, 5 seconds. 5 pages nearly at once? Sure. Hundreds of tabs in multiple windows? Sure. 30 at a time? What on earth are you doing, and where?
> I never see adds on pages because of the content filter that is easer to use than firefox’s or mozilla’s.
I rarely see ads; once you’ve right-clicked on the major ad network’s images and blocked images from those servers, very few show up. I don’t even bother with the content filter.
> Since the logical progression for an article like this could be “if you use firefox full time why not switch to Linux full time” I will say this about that.
Hahaha, on cnet? You’ve got to be kidding.
> Check Usenet few warez few games for Linux. I’m all for Linux/UNIX I had a lot of fun installing solaris 7 on my SPARC 20 tried to stay in redhat 7 for a few months but ultimately I go back to windows for the warez/games/myie.
Wayne
Right, so you love warez and stay on Windows. That’s not exactly something I’d brag about, but it really has nothing to do with the browser you use. Firefox isn’t going to suddenly keep you away from all your warez and install Linux every time you look away for 5 seconds.
IE, regardless of what addons you’re using, is _extremely_ insecure. Firefox is only marginally insecure. If the only thing keeping you from using Firefox is the content filtering and speed of opening new tabs, file wishes for those things. If the other reason you don’t use it is because you think that you must then logically progress to linux, well… I’d disagree with you. [I’ve been using Linux much longer than Firefox, though.]
Reality check for you: NO software is perfectly secure! Find me one piece of software that has absolutely no flaws.
I’m all for Linux/UNIX I had a lot of fun installing solaris 7 on my SPARC 20 tried to stay in redhat 7 for a few months but ultimately I go back to windows for the warez/games/myie.
Umm, yeah. I don’t even know why I’m replying to this misguided patch-wearer (A.K.A. pirate)…here goes…
Regarding warez…Yeah I’d much rather have to search for illegal software that I have to install patches of dubious origin or run key generators to even get installed on my computer. That’s way nicer than using perfectly legitimate freely-available software that probably meets 80-90% of your needs.
Regarding games…there’s several options for you here…
– *gasp* dual-boot (seriously how often do you multitask while gaming?)
– Use VMWare or Wine-X (preferably a legal copy, but you don’t seem to be that type)
– Buy a game console such as a PS2, X-Box, or GameCube (they offer a better gaming experience than any PC does as far as I’m concerned)
Used it… don’t use it anymore.
Use Opera in Windows, looks good and is terribly fast and has a lot of features.
Use Konqueror in Linux, looks look and is terrebly fast and has a lot of features.
Now, wasn’t that funny?
Good trick!
You will get a lot of fame points this way, hope is makes you will lots of battles!
… Or did you mean that page isn’t rendered correctly in Firefox?
Nothing’s secure? Here:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
printf(“Hello World
“);
return 0;
}
That’s one heck of a web browser you have there. 😛
Oh, and even trivial “Hello World” programs can be insecure, since they must be linked against the platform’s flavor of libc. On Linux systems this is usually glibc, which has had several security flaws. Although none of them to my knowledge would pose a serious threat to your simple little “Hello World” program. However, it is theoretically possible.
>Nothing’s secure? Here:
>
>#include <stdio.h>
>
>int main(){
>printf(“Hello Worldn”);
>return 0;
>}
I see you included stdio.h, which means it is compiled into your program. Are you absolutely sure that stdio.h has no flaws? What about GCC (or whatever compiler you use)? It makes the software. Are you sure it doesn’t have any flaws?
I would have thought that the vast majority of mac users would be using Safari now.
BTW, I don’t see any advantage in using FF or Camino over Safari. I’ve found Safari to be faster and more stable. I suppose if you’re a “power user” and if you like to have lots of extensions on FF but if you just use tabbed browsing then Safari is a better option. It just fits in with OS X way better.
“Nothing’s secure? Here:
#include <stdio.h>
int main(){
printf(“Hello Worldn”);
return 0;
}”
This program does not check for an error when calling printf, nor does it correctly close the output stream. It’s a security disaster just waiting to happen!
Here’s an interesting titbit from the first article:
“Now, what happens if you patch your system with Windows XP SP2, then load one of the above apps? Believe it or not, the potential exists for that app to overwrite the patched gdiplus.dll with an older, more vulnerable version. You can see what a nightmare this has become already. Thus, Microsoft has posted a free online tool to assess the current vulnerability of your computer.”
Memo to all “Linux software installation sux0rz!” types – THIS is why we have shared libraries and proper package management systems, comprende?
Mozilla and firefox have been having a lot of security holes. While they’re miles ahead of Internet Explorer security-wise, they’re still far from what I’d call secure.
The difference will be that patches are quicker. The JPEG flaw had a patch before the exploit, but that’s not normally the case. There are IE “zero day” posted to Full Disclosure routinely.
If you use a Windows operating system older than Windows 2000 or have already updated to Windows XP SP2, you’re immune to the flaw.
Sort of. I believe IE6 is still vulnerable even if on older windows.
Because gdiplus.dll is vulnerable to a buffer overflow attack, malicious code lurking inside an infected JPEG file could allow new, potentially malicious code to take over the use of your computer (or, at the very least, crash it).
It would crash the app, obviously in the case of DCOM and LSASS, this crashed the computer as well. A skillful bit of code would bind a shell to a port or download a trojan.
In a separate but related development, Microsoft announced that future security enhancements for its Internet Explorer will be available through its Windows XP update service only.
I believe they were saying that the enhancements, e.g. those in SP2, will not be available. I believe they will release patches for IE though.
I’ve used Mozilla on linux and bsd for a long time, and I recently switched to Firefox on Windows. Keeping it patched, it’s much safer than IE.
> Reality check for you: NO software is perfectly secure!
I know that; that doesn’t mean I need to be happy with it.
> Find me one piece of software that has absolutely no flaws.
Knuth’s stuff is very close to this ideal.
There are various levels of insecurity. Nothing in Firefox has yet convinced me that it will have a great security record. I think it’s a good deal more secure than Internet Explorer; I also think that it mildly sucks security-wise.
Arbitrary remote code execution is bad. So are buffer overflows. So is overwriting local files. Mozilla has been vulnerable to all of these things relatively recently.
Wasn’t the JPEG flaw known by MS for a long time?
That would be the same strategy that failed in many cases, they were lucky this time.
> Nothing’s secure? Here:
> #include <stdio.h>
> int main(){
> printf(“Hello Worldn”);
> return 0;
> }
That’s not so bad, above comments aside. Conversely, if you took [let’s assume correctly bounds-checked..] external data into a local variable which we’ll call foo, and did printf(foo); – congradulations, you’d have a security hole (a format string vulnerability).
Likewise, if you accepted input from gets(), you’d have a buffer overflow, generally speaking.
It’s perfectly possible to write a program that length that contains a security flaw; in larger programs or with beginning programmers, it’s very difficult to avoid them.
Security is hard.
anyone tried sandboxing IE? I ran across an app on shellcity that claimed it could do that (for security reasons). there’s also QwikFix, which I plan to try. it’s an IE security patch.
Right, so you love warez and stay on Windows. That’s not exactly something I’d brag about, but it really has nothing to do with the browser you use.
Surfing stuff like hacking and warez sites is “dangerous.” Firefox would be much safer than IE.
Use VMWare or Wine-X (preferably a legal copy, but you don’t seem to be that type)
Virtual PC is $129 i believe, Windows XP is $90 to $200, and linux is relatively free. This setup could be done for a reasonable amount of money. I plan to strip down the host OS, so I will have enough RAM.
I tend to use both firefox and safari at the same time. I have both in the dock actually. While safari is “generally” faster, firefox’s gecko engine seems to load some pages/sites faster. Plus I don’t like the metallic look of safari. It’s so bland to me. I have camino installed as well, but it seems that more often than not, some places just don’t like Camino, so I use FF and Safari. (I also have IE5, Netscape 7 and Omniweb installed. I don’t really know why. I don’t even use them. Guess I’m just a browser whore.)
Been using firefox since it was pheonix myself.
Damn good browser. Of course IE is usable again for a lot of folks if they update to SP2 on XP.
Still I prefer firefox.
> anyone tried sandboxing IE? I ran across an app on shellcity that claimed it could do that (for security reasons). there’s also QwikFix, which I plan to try. it’s an IE security patch.
I haven’t tried those [I’m not a Windows user]. Sandboxes tend to help somewhat, but it’s often possible to break out of them – no idea for the one you mentioned. Both things may be helpful. I’m mildly baffled why you wouldn’t sandbox a different browser instead, though.
> Use VMWare or Wine-X (preferably a legal copy, but you don’t seem to be that type)
Wine and Wine-X run a relatively small subset of Windows apps.
> Virtual PC is $129 i believe, Windows XP is $90 to $200, and linux is relatively free. This setup could be done for a reasonable amount of money. I plan to strip down the host OS, so I will have enough RAM.
Ever tried qemu? It’s a reasonably good, and free, emulator.
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/
I’ve used it a little.
I’m going to be installing SP2 (reformatting) for a friend next weekend, and I have been debating on whether to install Firefox or just put Maxthon on there and saying the hell with it.
I realize that in the past, there has been a great need for alternate browsers because of security reasons, but with IE in SP2 blocking ActiveX controls by default, is this really necessary for someone with common sense? In hte past, I have been a big champion of alternate browsers and have tried to get as many people on Firefox as I can, but I am getting tired of the support phone calls I’m getting when site xyz won’t render correctly in Firefox.
The last url visited should be the first in the list.
Is that a bug?
> I realize that in the past, there has been a great need for alternate browsers because of security reasons, but with IE in SP2 blocking ActiveX controls by default, is this really necessary for someone with common sense?
Yes. I’m never sure whether to be amused or sad when someone claims that “common sense” can save you from bad software. ActiveX is nasty, but IE has many, many, many security holes, and a good chunk of them are not ActiveX related.
> In hte past, I have been a big champion of alternate browsers and have tried to get as many people on Firefox as I can, but I am getting tired of the support phone calls I’m getting when site xyz won’t render correctly in Firefox.
Report it to the mozilla devs.
It’s incredibly foolish to run IE; you can lower the risk, but it’s the most insecure browser out there.
Why should IE be a good browser?
It’s big, insecure and is not the best renderer.
Unfortunately, it won’t be until web developers get the point of creating code according to some (non-defacto) standard that people will still believe that IE is better.
I mean, its impossible to beat IE at displaying web pages designed to work on IE’s quirk mode.
This is why IE, as well as other other browsers that are half-compliant (or quarter compliant like NS4) need to be updated or discontinued. If a developer prefers to do a table-based layout with formatting tags, older standards like HTML 3.2 are available. But please, create browser independent code! As of the browser developers, make the browser implement something as good as possible, or don’t implement it at all.
This week I had a discussion with another student who became the webmaster of my research group. He told me that IE is better than Firefox. He then tells me that his code is correct despite him not closing any block tags, simply because IE displays it the way he wants to. This is the kind of mentality that needs to dissapear before we move to a better web.
>Regardless IE is still the best browser out there
Right because being last in features, last in security and last in speed == Win for IE!
Is this that “new math”?
“Regardless IE is still the best browser out there”
oooh…can I score some of the drugs you’re on? Damn that’s some crazy-@ss-sh*t.
Firefox vs Safari:
First, I compare them with Saft loaded on Safari. This lets you do all kinds of cool things like have open pages re-open when Safari re-launches, customize the search field with different engine choices, and Aquafy the toolbar.
With Firefox, I would make sure I had loaded up the toolbar with all of my live bookmarks, changed to toolbar theme or reduced the size, loaded in the pre-configured search engines, and installed some of the better extensions…my favorites are the Web Developer and the Linkification extensions.
When all is said and done, there are some pros and cons, but Firefox edges out over Safari. On Windows, Firefox just blows away IE.
If there is anyone knowledgeable. Is there any web site with firefox specific javascript tips? I have created a few javascripts that work well in IE but not in Netscape
Firefox is simpler to use and configure and has a lot of extensions/plugins to block annoying ads, popups, to tell you which URLs point to html files, pdfs etc…
It also has Bugmenot, the automatic password discovery plugin which lets me login to news sites that require registration and Sage for integrating an RSS reader into the browser (ahead of Safari even).
If MS put this sort of stuff in IE I might go back. But then again I can use Firefox on both PC and MacOSX so I’m happy with it.
There are 3rd party plug-ins for IE like (most of those extensions were written by other ppl – they are 3rd party extensions as well):
– Blogspot (It’s like Sage for FFox)
– Mouse Gestures for IE (like a simple gestures extension for FFox).
+ There are a lot of good addons for IE: popupblockers, tabs, pwdhelpers, etc..
I use both FF and IE but i wouldn’t say THIS or THAT is better…
Chances is that you are using the IE-only, proprietary DOM. Gecko (and therefore Mozilla, Firefox, and Netscape) support the W3C DOM.
This should get you started:
http://devedge.netscape.com/central/dom/
A good small, handy reference are the devedge Netscape/Mozilla sidebars, they are here:
http://devedge.netscape.com/toolbox/sidebars/
The sidebar sends you to the W3C specification, which tell you what each method does. If you use Mozilla, using the DOM inspector reveals you the properties of each DOM element, which will help you a lot in finding the kind of methods available for each node.
I use IE very, very rarely, and I will happily say that Fx is far, far better.
I know there are third party extensions for IE, but they’re all quite tacked on – and they fail to solve issues like “your machine can be compromised by viewing a dodgy website”.
I’ll jump in with everyone else at galaga88 too: You’re wrong. IE is not the best browser out there.
The fact that it renders some sites better than other browsers is simply an indication that the site is broken, not that IE is better – when it comes to HTML compliance it has a number of bugs.
Personally I would like to see some sort of check on the web, so every page has to be valid HTML – if people won’t do it voluntarily, they should be made to. I’m sick of pages displaying weirdly with things saying “Best viewed in IE”.
Maxthon is a powerful web browser with a highly customizable interface. It is based on the Internet Explorer engine (your most likely current web browser) which means that what works in IE, works the same in Maxthon but with many additional efficient features like..
Just a thought, maybe FF seems more secure at the moment becuase everyone is focusing on IEs exploits. I wonder what would happen should they turn their attention to FF and look for holes? Just a thought.
I use FF for many reasons and one of them is stated above. Another reason is when I put it on Winners computers they experience no more spy ware, pop ups etc, so far.
And as far as articles about FF, keep em comin, if you don’t like em don’t read em.
later
> Just a thought, maybe FF seems more secure at the moment becuase everyone is focusing on IEs exploits. I wonder what would happen should they turn their attention to FF and look for holes? Just a thought.
There are peope looking for Firefox vulnerabilities. Several have been found.
However, firefox _is_ more secure than IE. Integrating a browser and an OS is asking for a disaster.
Firefox might not be perfect, but what browser is better?
Opera, elinks, and even other Mozilla-based solutions like K-Meleon.
>> Just a thought, maybe FF seems more secure at the moment becuase everyone is focusing on IEs exploits. I wonder what would happen should they turn their attention to FF and look for holes? Just a thought.
>There are peope looking for Firefox vulnerabilities. Several have been found.
>However, firefox _is_ more secure than IE. Integrating a browser and an OS is asking for a disaster.
Good point, I overlooked that about windows. But time will tell about FF. So far its an outstanding Browser. Opera IMO has never rendered many pages properly. With the release of the latest FF I am having fewer problems, almost none, zero, zilch.
Anyway gentlemen
have fun surfin and FF on
I would love to swtich… but I can’t… We are using Siebel at work and Firefox can’t event display the login page correctly… Staying with IE… Hail to IE
Jens
I have been using FF since it was pheonix. It is a great browser (Fast, good looking and reasonably secure) never had any major problems with it and if i do it is always solveable. (Without resorting to IE)
… to read the forums at Neowin and to see all of the people sticking with IE.
Addblock extension is a blessing 🙂
Uhh… using IE doesn’t mean the end of the world. Just don’t go blindly opening everything sent to you and you should be alright. I use IE (MyIE actually) for years and have had no problem, but then I also know how to not get malware… It’s not really that hard… get a grip. lord.
Except Firefox news to increase. IE is by far more buggy (http://www.linuxelectrons.com/article.php/20041001223211127) and firefox has IE out featured. Firefox also includes built into update checking. It seems only the ignorant defend IE.
FireFox isn’t a bad piece of work but it’s had quite a few security vulnerabilities recently. So, please, don’t try to sell FireFox based on its security record. Tabbed browsing is nice. I would be surprised if IE doesn’t implement some of FireFox’s features. But try to understand: The vast majority of people have never heard of tabbed browsing. They wouldn’t know what many of these features are unless you physically pointed them out (I love it when my mom refers to SSL-enabled sites as “that cute little lock thingy at the bottom of the screen”). The security threats just aren’t that credible, either, unless you’re surfing p0rN or wAR3z sites regularly — or you deliberately open random attachments sent to you in email.
Regarding games…there’s several options for you here…
– *gasp* dual-boot (seriously how often do you multitask while gaming?)
All the time since I play MMORPGs and they often require regenning once every while. Also things like Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights also allow for muti-tasking during gameplay.
– Use VMWare or Wine-X (preferably a legal copy, but you don’t seem to be that type)
= That’s pay-ware. Worse: you need to pay yearly/monthly iirc? Wtf would I even consider going over to Linux and have monthly subscriptions on software? Sick.
= DirectX 8 is -not- fully supported. To play my games I’d need Wine-X plus Crossover Office for it to work. Tried it on Redhat: besides simple things like the spacebar and backspace not working it’s TOO MUCH waste of my time if Windows XP does it out of the box.
– Buy a game console such as a PS2, X-Box, or GameCube (they offer a better gaming experience than any PC does as far as I’m concerned)Doesn’t work with MMORPGSs now does it? Also: I aint coughing up 150 euro for an X-Box of PS2 if what I allready got does the trick.
Got any more options? Cuz I’m sticking to Windows XP with FireFox unless Linux gets DX8 and DX9 -fully- supported.
I have Fire Fox on my desktop, but I still find myself using IE much more. In fact, I dont remember the last time I opened up Fire Fox. Its not a bad browser, but I just really like how IE is so integrated with Windows. If Fire Fox were so tightly integrated, I might consider using it more… Then again, I have yet to experience any major problems using IE, so I still wouldnt see myself switching anyways. I have tried Opera too, and while it seems decent, its just way, way to busy for my tastes.
That wasn’t a very good troll. You can do better.
“I would love to swtich… but I can’t… We are using Siebel at work and Firefox can’t event display the login page correctly… Staying with IE… Hail to IE
”
Yet another HUGE company that doesn’t support non-MS products….. huh.
Thre results speak for themselves.
With all vendor patches installed the current status of the browsers are as follows:
Firefox http://secunia.com/product/3256/ Less critical
IE http://secunia.com/product/11/ Extremely critical
Number of holes in 2003-2004:
Firefox – 14
IE – 44
Opera – 26
On Criticality of all holes reported in 2003-2004:
Firefox – 0% extremely, 15% highly critical.
IE – 14% extremely, 34% highly critical.
On Impact:
Firefox – 20% system access
IE – 33% system access
Compared to the amount of users and people LOOKING to find bugholes in IE it’s not unlikely to assume that it results in more problems found for IE compared to FF.
FF *often* has problems with websites using secure login. I’ve seen several sites that allow login with IE and not with FF. I constantly need to switch to IE when I need to pay for my MMORPG for instance. Lucky for me it’s only 1 time per 6 months 😉
…Is its poor centralised manageability. It doesn’t obey global system settings like home pages and proxy servers, doesn’t have any GPOs and doesn’t store its configuration in the registry. So managing a hundreds (or worse, thousands) of desktops/users with Firefox would be rather painful.
http://mdew.orcon.net.nz/adblock/blocked-ads-firefox.txt for my decent adblocking list.
One reason people mightn’t use Safari on macs is that safari requries 10.2 (Jaguar).
Anyway, I still prefer Camino (now my only browser) over FF, cos its faster, and seems more native.
I’we downloaded a tried using Firefox and I’ll tell you why I’m not using it. It too god-damned slow. I don’t understand why they can’t make it as fast as IE.
It’s not _that_ of a big difference, but the difference is really annoying, so I’ll just stick to IE.
The only area where IE is faster than FF for me is start-up, which is logical since IE is loaded into memory when Windows is loaded. Beyond that, FF kicks IE’s ass when it comes to rendering sites. YMMV ofcourse.
You’re right.
Companies with large networks have to use Internet Explorer. There’s no alternative.
Yes. I’m never sure whether to be amused or sad when someone claims that “common sense” can save you from bad software. ActiveX is nasty, but IE has many, many, many security holes, and a good chunk of them are not ActiveX related.
Ok, so does anybody have a list of unpatched security holes that affect IE running XP SP2?
Works for me.
Hey Mac folks, try iCab, been using it for 5 years, and still my favorite browser.
It’s fast, it’s small (3mb), and has the best preferences of the bunch.
http://www.icab.de
Bottom line, most users are either uninformed, too lazy, or too scared to switch.
Is everyone patched?
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/0.10.1/patc…
I’ll always prefer khtml-based browsers and IE over gecko-browsers anytime– I don’t know why, and I can’t give a clear reason, it’s just that Safari (on my iMac) and IE (when I’m using a Windows machine at Uni or something) works faster. I’m not saying they do, it just feels that way to me.
My x86 is a BeOS machien, and there I do use a stripped (browser-only) Mozilla, but that’s only by lack of anything better.
Richard Cranium:
Opera IMO has never rendered many pages properly.
Uh, then there’s something wrong with your copy of Opera – or your opinion.
I believe you can globally modify firefox’s default configs.
Not using the windows registry is a show of true nobility, by not taking the “easy” route and doing it the correct way in a text file that you can just delete if your settigs get boched.
no, it’s not “easy” not to get malware while using an insecure browser. Especially when vulnerabilities exist, or have existed in the past, that allow it to be introduced to your system simply by viewing an image, or simply going to a website. How do you protect against that?
“Doesn’t work with MMORPGSs now does it?”
actually, yes it does. The PS2 has Final Fantasy XI. My PS2 sits in my living room and is on broadband internet via the PS2 network adapter plugged into a Linksys 802.11b wireless network bridge. Kinda expensive, but it works.
as I’ve been posting to the Mozilla Support forum. I’ve switched distributions, upgraded to Gnome 2.8, deleted my bookmarks.html, but Firefox crashes for me 3-5 Xs per day.
Argh.
I believe you can globally modify firefox’s default configs.
Not using the windows registry is a show of true nobility, by not taking the “easy” route and doing it the correct way in a text file that you can just delete if your settigs get boched.
No, it’s a sign of laziness. The ‘correct’ way on Windows *is* the Registry and, by extension, GPOs. Modifying text files to change settings requires a visit to each machine (be that by a real person or an automated script).
Firefox will be more successful when it stops trying to impose *nix methodologies on non-*nix systems (and users). It has similar non-compliance-with-system-standards on OS X (its only recently started obeying the system-wide proxy setting, for example) – and no, OS X isn’t really a *nix from the typical user’s perspective (ie: the GUI).
“Modifying text files to change settings requires a visit to each machine”
if, that is, the text file lives on the individual machine, and not a shared drive.
if, that is, the text file lives on the individual machine, and not a shared drive.
When 90% of your userbase is connected by 512/128 (or slower) ADSL lines, centralised/server-based home directories are not a viable solution.
Firefox works best with Windows. Try it out!
I also use Firefox for about 2 weeks now. It’s a very nice browser however i hav some problems. If i visit a website with a lot of images, not all of them will load. And some website look terrible due ba coding.