Comments for Should I switch to Firefox?

Comment from Andrea on 2012-01-06

2012-01-06T18:52:30Z

Leo,
You make it sound as though using Internet Explorer solves all compatibility problems. Or most of them. It does not.

I have been to many websites that do NOT work in any iteration of Internet Explorer. Even facebook sometimes displays incorrectly in Internet Explorer 9 under Windows 7.

Do you know what works? Firefox!

And for those 0.000001% of websites that do not work with any browser but IE because Microsoft paid them to only "support" IE & block all other internet browsers from connecting, well there is IETab that works great!

You can use Firefox & still surf IE based sites. Isn't this great?

Amen!

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Comment from Johnny on 2012-01-01

2012-01-02T05:15:44Z

I disagree with Leo.

Leo has stated on another article, that you CANNOT import XP image viewer to use in Windows 7. Therefore, you have to use something like Irfanview.

I have successfully imported the required dll file + reg files needed to make it run. It DOES run XP image viewer in Windows 7, because I am using it right now.

I said that, because Leo is wrong on some of his assumptions. Leo generally has good advice, but he is not perfect.

That said, let's get back to the web browser issue. Should you use Firefox, or Internet Explorer?

I leave that up to you, but let me tell you some things I tried before I do. I opened anywhere from 4 to 20 tabs on my machine with Internet Explorer 8. And Internet Explorer would crash, then crash on recovering the tabs.

YES Internet Explorer works! And it works with more than one tab. But barely.... I have had 1,611 tabs open in Firefox & the only thing that stopped me from opening more, was running low on memory.

That isn't to say that Firefox NEVER crashes, for it has, once in a while. But you can open far more websites in Firefox before you do have a crash, than IE. Also, FF remains much more responsive with more tabs open, & is just a faster seeming browser. Period.

If you corrupt your IE installation, you have no recourse but to attempt a repair installation. And it malware has sufficiently hosed your IE program, you may not even be able to do that properly.

FF can be completely installed & reinstalled. No problems. FF also does not suffer from active-X, which is a component that IE uses that allows drive by downloading & installing (a major cause of malware on machines).

I have noted carefully that a ton of patches for Windows, is fixing some vulnerability that exists because of IE, or is patching a component that IE uses.

I have had far fewer malware infections on machines that deploy FF than IE.

Sure, all software has bugs, but IE just seems to be a bug.

Use whatever you want, but the idea of using a web browser that crashes with less than 20 tabs, & also a browser that automatically installs malware because of active-x controls doesn't seem like a good idea to me.

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Comment from Nate T on 2011-07-31

2011-07-31T12:44:01Z

Very good article. Covers all the pros and cons from a subjective point of view. I just use internet explorer because while it is more susceptiple to attacks, it is also much more widely supported. If you have a problem with it there is almost a guarantee that you can google it and someone else will have had the same problem while with open source software its a bit more work trying to find related issues. Additionally if are already implememtning proper security steps you shouldn't have any issues in the first place with IE.

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Comment from Garrett on 2010-04-02

2010-04-02T10:02:56Z

well, im thinking aobut downloading firefox on my laptop that has WIndows 7 on it. My only concern is VIRUSES. I donwloaded Firefox on my desktop and it runs perfectly fine but i dont really care if my desktop gets viruses or not, but thts not the case with my laptop. Im VERY cautios about not getting any viruses on my laptop. Should i get Firefox on my laptop or not? If so, then PLZ give me a safe link to the download OR tell me where i should download it at. Thx in advanced.

The official site: firefox.com.

02-Apr-2010

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Comment from Bunny Rodwell on 2010-02-16

2010-02-16T20:55:52Z

I only ever use firefox...it is very safe and I like the fact that the add ons include web of trust and many other safety alternatives. It is the best browser.

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Comment from Adam Dally on 2009-03-01

2009-03-01T19:30:53Z

Firefox doesn't put viruses on your computer, and it doesn't come with any. If you got a virus because of it you either downloaded Firefox from a site other than mozilla or more likely than not you already had a virus on your computer and it had no visible effects until Firefox was installed.

Also a good work around for IE is a awesome little add-on called "IE Tab", it allows you to switch a page over to IE with just a click, even staying inside the same tab.

Plus, if you have Firefox, it's almost a must to have like the very best, #1 addon, installed - "Adblock Plus".

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Comment from agnes on 2008-09-04

2008-09-04T22:20:35Z

what do you think about Google's Chrome...is Firefox as fast? IE is sooooo slow.

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Comment from mat on 2008-07-12

2008-07-12T17:26:44Z

I installed FF3.0 but my IE7 crawling. FF3.0 enjoys a smooth drive. Then uninstalled it. IE7 comes back to life.

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Comment from Michael Georgiou on 2008-06-04

2008-06-04T13:29:56Z

Firefox is dreadful, it puts viruses onto my computer and makes it crash, my anti virus protection never works so do not use firefox!!!

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Comment from Margherita on 2008-01-27

2008-01-28T07:08:45Z

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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Comment from duane moen on 2008-01-26

2008-01-26T21:42:58Z

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.

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Comment from Terry Hollett on 2008-01-26

2008-01-26T21:12:05Z

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/

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Comment from Doug Woodall on 2008-01-26

2008-01-26T17:57:09Z

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

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Comment from Lou Gascon on 2008-01-26

2008-01-26T15:15:17Z

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

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Comment from Phillip Forde on 2007-03-21

2007-03-21T23:50:28Z

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.

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Comment from Tyler on 2006-02-18

2006-02-19T02:37:25Z

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.

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Comment from Leo on 2005-08-04

2005-08-04T20:19:08Z

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.

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Comment from Eli Coten on 2005-08-04

2005-08-04T08:58:53Z

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.

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Comment from Horst on 2005-02-08

2005-02-08T08:22:41Z

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

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