Should I switch to Firefox?

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since I switched to Firefox I can't use explorer any more. I start explorer, the explorer window opens but then I get the message "cannot find server". what is the problem? Firefox is working fine. Im running windows XP.
Regards,
Horst

I don't know when this aticle was written, but it seems that nowadays, Windows 2000 users and XP SP1 users are much more vulnerable to spyware/malware attacks. Those versions of internet explorer are much more vulnerable and it is worth noting (especially for Win2000 users) that firefox is going to be much safer and faster (full improvement not fully notice unless tweaked). Obviously XP SP1 users should upgrade to SP2.

I have never heard of any problems where you can get spyware by visited a maliciously programmed website using firefox.

As for what the above article says about popularity - perhaps there is some truth in it, recently there was a virus targetting firefox, but Mozilla are several steps ahead of the game. The issue which the virus gets at has been fixed since version 1.0.2 (current version at time of virus was 1.0.4).

Sorry if this sounds a little long, but I thought the artice sounded a little outdated.

Actually the article was written in January 2005 (note the post date at the bottom of the article). And for what it's worth, I still stand by what I wrote then today, August of 2005.

The one article I *did* revise significantly is this one: http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_keep_my_computer_safe_on_the_internet.html which is browser-independant, but addresses most of the real problems that people blame on the IE, or Windows, or whatever got hacked into most recently.

I *have* heard of Firefox hacks ... but they don't make big news, simply because it's such a small percentage of affected users, and the sense I get is that Firefox is a little quicker to distribute patches and fixes than MS is.

On the Firefox v IE issue, im a FF user myself, but FF does have more security holes than IE, just less dangerous ones. IEs security holes are more the "hijack the browser" typer holes where as FF is more the "annoying popup" typer holes. Well thats what i have been lead to believe anyway.

Thanks for that Leo. It has helped me a great deal At this point in time I think I will stick to IE. I have never had any problems so far, so we'll see what happens.

Phil.

Hi Leo & Folk
Yes that entry is a teeny bit dated by almost 3 years and things have moved on...
I switched to FF at the time and was very pleased with it, but my box slowed down big last year, and whilst looking round for the reason, I found that FF was taking up 1/3rd of my C: drive 18Gb - yes one third, thus 6GB of my OS drive...!
FF are getting out of their pants with updates, addons, upgrades and the like...
I thought IE7 was heavy weight, but FF - well...!!
I recently switched to using 'slimbrowser', which including its Groups menu is serving me very well indeed. It open fast and surfs fast - the only problem was in setting up the search facilities to suit me, but I cracked that in no time. I'm loving it...
Oh! and last night they even offered me a free ftp client...!
can't be bad eh?
Leo, I think you should try it and report back to some of these guys...
you might be surprised...?
Lou

I agree with Tyler. Its all about the odds. Attacks against FireFox are less because its less used.

My choice of browsers at first was 'Internet Explorer', then 'Opera' version 3 or something. It had this big 'hunking ad' that you had to pay a registration fee to get rid of. I tried a few independent ones that didn't impress me including one called 'Firebird' which I think was the original name for the 'Firefox' browser, correct me if I am wrong.

Anyway I eventually settled on 'Mozilla suite'. An open source version of 'Netscape', that included a browser, email client, newsreader and a HTML editor. I used it up till the 'Mozilla Foundation' decided to give it up and concentrate on developing 'Firefox'. It was taken over and renamed 'Seamonkey', apparently the original name of the project.

I then went back to 'Opera', which is still my browser of choice. No offence to 'Opera', but I also believe its the most secure because its at the bottom of the popoularity list.

I origianlly gave up 'IE' because of issues concerning 'Super-hidden' and 'Super protected' 'INDEX.DAT files, which are "supposed to be cache files", but they are better hidden and protected than the 'core operating system' files. Also evey time I have to clean a hijacking out of someone's computer there is only one browser involved.

But to be fair to Microsoft, I think that if you don't pay attention to your security, it don't matter which browser you have. I have; OUTPOST FIREWALL, AVIRA ANTIVIR PERSONAL EDITION, WINPATROL, SPYBOT, ADAWARE, ASQUARED TROJAN SCANNER, AVG ROOTKIT SCANNER and I always keep an eye on whats going on in the background with HIJACKTHIS, an older utility called END IT ALL and the built in TASK MANGER.

www.geocities.com/terryhollett2003/

I use 4 browsers but I don't think all of them are different. AOL Desktop uses a browser that I am not sure of it's origin. The symbol it uses makes me think it is Netscape. If this is the case what will happen when Netscape is no longer supported? AOL also has a browser called AOL browser that I use because it compresses and thus speeds up loading on a dial-up connection. It's basically text only for that reason. I use Firefox also but it and IE7 and Desktop are really slow on a dial-up. The thing that is inconvenient is that the favorites between Firefox and the IE browsers aren't synchronized so you have to put in your favorites twice and organize them separately. I could live with any one of them.

Hi

I'm using Firefox as an alternative browser on Windows XP at work and I must say that I am very happy with it. Even our website developer uses it and some of our suppliers and everyone is happy with it. Our website was also designed with features that only becomes visible on FF, but IE doesn't support it, like scrolling images in the address bar.

The only problem I'm faced with now is that I've tried to install it on my Acer laptop with Windows Vista Business as the OS and Norton Anti Virus from Symantec, but now it doesn't work. Some people believe that it is the anti virus software, but try and delete that, you can't and then I have a suspicion that it might also be the firewall which is causing the program not to run.

Also cannot to our network with the laptop, but I suppose this is a totally different issue altogether.

Thanks for a great site :-)

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