Following the Mozilla Firefox 1.0 stable release, the popularity of this open source web browser has increased in a major way.
Following the Mozilla Firefox 1.0 stable release, the popularity of this open source web browser has increased in a major way.
No wonder why, Firefox has quality and is secure.
Funny how MS said that IE would remain dominant and keep >90% of the market regardless of what Firefox et al. did. Now they’re down to 88% and dropping fast.
The article mentioned that MS was upset because the statistics don’t reflect corporate intranets that use IE. That may be true, but typically if a company has an intranet, they also have access to the Internet. At least, many of the employees have access, so I would expect the results to be fairly representative. Especially when companies, schools, etc. start telling people to use something other than IE.
Being in the Navy, I wish the military/government would get a clue and ditch MS products. EDS now runs everything and seems to have a lifetime contract w/ MS. The funny thing is, the military actually thinks “standarizing” on MS products makes them safer. Funny how often viruses get spread at my command.
I use firefox on gnu/linux and windows. The ease of getting plugins is nice. As are tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and the ad-block plugin.
What I find I can’t live without, though, is the bookmarking of many tabs. To have home set up to a group of various sites is nice. I open the browser, and it automatically brings up the sites I like to go through in the morning, like webmail, news, weather, and yes… osnews.
It’s nice to see it gaining popularity, as it should motivate more web developpers to test compatibility with it.
I think the point about corporate intranets was that some proxy applications mask the browser identity to the site, so some requests don’t get counted into the statistics.
However, I agree, the stats are still showing significant change.
And all this is before the NYT ad has gone into effect. I have my doubts about how effective that’ll be; I’d much rather see effort go into promoting Firefox on a local level via stories like this one in Saugus, MA
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=node/view/7397“
and this one in Marblehead, MA
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=node/view/8387“
These stories try and say why Firefox is good rather than just showing a big picture with a background of names. Unfortunately the same doesn’t seem to be happening in other states yet.
I use Firefox 1.0 as my main browser, my only complaint on it is out of all the browsers I have access to (IE, Opera, Safari, Konqueror) it’s the only one where I occasionally have to reload a web site to have it render correctly. The first time the site loads stuff will be all over the place or on top of each other, a reload fixes it. This may be due to bad HTML or something, but it doesn’t affect any of the other browsers.
Funny thing how ubuntu repositories are stuck at firefox 0.93.
Ubuntu has a heavily patched .93 because other .9x linux versions were too buggy for them. I’ve had 0 problems with Ubuntu .93. You might want to check out Hoary for a newer Firefox.
For some things IE is to be preferred. When you use Firefox with a combination of right to left languages like Hebrew, Farsi or Arabic, IE is to be preferred. It does do a much better job when there is a mixed bag of alphnumeric and other scripts. Firefox is useless in these kind of circumstances.
NB I really like Firefox I prefer it for other uses and, I use it already for many months BUT when I need it to work with these kind of languages it is just not good enough.
> The ease of getting plugins is nice
Flash is easy to find on Macromedia’s web site. On the other hand Firefox’s plugin finder is almost useless. Everytime it tells me I’m missing some plugins that the page requires, it never tells me what is missing nor able to find the plugin to install. It always gives me an error. It really drives me nut.
IE is to be preferred. It does do a much better job when there is a mixed bag of alphnumeric and other scripts. Firefox is useless in these kind of circumstances.
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firefox can use pango in linux. no idea about windows. perhaps you can point as specific bugs rather than vague claims
Flash is easy to find on Macromedia’s web site. On the other hand Firefox’s plugin finder is almost useless.
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it was dead easy for me. just click on the missing plugins message and click your way through. if you have upgraded from previous releases that might be a problem. if you connection is slow it looks like its struck at times but works later
“I use Firefox 1.0 as my main browser, my only complaint on it is out of all the browsers I have access to (IE, Opera, Safari, Konqueror) it’s the only one where I occasionally have to reload a web site to have it render correctly. The first time the site loads stuff will be all over the place or on top of each other, a reload fixes it. This may be due to bad HTML or something, but it doesn’t affect any of the other browsers.”
So it’s not only me who suffers from that. Slashdot site demonstrates this behavior quite often…
Very strange bug indeed.
The articles you talk about in Massachusetts shouldn’t be surprising to anyone. Saugus.net has been a big supporter of free software since the mid ’90s, and a lot of other local web sites and newspapers in MA follow Saugus.net’s lead (sometimes with help). See:
http://www.saugus.net/Computer/FreeSoftware/
http://www.saugus.net/Dailies/daily_2004-11-26_1453/
http://www.saugus.net/
http://www.marblehead.com/schools/mhs/headlight/techstuff.html
for more information about both of the articles you cite.
So it’s not only me who suffers from that. Slashdot site demonstrates this behavior quite often…
Very strange bug indeed.
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the infamous slashdot bug is caused due to bad html. it shouldnt occur anyway and is fixed in the trunk and nightly builds. should be no problem in firefox 1.1 to be released on march. if you are in a hurry just grab one of the trunk builds. there are other speed improvements available in the trunk too
Hoary does indeed have Firefox 1.0.
Hoary’s not for those looking for stability above other things, though.
I still think it’s a really bad decision not to update to warthy to firefox 1.0. Using the firefox installer to install 1.0 borks things unless you delete the .mozilla directory.
I still think it’s a really bad decision not to update to warthy to firefox 1.
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no it isnt
what is a bad idea is mixing firefox installers with debian packages and trying to override one with another
so people are expected to either live 6 months with firefox 0.93 until the next ubuntu release or update to unstable?
Loads of sites make “teasers” about only work with IE and using browser spoofing, one gets around it.
That inflates IE statistics…
>it was dead easy for me. just click on the missing plugins >message and click your way through. if you have upgraded
>from previous releases that might be a problem. if you
>connection is slow it looks like its struck at times but
>works later
Sure, I clicked it thru, it’s just that it never finds any plugins. It always gives me an empty list. The plugin finder has never worked for me.
Btw, it’s a new install, not an upgrade. (On the other hand, the software upgrade feature doesn’t really work, even Asa Dotzler admitted it’s useless.) Even if it’s an upgrade I would expect it to work, since it is a 1.0 release.
It’s also not my connection because it doesn’t take long for it to tell me it couldn’t find any plugins.
so people are expected to either live 6 months with firefox 0.93 until the next ubuntu release or update to unstable?
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right or remove the debian package cleanly or use the backported firefox 1.0 package which can you find in the user mailing list
”
Sure, I clicked it thru, it’s just that it never finds any plugins. It always gives me an empty list. The plugin finder has never worked for me.
”
strange. it has never ever failed me in almost 60+ computers in a mix environment of windows, linux and Mac OS X. perhaps you need to file a bug in bugzilla.mozilla.org with your specific details. neverthless it isnt reproducible here
“strange. it has never ever failed me in almost 60+ computers in a mix environment of windows, linux and Mac OS X. perhaps you need to file a bug in bugzilla.mozilla.org with your specific details. neverthless it isnt reproducible here”
You are a freak case, then, because I have never been able to get it to work for me either. No, sorry… that isn’t correct. It worked once under a vanilla Fedora Core 2 install for finding Flash. Its never worked for, say, Java, and thats the only time it worked for Flash.
I’d like to know why there is a direct print option in the right-clik menu in firefox. When I hover over an image I’d like to just print it out there and then, not have to save load it into paint etc. IE allows me to do this
snowflake
The usual way would be to right click, select “View Image,” then print as you would for a normal page. I don’t remember ever having to save an image first…
You are a freak case, then, because I have never been able to get it to work for me either. No, sorry… that isn’t correct.
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what?. it has worked for me in all the systems. period…
“It worked once under a vanilla Fedora Core 2 install for finding Flash. Its never worked for, say, Java, and thats the only time it worked for Flash.”
it wasnt even there in fedora core 2. you must have got it from mozilla.org then and during that time period it was a technology preview. fc3 shipped a preview release too.
i am talking about the final 1.0 release./
I think the point about corporate intranets was that some proxy applications mask the browser identity to the site, so some requests don’t get counted into the statistics.
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But those requests were not being counted before anyhow! ..so Gary Schare can go suck my browser because he’s trying to confuse the readers and suggest something that simply is not true.
Standard MS FUD. We’re all tired of it. Live and speak the truth and see how you fare MS.
I got the same problem, but strangely only on Slashdot. I concluded that it must be bugs in their HTML.
A simple solution that I used to make things look normal again is simply to press “Ctrl +” and “Ctrl -” after that. It’ll increase the font sizes by an em and reduce it by an em. After doing this, the whole page renders correctly without the need of a refresh.
Hope this helps anyone facing similar problems (and no, I’m not saying that this is a “solution”, it’s merely a workaround).
The native resolution on my work laptop is 1600×1200. Whenever I start Firefox or open up a fresh tab, the text is really tiny until I do CTL+ a couple times. Other than that, Firefox is the best browser around.
“Loads of sites make “teasers” about only work with IE and using browser spoofing, one gets around it.
That inflates IE statistics…”
I wouldn’t say that, here is the user string agent that I use (sometimes):
Googlebot/2.1 (+http://www.googlebot.com/bot.html)
I mean, come on, who wounldn’t want their site crawled by google. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
FYI: I have 9 User String Agents set up. And if all else fails, I will use IE User String Agent.
here’s how (handy, if the web page wants you to use IE)
http://www.linux-noob.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=1113
cheers
anyweb
I never have problem with slashdot site. I’m using Firefox 1.0 Preview Release on W2k.
Firefox 1.0PR runs smooth, haven’t felt the need to upgrade yet. Maybe will upgrade when Firefox 1.1 is out
Today tried ‘Web Developer’ extension ..wow its awesome. Very helpful for website designers or stealers.
Go to settings, fonts and set the minimum font size and default font size.
I have huge fonts on mine
Hi, FireFox is fine for me (winXP).
Although I dislike the inputfield,
because you can not select all characters by double clicking on it. This is a little annoying because as windows user you really expect this behaviour and are used to it.
By the way Firefox did also an ad in a german newspaper
(FAZ aka Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).
btw thanks to the Firefox crowd.
Although I dislike the inputfield,
because you can not select all characters by double clicking on it. This is a little annoying because as windows user you really expect this behaviour and are used to it.
Do you mean the address bar?
Try tripple clicking (:
I may be troll-feeding, but I have to respond to this…
But those requests were not being counted before anyhow! ..so Gary Schare can go suck my browser because he’s trying to confuse the readers and suggest something that simply is not true.
Standard MS FUD. We’re all tired of it. Live and speak the truth and see how you fare MS.
Right they weren’t counted before. The theory about intranet/proxies doesn’t discount that firefox is gaining ground. It’s just saying that the stats may be (and have been) off. In other words, instead of firefox going from 5-10%, it may be that it has only gone from 2-7%. Regardless, it’s still a nice gain.
Intranet/proxies also potentially mask Firefox, Safari, Opera, Konqueror, and you-name-it in addition to MSIE. The same argument also implies that Firefox may only have gone from 2-7% also implies that it may have gone from 9-14%. Or from 7-15%. All the numbers are somewhat bogus; the only truth is that Firefox is definitely increasing marketshare at the expense of MSIE.
AFAIK the only plugin that Firefox is able to install itself is Flash (linux version at least), all the other give an error saying the plugin was not found.
btw, I’m at work on a intranet behind a proxy and I’m using Firefox, I don’t know if it mask it, eventually +1 for Firefox
true, it’s possible that removing proxies would help firefox %, but unlikey as corporate controlled intranets are havens for msie. Regardless it’s the authors assumption, go argue with steven musil. i was just trying to explain what he meant.
p.s. i’m writing this from firefox
I’m behind a corporate proxy. Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server based and all. It doesn’t mask Firefox’s user agent. So why would any others – if MSFT aren’t trying to bounce IE figures, why should others
I’m proud to know that my freak-of-nature Firefox 1.0 in Irish on BeOS is out there getting logged 🙂
hint… think of someone fetching a cached page from a proxy
Gabriel:
I set my minimum font size to 22 and set the DPI value to 133. Everything starts up looking normal now…thanks!