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Internet Explorer Mozilla The Internet IT

Get Rid of Internet Explorer - Browse Happy! 816

Posted by timothy from the familiarity-breeds-contempt dept.
Matt writes "BrowseHappy not only tells us why IE is unsafe, but also provides "switcher" stories of people that stopped using IE and switched to a safer browser. This campaign is not so much against IE, but for the use of safer and more user-friendly browsers."
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Get Rid of Internet Explorer - Browse Happy! More

Get Rid of Internet Explorer - Browse Happy!

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  • First complaint (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:49PM (#10051356)
    remove the horrible color scheme [slashdot.org]

  • Preaching to the Choir (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:51PM (#10051376)

    please put all Firefox/Opera/Mozilla/etc stories below this line
    ____ _ _ _ ____________

    but seriously you are preaching to the choir here, you think we (and our families/friends) dont know about Mozilla.org [mozilla.org] yet ?

    • Re:Preaching to the Choir (Score:5, Interesting)

      by einhverfr ( 238914 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [srevart.sirhc]> on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:24PM (#10051684) Homepage Journal
      One of my customers, a small book store, migrated to Mozilla after the rash of security issues arose with IE. When I perform such a migration, I always go back the next day to get feedback.

      The owner of this store was deeply impressed by Mozilla. She now uses the Mozilla suite itself exclusively on her three computers on the store. What has impressed her more than anything hasn't been the fact that she has to deal with less spyware and more to do with the fact that she now has a *better browser experience.* Among other things, pages now load significantly faster...

      • Re:Preaching to the Choir (Score:5, Funny)

        by x136 ( 513282 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:14PM (#10052054) Homepage
        migrated to Mozilla after the rash of security issues arose with IE.
        Wow, must've been an early adopter. :)

    • Re:Preaching to the Choir (Score:5, Interesting)

      by js3 ( 319268 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:15PM (#10052060)
      I code in asp.net pretty much use many windows/ms related products but IE is just virus on many systems. My brother-in-law had 2 computers all infected with spyware and crap, he brought the first one, after fixing it I put netscape on it and told him to use it. About a week later he brought in the second system and he was so happy about the previous one working so well and loving netscape and all. No longer does he have to put up with pictures of naked women whenever he tries to browse the web.

      I only managed to install mozilla on his second pc though. There is a stupid bug with netscape where it won't run if windows restores the registry. It has to do with profiles, pretty lame if you ask me. who uses those stupid profiles anyways. I tried all the fixes until I gave up and just installed mozilla. Seems to be working well.

      Now if there was a button to make IE just disappear completely..

    • Re:Preaching to the Choir (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Squareball ( 523165 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:52PM (#10052275)
      Someone who is preaching to the masses about this is libertarian radio talk show host Neal Boortz [boortz.com] whom had countless problems with his computer and finally got word about FireFox (I was proudly one of those who told him about it) now he is talking about it a lot and giving updates and has said he will NEVER go back to IE! With IE and popup blocking software he still got popups but with FF he said not he hasn't gotten a single one.

  • Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:52PM (#10051388)
    Google Cache [64.233.167.104]

    http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:eAw_5YZf-icJ: browsehappy.com/

  • Dangerous (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mukund ( 163654 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:52PM (#10051390) Homepage

    This campaign is not so much against IE, but for the use of safer and more user-friendly browsers.

    So it's against IE.

  • Browse Happy? (Score:5, Funny)

    by SourKAT ( 589785 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:53PM (#10051396)
    ... need a porn friendly browser!

  • Yeah.... right. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CAIMLAS ( 41445 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:53PM (#10051398)
    This campaign is not so much against IE, but for the use of safer and more user-friendly browsers.

    Yeah, right. This is rhetoric nonsense. Of course it's "against IE", if it's for the use of a better browser. If you're making a case for something, it - at the very least - implies that the item it's comparing it to is inferior in some way. Yes, this is a case against IE.

    Don't say foolish things like this just to seem like you're not partial. You are. There's nothing wrong with being partial, when your partiality is based off of sound logical reasoning.

  • A Major Problem (Score:5, Informative)

    by MikeDawg ( 721537 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:54PM (#10051418) Homepage Journal

    I work for a decently sized bank data processing center. I know that our vendor we use for the core part of our applications and servers will only support Microsoft IE, mainly because they use a lot of .asp for their online compononents. A few banks have received word about the FCC declaring IE full of bugs, problems, and unsafe for most uses; these banks started asking about support for "other" browsers, and received word that there is no support planned anytime soon for any other browser other than IE.

    • Re:A Major Problem (Score:4, Informative)

      by CodeMaster ( 28069 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:05PM (#10051516)
      ASP support has nothing to do with IE or any other browser for that matter (lynx friendly).

      You should be looking for ActiveX and screwed up DHTML when you say that IE is required. I am working with a major financial processing company and we support all browsers. Some of the servers do run ASP (both from Win and Linux servers) but the HTML they spit out is squeky clean - not a problem even if you have to recode some of the application... (w3c is your friend - and the firefox web developer extention too!).

      get a free iPod [freeipods.com] This actually works! got credit for my AOL account, one of my friends got instant credit from that video professor thing (cancelled immediately)... 2 more to go...

    • ASP not a problem (Score:5, Informative)

      by TiggertheMad ( 556308 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:05PM (#10051520) Journal
      I write a lot of .asp, and I use both Mozilla and IE to check the code I write. Unless the person coding the ASP pages is an idiot, it doesn't make a diffrence, as everything is processed server side.

      You run into problems because either a) the ASP coder uses vbscript for client side validation, and nothing but IE supports vbscript, or b) they don't bother to write cross-platform client side javascript code. I can't come down too hard when people don't do this, as the DOM differs from browser to browser.

      The people responsable for this forking of the DOM need to be dragged nekkid across a cactus patch.

    • Common misconception (Score:5, Insightful)

      by adolfojp ( 730818 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:16PM (#10051617)
      I dont mean to sound like a jerk, but being someone that creates Server Browser Apps for a living, I am compelled to clarify a point.

      It doesn't matter if the page is .asp, .aspx, .cfm, .pl, .jsp or .php, the only thing that is ever sent to the browser is plain old HTML. The server pages are pages that may contain one or more programing languages, recieve and process data, and ussually interact with a database. All of this is done on the server side. Therefore, the server must be compatible with the technology used. But the output of the pages, that is the info that is passed to the browser, is always html.

      The reason why many apps require Internet Explorer might be an Active X control. Active X controls run on the browser, on the client, and only in IE. Such controls are sometimes used to provide word procesing like text input capabilities in the browser, instead of plain boxes like the ones that slashdot uses to write comments.

      No, you don't need IE to view .asp
      Yes, your programers were dumb enough to use non standard / non compliant client side coding or scripting.


      Cheers

      Adolfo

  • As with Linux, so with Mozilla. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by scowling ( 215030 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:54PM (#10051420) Homepage
    I use Windows because there's software that I can't run under Linux.

    And I use Explorer because there are websites that don't render properly under anything else. Sure, it's bad design to create your website such that it only works under IE, but that's really not my concern; I just want the content and the pretty pictures.

    My machine is secure. I'd sooner have an insecure browser than does what I need it to do than a secure browser than doesn't.

    • Re:As with Linux, so with Mozilla. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Izago909 ( 637084 ) * <tauisgod@g m a i l . com> on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:00PM (#10051474)
      Then install Firefox and the extension "Open link in IE". If the link doesn't display right, use the quick link and open it in IE. Then close IE, and keep moving in firefox. It is a shame that MS is trying to break the HTML standard. I even wrote a script to email a pre-written comment to the webmaster of a page the renders wrong in firefox. This wouldn't be an issue if it weren't for lazy authors and shortcuts.

    • Re:As with Linux, so with Mozilla. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Platinum Dragon ( 34829 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:02PM (#10051483) Journal
      My machine is secure. I'd sooner have an insecure browser than does what I need it to do than a secure browser than doesn't.

      If you're using an insecure browser, then your machine is not secure.

      I don't know what websites you're using that don't render under Gecko properly, or refuse to acknowledge anything other than an MSIE user agent string. When I run into one of those sites*, I make a note to avoid it. If it's something "essential", like a government site, I either find a workaround, see if there is an offline alternative, and lacking that, complain.

      * So far, I've only run into one government site that refused a Galeon user agent. I know it wasn't anything more than that, because changing the user agent string allowed me to access the site--signing up for Canadian employment insurance benefits, incidentally. Beyond that, I haven't run into any sites that don't render properly under Gecko. My bank's site has run fine since Mozilla still used M designations for its milestone releases.

  • IE is too often required (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Salo2112 ( 628590 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:55PM (#10051430)
    I only use IE when I am *required* to do so, but there's the rub: there are too many things that do not work unless you use IE. The user agent switcher is nice, but it doesn't always work.

    For irony's sake, I'll list the biggest offender (in so many ways) in my life: *IBM*'s Lotus Notes.

  • Cant switch... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Kenja ( 541830 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:56PM (#10051438)
    Can't switch, unless someone has been able to get Microsofts OWC active-x objects working in Mozilla (I've tried, but as far as I can tell the Mozilla active-x plugins are designed to simply crash). In addition I need support for the Lotus Domino java applets, which also crash under mozilla.

    World is too IE centric.

  • No women stories? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by danharan ( 714822 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:57PM (#10051444) Journal
    Do people wonder why we can't attract more women to Computer Science [slashdot.org]... ?

    I'm certainly not going to share this with any women as long as the switching stories only feature guys. This hopefully a) wasn't done on purpose and b) is going to be changed really soon.

  • IE on slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)

    by onyxruby ( 118189 ) <onyxruby@ c o m c a s t . net> on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:57PM (#10051445)
    Does anyone recall what percent of slashdot page views are ie?

  • So many vulnerabilities, so little time (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dark Coder ( 66759 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:57PM (#10051448)
    I feel like a Dutch boy plugging his finger in the proverbial leaking dikes.

    IE vulnerabilities are dime a dozen, that I could well be a thousandaire (just doesn't ring right, uh?) Latest one is the drag-n-drop exploit. In fact, it becomes a down outright security risk just to have the blue E icon available on your desktop and startup menu.

    So, I deleted the blue E icon thereby forcing the end-user to get exposed to Mozilla and Firefox.

    They too went home and switched as well.

    Looks like the groundswell support is brewing here. I wonder if this is also true elsewhere.

  • FireFox (Score:3, Informative)

    by matz62 ( 74523 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:58PM (#10051460)
    I knwo for a fact we put my stepmom on Firefox and all of a sudden she quit getting spyware.

    I wish we had a study showing how many microsoft programmers use Firefox.

  • Preaching To The Choir (Score:3, Funny)

    by nwbvt ( 768631 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:58PM (#10051461)
    The choir says "Halleluia"!
    The congregation says Firewhat?

    Seriously, does anyone who reads slashdot these days really need someone to point out the advantages of mozilla/firefox/opera/safari/whatever? Is this really news?

  • Firefox baby! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by H0bb3z ( 17803 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @06:59PM (#10051468)
    Not only is it designed to be a great browser, it has extensive plug-in support so you can make browsing what you want it to be, not what some Redmond-based empire tells you it should be... ;)
    ------

  • What are you talking about? My IE is working great (Score:5, Funny)

    by very ( 241808 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:01PM (#10051477) Journal

    I use IE all the time

    This one time, I got an email from Citibank I need to veerify my account information!
    All I have to do is to click the link with bunch of characters in it, then it loads the seemingly legitimate Citibank website. Then I enterd my account name and password, plus all the other informations. There I veerify my Citibank account using IE.

    Meanwhile, Mozilla browser and Mozilla Firefox can't even load the page.

    Now, which browser is broken?
    Definitely not IE.

    By the way, for some strange reason, my Citibank password is no longer working shortly after that.







    (sarcasm mode turned off)

  • IE Momentum (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Eberlin ( 570874 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:03PM (#10051496) Homepage
    Look, folks, I've played the messenger part. I've done my part in telling others to try Mozilla. Done my evangelism with the pop-up blocking and the tabbed browsing. I've preached the security of not using IE and all its ugly security issues. I've even pointed to articles from official-ish proclamations asking people to use alternate browsers.

    I've managed to switch a few people to Firefox, and that's good. However, there's the frustration of knowing there will be people out there who will not switch, not even know what a "Browser" is, and will definitely not be going to a web site, downloading an executable, and running it to install Firefox. Too intimidating, they'd say. Now what?

    We've given them sufficient reason, and enough encouragement. There will be a LOT of people out there who will not bother installing a browser that didn't come with their machine. Though they'll happily install a Bonzi Buddy or Comet Cursor. How do we handle that great majority?

    I love the Firefox, don't get me wrong. I'd love to see more people using it instead of IE. However, like any good soldier that's been out in the battlefield long enough, a morale boost would be nice on occasion...or at least more words of wisdom.

    • Re:IE Momentum (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Mattwolf7 ( 633112 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:11PM (#10051578)
      Here are my words of wisdom. When ever I get a call to fix a computer with spyware from friend, family or even referals I install Firefox and point the Internet Explorer icon to Firefox. I just dont even tell them anymore because most of the time they dont even notice/understand, and when they do after I tell them the advantages they say oh ok great. Usually their ears perk up when I say they are at risk for identity theft and can have their credit cards stolen by just visiting a website.

      It maybe wrong to do it without telling them but I would rather have them safe and secure than in the know.

    • Re:IE Momentum (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Unknown Relic ( 544714 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:19PM (#10051635) Homepage
      There will be a LOT of people out there who will not bother installing a browser that didn't come with their machine. Though they'll happily install a Bonzi Buddy or Comet Cursor. How do we handle that great majority?

      I think you answered your own question. What we really need is an installer for mozilla that functions exactly like the installers for bonzi buddy, comet cursor and their ilk. "Do you want to install Mozilla Firefox and set it as your default browser? Yes, No". The next time these users click on "The Internet" from their start menu, they'll get Firefox instead of IE, and given a decent default theme, would probably never notice the difference. If it's good enough for spy ware, why not for an alternative browser?

      While I don't ever see such a thing ever being written, it would be very interesting to see how quickly it would boost adoption of Mozilla.
      • Because installing programs against the will of the user is wrong? Do you want this whole "open source" thing to be directly connected with spy/mal-ware?

        The best method is to just be patient and nice. Explain to these people why to switch, but do it like a large company does. For example: Tell them hackers will have a harder time getting their credit information. Tell them that they won't have to worry about spyware installing itself and slowing their computers down.

        Use the same crappy lines you see

    • Re:IE Momentum (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Mitchell Mebane ( 594797 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:15PM (#10052057) Homepage Journal
      What we need is "fIErfox". It would be a version of Firefox with the default skin set to an IE look-alike, and the installer would basically be double-click, wait 30 seconds, then a box pops up saying installation complete. It would erase all traces of IE and replace them with itself, with the IE icon.

      Call it IE upgrade or something.

  • I switched, and could not be happier... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by monkeyfarm ( 197818 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:03PM (#10051504)
    I am not a windows bigot, nor am I a fanboy. I use Windows XP and related windows software because it just works, and I'd rather actually use the PC than constantly fight it. I've used Unix in the past (Irix actually) and LOVED it, however I've basically given up or more accurately abandoned the desire to use Linux because XP does pretty everything I need, and the software availability and stability meet or exceed what I need (graphic design, web development, 3D modeling and animation, games). Yes, I know there are "issues", but because I "know what I'm doing" and I'm protected by a firewalled router, as well as ZoneAlarm, SpyBot & TeaTimer, etc. I once again , just don't see the reason to learn a new OS. If I had a free week or two I might try Mandrake or something again. The above spout was just to give background that I'm not an OS freak, nor a complete luser. That said, I've always disliked IE as an application in it's own right (performance, memory utilization, UI, etc.), however after a few iterations of NS being complete crap (rendering , performance, etc.) I resigned to use IE. tried Opera, not really impressed, switched back to IE. Recently installed FireFox and I will NEVER use IE again unless the page requires the active X crap. I love everything about Firefox, and as more extensions become available, I love that I can make it work EXACTLY how I want it to work. My only complaint is that I wish it was lighter weight in terms of system requirements, as I'd love to be able to run it on some REALLY old PC's that are essentially worthless for anything but dumb terminal applications (one example is y Fujitsu Point510 tablet). Anyway, that's my story. I would love to see an extension that spellchecked text boxes in online forms though...

  • bad for marketing (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mcguyver ( 589810 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:08PM (#10051550) Homepage
    This is comforting but not a perfect solution. I primarily used IE because most of my customers use IE and I want their same user experience. I tell developers to use IE for the same reason. Fortunately most online consumers not use lynx.

  • I tried to... I really did! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chordonblue ( 585047 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:10PM (#10051570) Journal
    I know I'm going to be called a lamer and flamed out the ass, but screw it - it has to be said. I was going to move most of our lab computers to Moz this year but ran into issues with profiles. {sigh}

    What is it with OSS software? They want to get noticed on the Windows platform, but the very people they need to have accept it (mainly corporations) can't/won't use it because of the hassles involved with profiles and/or user permissions.

    Sometimes it's just minor problems - like Moz' inability to have things set up for multiple users on a box, but then there's OpenOffice.org. Not only is it a NIGHTMARE to install in a lab environment (although through reghacks, I got it to work well enough), but it also has problems with Terminal Server.

    Now that said, there is progress being made. OOo 2.0 beta lets you install for multiple users and there have been discussions on Mozdev about my very issue with Mozilla.

    I understand that 99% of the people who develop for these projects don't know/care about how a Windows shop operates, but if they want their programs to be used on this platform in larger environments, they'll have to start learning how to make them more friendly.

    • Re:I tried to... I really did! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Unknown Relic ( 544714 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:31PM (#10051735) Homepage
      I agree 100% on the issue with Mozilla profiles. Even on a small network the fact that Firefox stores its browser cache in the application data folder instead of local settings is a major pain when roaming profiles are brought into the picture. The default settings caused logging in and out of a machine to take at least five times longer than pre-Mozilla, not to mention the increased storage requirements that come with storing an extra 100MB or so of junk per user on the server, and that doesn't even take backups into account.

      Thankfully, there is a "solution"... reducing the size of your cache to 5MB-10MB. While not spectacular for bandwidth savings and load time, at least this allows you to have a functional profile while maintaining some level of a browser cache.

  • Firefox is NOT for me (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fleener ( 140714 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:35PM (#10051757)
    I switched to Firefox after tha ballyhoo on Slashdot. To date, I've deleted all of my must-save cookies 4 times. The browser is not oriented toward someone who selectively accepts cookies and regularly flushes their cache. It's WAY TO EASY to accidentally hit the wrong "CLEAR" button and make your life miserable. At the very lease, Firefox needs an "Are you sure?" prompt, if not a complete reorganization of how the configuration settings are presented.

  • Student computer lab admin (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bigberk ( 547360 ) <bigberk@users.pc9.org> on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:37PM (#10051778)
    True story.

    I volunteered to look after a student computer lab at university. We did a fresh install of Windows 2000 on all the workstations, set up NTFS, applied all security patches and turned on the auto updater. The lab is firewalled and NATed through a Linux server that's running Samba as a primary domain control for an NT domain. All users have low priv accounts, authorized through the PDC on the local network.

    In other words, this is a pretty secure setup, except for the local machines (everyone has physical access). But regular users don't have admin privileges.

    There was something I found quite odd. After running for a year or so, I discovered that when I launched IE from my own account, it came up with the Yahoo bar installed. That's weird, I thought, since I'm the only admin and regular users don't have that kind of privileges.

    I double checked the patches and hotfixes, yup, we're still up to date...

    Fast forward... things started to fall apart after 1.5 years. Some how, spyware entering via IE from one account was able to 'infect' other accounts. Launching IE would immediately pop up ads - even in accounts that were never used before. Whole system-wide applications and spyware seemed to be installed by low privilege users. It's a bloody mess, I don't want to touch it any more.

    I'm not sure whether Windows or IE is to blame (my guess is: both) but if they want me to volunteer my efforts to admin the lab next year, a bunch of 1st year students are going to walk in and find a bunch of dumb consoles running stripped down X interfaces to a FreeBSD server.

    • Re:Student computer lab admin (Score:5, Informative)

      by Foolhardy ( 664051 ) <csmith32@gmai l . com> on Monday August 23, 2004 @09:56PM (#10052693)
      That is very interesting. To test your story, I created a new user account, 'Bogus' as only a member of the users group on my xpsp2 machine.

      Using IE, I then went to yahoo.com and tried to install their toolbar. It told me that there was an error during installation and to click here to try again (clicking again didn't work).

      I tried to install Google's toolbar; after a couple of warning dialogs (do you trust this file? it could be dangerous) it told me "You do not have sufficent access permissions to install the Google Toolbar onto this computer. Please log out, and log back in as an administrator. You can then install the toolbar."

      Then I tried to install the gator wallet spyware thingy; it said "Setup cannot write to the registry. In order to install and run on Windows 2000 or XP, you must be a Standard User or an Administrator." Wrong. A standard user won't cut it.

      So then I went to www.weatherbug.com. IE blocked a popup and a cookie (with an information screen telling me about what happened the first time). I then tried to install the program: it asked me my zipcode and then crashed while copying files telling me that it couldn't create some file in the \program files directory.

      Maybe things have been beefed up since 2000? I created a similar account on a 2000sp3 computer. From IE, I tried to install the Yahoo and Google toolbars, Gator and Weatherbug. They all failed, giving me the same errors as XP did. The only thing different was that a popup from weatherbug.com got thru this time.

      Do you have any other spyware/crapware/global programs for me to try?
      Perhaps you misconfigured the accounts somehow or installed the junk yourself?
      Don't get me wrong; I personally use Mozilla for the tabs and increased resilance.
      IE may have its holes but the local security on NT doesn't. IE is just another user mode program; no hole in IE can cause the privledge escilation you describe.
      If you are going to bash Windows, at least be fair.

    • Re:Student computer lab admin (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DraconPern ( 521756 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @10:59PM (#10052993) Homepage
      I volunteered to look after a student computer lab at university. We did a fresh install of Windows 2000 ...
      Which means there were other volunteers and they probably handed out admin accounts to their friends. Sorry, but someone in your group was probably to blame. Making sure your patches are updated is useless if someone has admin. That goes no matter what OS is being used.

  • Ex-Opera user here. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 2MuchC0ffeeMan ( 201987 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:40PM (#10051802) Homepage
    I used to use opera, i loved the mouse gestures, the popup blocking, but i hated the ads.

    I never tried mozilla because i didn't like the blocky texture that it had, and it just felt 'empty' when i first installed it.

    A friend had firefox, i said, try opera, and after time testing it against a few heavy loading pages, opera was a *bit* faster because we configured it to open 128 server connections (sorry admins), but that was only on photoshop contests on fark, or other heavy image loading pages.

    Other than that, we went feature for feature, they were the same speed on other pages, but what really got me was the mouse gesture trials (with the plugin extension) and the customized ad blocking (another extension).

    After that, all the features we commonly used matched up, except gmail notification in firefox. These extensions were also really easy to install also, i've only been using it since this morning.

    The sad part about this message is that it sounds like a piece of spam, marketting material. But i give this advice to opera users: you tried opera once, try firefox now.

    one thing : i cant' figure out how to get every new window to open as a tabbed window, some open as a new firefox window. Oh well. I'll figure it out eventually... (there, now this doesn't sound like spam)

  • Im not switching to Opera (Score:3, Funny)

    by Proc6 ( 518858 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:50PM (#10051879)
    http://browsehappy.com/people/david/

    It turns your hair green.

  • Change your little blue icon! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Mr. Flibble ( 12943 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @07:58PM (#10051946) Homepage
    On some work computers I have changed the Firefox Shortcut to appear exactly as the IE shortcut - I used the same icon, and renamed the shortcut to "Internet Explorer".

    I then placed the shortcuts in the same places that you normally find IE.

    No one noticed. Not one single person.

    Makes things easier for some people sometimes.

  • Windows Update (Score:5, Informative)

    by gt25500 ( 622543 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @08:10PM (#10052030)
    How do I run it without Internet Explorer?
  • The warning against IE went out in our office a few weeks ago and I've been trying my damndest to get my immediate co-workers to switch to Mozilla or Firefox. The majority of the technical people at the company have been using Moz for months or years now but my department, Client Services[1], are all addicted to IE.

    Once our IT dept sent out the warning and urged everyone to use Mozilla for regular browsing I installed it on two of my three co-workers PC's (the third is dating our SysAdmin so it's his job to get her to switch) and offered to help them with anything having to do with Moz. The only thing they've asked me to do is uninstall it (which I won't do.) Whenever they use it they gripe about how it looks (well mostly about how they don't like the "godzilla" head) say it loads slowly and they don't have time to learn how to use it. Yet they still whine about pop-up ads, spyware etc... Whenever they start griping I chime in with "Ya know that's not a problem in Mozilla!" Their replies are always the same "We don't like that godzilla thing, it's got an ugly head, har har."

    I even made them an offer: For one week use Mozilla exclusivly and I'll always stop whatever I'm doing to help with you any question you have, be it how to install a plugin, how to use tabs, how to block ads etc... and if you still don't like it better than IE I'll remove from your system. But you have to use it and take the time to learn it before I'll take your complaints about how it 'sucks' seriously.

    The response I've gotten when the topic comes is that they stop bitching about IE and go back to closing pop-ups. My boss actually said to me "I don't like learning new things"

    These are the type of people that will never, ever switch. They know enough to know that Mozilla and IE are different programs and they just refuse to give an alternative to what they already know any serious consideration. I fear these represent the vast majority of IE users.

    Oh and the company I work for? We provide online, webbased training and learning management services to corporations, mostly for OSHA type regs and similar subjects that are well suited to the CBT format. About 80% of the company (those with technical or content creation roles) uses Mozilla or Firefox for most of their general browsing but the non-geek staff stubbornly use IE. If we can't convince our holdouts to switch, without forcing the issue by management fiat, I don't know that they ever will. *sigh*

    [1] Not to be confused with customer service, we dont' deal with end users, we work at the corporate level.

  • Firefox needs just a couple more things... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mikefoley ( 51521 ) <{moc.foley} {ta} {ekim}> on Monday August 23, 2004 @09:16PM (#10052398) Homepage
    ....to take over the corporate Windows browser.

    If Firefox was available (from mozilla.org) in a Windows installer (.MSI) format and settings could be made using policies, you'd see a rapid increase in corporate desktops moving to Firefox.

    Windows admins want to be able to install Firefox on ALL their desktops, with extensions pre-installed and the settings (optionally) controlled via system policies.

    This should be goal #1 for 1.1 of Firefox and Thunderchicken. The brower is great. Now lets banish IE from the corporate Windows desktop. (Then the migrate to Linux will be that much easier)

    • Re:Firefox needs just a couple more things... (Score:5, Informative)

      by man_ls ( 248470 ) on Monday August 23, 2004 @09:59PM (#10052712)
      Admins can deploy ZAP packages which can include settings, etc. You create them with a tool in the deployment utilities, as a component of RIS.

      The ZAP packages may be published as GPOs the same way MSI's may, although I don't think they have the ability to be managed *after* the initial installation.

      It's been a little while since I've done this so my knowledge is a bit rusty.

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