Alternative Browsers

[AMA_DirtTwister]

A discussion of IE vs the world came up in the 1st XP-SP2 thread.  I figured I would start a new thread to discuss alternative browsers to IE.  My own personal feeling is that I'm perfectly happy with IE and I have been less than enthused with any other browser that I've tried.  I'm interested in hearing what people like about other browsers (not IE bashing), but real features that are missing in IE.  The first thing to realize is that even if you aren't using IE to browse the web the functionality of it is within Windows and you are using it everytime you use your desktop.  IE is really a simple frontend to windows functions which is evident by the size of IE (89k) and the tabbed browser MyIE2/Maxthon (595k) .

If want to discuss what standards IE doesn't work with please give some specfic examples (ie. web pages that demonstrate the problem).

Thanks,
Bruce

[AMA_DirtTwister]

Is there something equivalent to the Google Toolbar for Firefox?

Bruce

[DBR_Dodgy]

ive been using firefox for 3 or 4 months now and i prefer it,  its bookmarks is better layed out and easyer to "scroll" through,
pages load faster for me im on a 576 kbps connection.   downloads seem to have better options,  the overall look and feel to it is more to MY likeing,
simply Zero adaware or popups, with IE i would have to clean adaware each week. and the permanent clicking sound you get when popups are stopped with IE, you dont get with Firefox.

i guess its all down to that good ol  "IMHO" stuff   but i just find it ......... nicer.

oh and it has a built in Google search bar on the same "bar as the http:// bar so it save veiwing space with less bars.

Ian.

[Fredde]

Ive been using firefox for a few days now, and it seems to work better... no popups and better download options... as said.

Although some pages dosent work properly, specieally those at microsoft, such as windows update. And my site does work properly either  wich means that i have some work ahead of me now...  Im using Macromedia Dreamwever to build my site and the use of 'behaviors' on my site only works in IE...

Btw I resently restored the site via ftp after i had formated my drive and now all the files locally is in big case letters and the ones on the site is in small case letters... And sadly the server is case sensitivy so my links get all messed up and when I upload files it gets there as a new file...  So my question is if someone knows a easy way to fix this without renaming the files all by hand (theres 1200 of them). Got a bit of topic there sorry, you could just PM me if you feel like it Thanks...

[AMA_DirtTwister]

The Google toolbar has several options that have become a necessity to me.  A few of them are:

1. Highlighter.  It highlights all the search words.
2. Word Finder. Each search word becomes a button that you can use to skip through the page, even when you are far removed from the page that you started from.
3. Autofill.  There are several fields that you can pre-populate and then click on the Auto-fill button when you are on a form that contains those fields.  (ie. Name, address, phone number, e-mail, etc.). The fields that are eligible to be filled are highlighted.
4. Page Info - Cached snapshot of page.   Displays the way the page was crawled.  Backwards links - Displaying what pages link to the page you are viewing.  Translate into English.

I'd love similar functionality when I'm using Linux.


Bruce

[Bunny]

Although Firefox is a great program to use imo, for some webstie where you have already downloaded plug-ins for on IE, you will have to re-download those so mozilla can install those on it's browser.

[MotoX395]

I've been writing a litle article that I will post in this thread right the second it is done. atm it is around 3000 words so it will be quite a read I think but hopefulley it will be worth it. I will provide lots of examples, true statements and info together with screenshots.

As for google toolbar you don't actualy need it since most of it is built into firefox already but if you do insist then I'll find the link... I don't have it on the hand right now tough.

I'll get back with my article'ish post as fast as I can.

[VMX_Burn]

Oh dear. Well, Firefox gets my vote anyways.

[Bunny]

Watch his post take up a full page

[metal_miracle]

i use opera

[Bunny]

Opera's ok unless you have the full version, otherwise you get that advertisement on it so I hear.

[AheadBMX_6]

I heard the google toolbar for windows calls home or something very simillar. Anyways, the google bar in Firefox is great. You can even download new search engines. But I have never tried it. I think IE and Firefox are both about even. It just comes down to little personal preferences and nit picks.

[MX45]

I like IE because Simon likes Firefox 

[MotoX395]

Ok. I'm proof reading my big post atm but until then I have a tip for those who do use firefox already.

• Type about:config in the address field.
• Set the value of network.http.pipelining to "true".
• Set the value of network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to "100".
• Set the value of network.http.proxy.pipelining to "true"
• Set the value of nglayout.initialpaint.delay to "0"

If the line "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" is missing (the last step) then simply right click anywhere in the config window and choose New > Integer, from there input the text "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" (without the quotes) and set the delay to 0 when it asks you to.

Now just restart firefox and it should fly in speed compared to before. Results may vary but everyone I've heard about doing this have had a positive effect. For me this very site loads faster then it used to do actually, even tough it already loaded so fast for me that it would be hard to notice a difference.

[VMX_Burn]

Thanks for that little tweak. I just set it up, I will let you know if it helps

Edit//
Ok what I have noticed in the last 5 minutes or so is, TD loads a lot quicker for me, almost instantly now. Some other forums seem to take a fraction longer to load BUT instead of loading each post it pauses and then the whole page appears. overall faster then before. 

[MotoX395]

Thats great... now I'll post my longer post I've spent the day proof readin to keep it clean from the most typical motox typos

[MotoX395]

Why fix what already works? (You think)

Let me first start out by saying that I have nothing against Microsoft and what Microsoft does. I only have something against many of Microsoft's products which are proven to be bad in many kinds of ways. This is of course not an act of evil from Microsoft and I know that, it is just a matter of product quality.



Important note:
I will several times use a site called "csszengarden" as an object of examples. www.csszengarden.com is the link to the page and all info about it exists there but I will take it in short here.

The csszengarden project is based on Css designs. The site only uses 1 single xhtml file. It looks like this; http://www.csszengarden.com/zengarden-sample.html. Pretty basic huh?
Then it uses several hundreds of Css files like this one; http://www.csszengarden.com/zengarden-sample.css.If you use MSIE it will download that so you have to view it in a text program like notepad or WordPad or anything similar, if you use Mozilla you will be able to view the document in the browser.

When those two files come together it makes the basic html file (http://www.csszengarden.com/zengarden-sample.html) to look like this http://www.csszengarden.com/ or http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=025%2F025%2Ecss or why not http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=019%2F019%2Ecss. A full list of official Css designs for the csszengarden project is to find here; http://www.mezzoblue.com/zengarden/alldesigns/official/. All designs can be found here; http://www.mezzoblue.com/zengarden/alldesigns/.

So what is all the fuzz about...? If you look at the source for all the designs you will see that the source looks EXACTLY the same, actually the html file never changes at all. It is just the Css document that is changed to make the page appear differently. Csszengarden don't use any scripts or hacks in the xhtml so what it does is proving the power of Css but also exposing the problems with bad browsers such as MSIE.



Microsoft Internet Explorer does not fully support PNG image files. The PNG format would mean a big leap in development of web pages if it wasn't for the fact that Microsoft Internet Explorer (which I will from now on refer to as MSIE) does not fully support this wonderful image format.

To have the ability to fully use PNG images would mean that:

• Semi transparent images where possible
• Better image compression then other "quality" image formats such as jpg
• Better image quality then jpg

Now wouldn't that be a bless for the web?

Here I provide an example of a PNG using design; http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=100%2F100%2Ecss. Take a look at the flower in the top right corner, that's our PNG object to focus on.



As you can see MSIE Shows us the wonders of a jagged edge and a full black shadow. Any gecko based browser tough will show the beauty of a smooth edge on the flower and a semi transparent shadow that really takes out a new dimension of it.
This is because the engine MSIE use, also known as Trident, does a horrible job with the PNG file format. Gecko, the engine that runs Mozilla and other good browsers, on the other side, does this as good as it can get.

Gecko 1, Trident nil!


The only actual downside about Firefox/Other recommended browser is that they aren't built into the system. From the view of security this is a bad thing of course. MSIE has direct contact with the system and can drag the entire computer down the drain if you are unlucky. But from a speed aspect this is a good thing. MSIE starts faster then any alternate browser on windows simply because it is always running actually. If Mozilla would've been built into windows just as MSIE is then you could have been expecting superb speeds but as it is in the horrible reality they will only tie because of MSIE's advantage.

Gecko 1, Trident (MSIE on Windows) 1.


Cascading Style Sheets, the only true love of web development. Cascading Style Sheets (which I will refer to as Css from now on) is the best thing to happen the World Wide Web since graphical supporting browsers came to us. It gives you the ability to take the design out of the content and vise versa. It cleans up the codes and it definitely reduces file sizes and loading times. Gecko is all about support for these kinds of things. MSIE tough, shows how horribly outdated the Trident engine really is. I can list many Css attributes that Trident simply can't understand at all. I can also list several that Trident misunderstands or just understands it in a very horrible way.

I will once again state an example; http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=057%2F057%2Ecss. Take a look at the menu. In Gecko it's a beautiful semi transparent drop down menu but in Trident it has to be a plainer menu witch isn't drop down at all. Why? This is because Trident doesn't understand simple Css. Trident only allows the :hover pseudo-class to be applied to <a> tags. This means that it can only be applied to a link element but not a layer or other page element. So to make a long story short, Css and (x)html drop downs is still just a dream on the web because of Trident.



"Wait a minute here! I surf the web all the time and I see drop downs as often as I eat banana cakes and I do love banana cakes!"

Yes, drop downs are nothing that Trident can't handle, if you use scripts that is. But scripts are a thing from the past, the only big reason we still use them so much is because of Trident. The most usual things done with scripts could be done without it in Gecko. Scripts Increase the size of every page and also the load time. The most horrible fact tough, is that they actually make a browser lag sometimes. It sounds like crazy talk that a silly script can make a just as silly browser to lag but every time you move the mouse on that drop down or what ever the script may do, then the computer has to do at least twice as many calculations as with a browser that simply has the function built in from the start.

Once again this shows how bad Trident really is and also how un-functional it is.

Gecko 2, Trident 1.


Mainstream or underground? Kissing or hugging? Firefox/other alternate browser are not something you use as a proof of your rage over MSIE or Microsoft! What is all this fuzz about "web standards" then? Really, who do decide the standards? Aren't standards what people use?

There is a need for standards, they aren't here to make our life's hard, they are here to make the browser AND web developer's life's easy.

Think about it, if everyone in a country would drive on either side of the road they wanted, how would that look? If all car developers placed the steering wheel on either side they wanted on top of that, how would that look once again? We have laws about these kinds of things just because nothing would work without them. For way to long the web have been pretty much lawless when it comes to standards (witch can be called laws even tough you wont be punished for not obeying them).

Mozilla doesn't stand for standards. All Mozilla does is following them, just as you and me would drive on the correct side of the road (hopefully).

http://w3.org/ This is the site you shall look at, read from and listen to. It is up to each and everyone but w3.org is acting as the book of law for most web developers out there.

That is the standard, which is what I talk about. MSIE have no big problems with those standards at all. If everyone would use the proper code for the correct thing then all sites would be readable with all the browsers. This does not mean that they would look good in all browsers tough, that takes a little more of engagement but once that is done you would have the perfect code.

This argument is not really pro or con against any browser, just a statement to explain why some sites don't manage to look good in all browsers while some do. I promise you that MSIE is the browser that gets something wrong, and then while the one coding the page is trying to fix that problem it brakes up in good browsers instead. It is not necessary but it happens for those with lack of experience.

I used to think just as I beg you all not to think myself but I've learnt to look at it from an objective view instead. I could throw out statements such as:

"How can you say that the alternate browsers are using standards while the mainstream browsers out there use MSIE? Isn't it better to adapt to MSIE instead of trying to turn the world around to use another browser when most people out there don't even know they exist at all?"

This is of course something I had to eat a dozen of times later on when I discovered how hard and not to say poor it was to create websites with MSIE in mind (witch is a requirement, always... You shall always make sure that the website can be accessed from anything and anywhere, even a cell phone if you're feeling hardcore about it.


The good, the bad, the untouched! Firefox together with all other alternative browsers are something that we could call "virgin browsers". They haven't been penetrated by hackers and add-warez yet together with all the other filth the web has to offer for a price of a phone call.

Mozilla is not superior to other browsers in security. It does have a little more to offer then MSIE but not much actually. The big reason is that Mozilla and Co is unexplored. Most likely will they stay like that long enough for the developers to fill in any holes that can pop up but no browser is waterproof. MSIE is based on an age old engine, so is the rest of MSIE. It is built up of a practically stone age old source code.

In other words they who make this very trash of the web don't even try to break Mozilla and Co up yet because most users do use MSIE still and MSIE is so much easier to take advantage of.

Gecko 3, Trident 1.


Mozilla is Open Source witch most of us do know what it means. If you know what you do then you can also contribute to the Mozilla project and perhaps help the web a bit closer towards a not so dark future.

This is not a big stand point for a reason to switch but I think it is a good thing and worth to mention.


Some quick "point-outs" should be made perhaps. The reason the exe file of MSIE is so small is because everything MSIE needs and is all about is built into windows. To have that as an argument is to me the same as saying that MS Paint is better then all the alternate paint programs out there just because of the fact that it is smaller in files size.

MyIE2/Maxthon is something nasty in my eyes. It takes a lot of good ideas from Mozilla and other browsers and puts it to something meant to be like MSIE in a better version. If you can get yourself to download that then I see no reason why not just to download the "real deal" so to say.


The white sheep in the black sheep family. Now that is backwards but in this case, oh so true. MSIE is not just thumbs down. There is one browser that is worth mentioning and also raising above the rest. Let me introduce you to MSIE 5.5 Mac.

MSIE 5.5 for Mac does a lot of the things that "MSIE Win" does bad good. It actually acts completely different in several scenarios. But most of us use PC's here so I will not go in any deeper on this.


Did you know that one of the heads in the security section of Microsoft use Mozilla to browse himself? That has to mean something.


Oh man just look at all the extensions and skins! Firefox together with other Mozilla products has a huge library of well developed and tested plug-ins featured on Mozilla's own plug-ins and extension page. Same for skins. http://update.mozilla.org/?application=firefox

The total library of these is so much larger tough but those are the ones recommended. If you would search the web you could find as many as you could dream of. Once again, if you have an idea and skill then you can make a plug-in yourself. If it is good enough perhaps it will end up on that very site.


Options and Your own choices. There is practically nothing in Firefox that isn't customizable. Toolbars and futures, you name it, you can play around with all no matter if you will need a plug-in for it or not (usually not). Firefox futures such neat and actually obvious futures such as a hiding scrollbar. If the page isn't high enough to have a scrollbar then it hides instead and gives you a tiny bit more space sideways in the browser.

http://myie2.com/html_en/tour/02mousegesture.htm, now that's a future I use all the time but in Firefox of course. http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=39&vid=615 is the plug-in. What this does better tough is that you customize your own movements and even if you want to you can write new actions that tells the browser what it shall do when a gesture is preformed (even tough the default library of actions is big enough for most of us I can tell).


Being a "nitpicker" doesn't mean that the arguments is useless. Some things that could be considered as nitpicking is the following:

• Larger browsing space. The browser window in firefox is (with the default toolbars on) larger then most popular browsers out there.
• Nice futures as "dict something". You just type dict + something in the search field and it looks it up at dictionary.com (once again this is a customizable future too).
• Firefox use the best library of shortcut you can find (http://www.texturizer.net/firefox/keyboard.html). You can customize that to of course.
• Straight forward layout and futures. Firefox comes with nothing more then what you need to browse, then you chose to install skins and plug-ins for your liking and what you need. Installing a skin or a plug-in is not a matter of downloading, it is a matter of clicking a button on the plug-in/skin you want here http://update.mozilla.org/?application=firefox and it will install it for you.
• Easy installation. When you install Firefox you get the option to have Firefox to automatically import all your MSIE bookmarks into Firefox too. It takes just moments to get started with Firefox really.
• Simple download manager. I know most of you use download managers that gives you a lot more futures then the stock built in one but isn't it a nice future to be informed when all downloads is complete or to be able to see where they all ended up at. Perhaps you just want to be able to look at the status of the download(s). If you want more futures then find a plug-in for it.

So what will you chose? Will you chose the standard that your grandma decided for you? Or will you perhaps decide the standards chosen by those who lead the web forward?

It is actually up to every one of us if we want to be able to surf the web faster, see even more beautiful sites and have them to be more accessible at the same time. We, you and I chose what the future of the web will be. Mozilla, Opera, Apple or Microsoft, they may be able to develop and suggest standards to us. But if we don't use them then they will stop there.
After all, what crazy person would continue to develop something that no one uses anyway?



This is my suggestion. Leave all biased thoughts behind and get all the alternate browsers you know about, try them for, let's say a day each. If you are sure by then that you honestly don't like either one of them, then no one can force you not to use your old browser. If you like another browser then keep that installed, you will always have MSIE to fall back to if you feel uncomfortable or if a site doesn't work (the zone for example). I have 4 browsers installed myself. I use 3 of them to try out web pages I create and one of them to just browse like right now (Firefox).



Related links (reads of interests):

http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/
http://mozilla.org/
http://switch2firefox.com/
http://browsehappy.com/
http://apple.com/safari/
http://opera.com/
http://microsoft.com/ie/
http://www.webbedenvironments.com/2004/07/top-ten-resons-to-switch-to-firefox.php
http://www.michaelhanscom.com/eclecticism/2004/05/its_not_my_faul.html
http://soreeyes.org/archives/001077.html
http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/249/
http://s91881962.onlinehome.us/index.php?p=81
http://dirttwister.com/smf/index.php?topic=186.0
http://slate.msn.com/id/2103152/ <- site owned by Microsoft discussing flaws of IE and benefits of Firefox.




I shortened this down a lot just before posting it simply because it was to much and it could be said with less words so I did (or at least gave it a honest try. )

[MotoX395]

I think I've shortened it down enough at least... It shouldn't take to long to read trough... If you don't like the colors then do as I do for longer reads... copy the text and paste it in a word processor like WordPad or ms word...

[MotoX395]

I had to add this excellent sample of PNG images and what they could be used for:

http://wow.airax.net/index2.php Navigate to the "Photolog"...

Very ugly code and pretty ugly site design in my opinion but that's not the point. In a GOOD and MODERN browser you'll see a nice effect where the content fades in and away as you scroll. In MSIE you will see a horrible thing. Two grey-white images that just cut the content off... Congratulations MSIE, you've done it again ^_^

Sorry for 4 double posting btw... 

[MotoX395]

No comment? I felt we had such a great debate going on... Did I kill it?

wow... 5 posts in a row...that's really stupid, I should have edited them instead but that wont help me now will it...