new favourite browser - firebird

[heath]

I was keen on Opera for a long time but Firebird has recently walked way out in front. Mainly due to the Adblock plugin that lets you selectively block frames/images/paths from specific servers with wilcards (and firebird blocks popups of course). Mind you Opera has the "continue from last time" function that Firebird doesn't have. Yet...

[mickky]

I've been thinking about going to a different browser for a long time now.

I use IE simply because it's convienient. Can you tell me any other reasons why I might make the switch?

I've never tested any of my web sites in firebird.


Anything I should know?

[joyrex]

I recently changed to Firebird too. It's fast and comfortable to customize with extensions (take a peek: http://texturizer.net/firebird/extensions/), I recommend trying it.

[joyrex]

Originally posted by heath
Mind you Opera has the "continue from last time" function that Firebird doesn't have. Yet... This (http://texturizer.net/firebird/extensions/#sessionsaver) will do the trick for you - it automatically saves your session and restores it in the next program start.

[Zep]

I've been on Firebird for about six months, both at home and at work, specifically to stop pop-ups. And Firebird does this VERY nicely indeed. So far, very few other problems at all, at least there's nothing I can't do yet. There's perhaps a few user-friendly changes re management I would suggest, but in just about every respect, it is much preferred to IE.

[ChrisH]

Originally posted by mickky
I've been thinking about going to a different browser for a long time now.

I use IE simply because it's convienient. Can you tell me any other reasons why I might make the switch?

I've never tested any of my web sites in firebird.


Anything I should know?

MSIE is the least standards-compliant of the major browsers. Opera and Firebird are both based on newly written engines, while MSIE still has traces of the old Mosaic code - my preference is for Opera, which I've used for several years, but Firebird is good, too - although I miss the convenience of Opera's mouse gestures!

Both Opera and Firebird can be downloaded fairly quickly: Opera is less than 4Mb and Firebird around 7Mb.
MSIE is somewhere up in the 90Mb area ...

[joyrex]

Originally posted by ChrisH
although I miss the convenience of Opera's mouse gestures!
http://texturizer.net/firebird/extensions/#mousegest
;)

[wayrad]

How about Firebird vs Mozilla 1.5? I like the e-mail application included in the latter. I know there's Thunderbird, but I'm used to the convenience of only having to click on one icon. Does Firebird have compensatory advantages?

[Interesting Ian]

Well I thought I'd try it out (firebird). Er . . .wow! this text is bold! Anyway, it seems I might have to alter the text size everytime I launch this browser because the default is little bit smaller than I'm used to. Doesn't it keep the same text size that you change it to? Certainly can't be a*sed to keep changing it everytime I launch the browser.

Oh damn, and it doesn't open a new window when I just opened my browser just now! :mad: Think I'll get rid of it.

[Interesting Ian]

Mind you, the tab browsing is excellent! But I can't stand having to alter my font size all the time! :mad:

[wayrad]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Mind you, the tab browsing is excellent! But I can't stand having to alter my font size all the time! :mad: If it's anything like Mozilla you should be able to set up a style sheet.

edited to add: I found out how on the MozillaNews forum. Have to go back and look up the procedure again every time I want to make changes or do it on another machine though.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by wayrad
If it's anything like Mozilla you should be able to set up a style sheet.

edited to add: I found out how on the MozillaNews forum. Have to go back and look up the procedure again every time I want to make changes or do it on another machine though.

Style sheet? :confused: Anyway, if anyone can help me on this it would be much appreciated. I rather like this firebird browser apart from this huge drawback.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Style sheet? :confused: Anyway, if anyone can help me on this it would be much appreciated. I rather like this firebird browser apart from this huge drawback.

WOW! If you put the font size to maximum it's absolutely huge. This "e" is one inch in height! :eek:

[jimlintott]

Try ->Tools->Options
Then under Web Features there is a button for fonts and colours. You should be able to set a minimum font there.

Note that under General Features you can Use current pages for your home page. This will set all your current tabs to open as default.

I like using the third mouse button for opening links in a new tab. I click a bunch of links on a page and they all load up on seperate tabs. Great for viewing images.

[wayrad]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Style sheet? :confused: Anyway, if anyone can help me on this it would be much appreciated. I rather like this firebird browser apart from this huge drawback. Yes, you make a file called UserContent.css with appropriately formatted commands and put it in your profile folder. It's a royal pain, but once you have it set up, it stays put.

Sounds from what Jim says as though Firebird is different from Mozilla in that regard, though, so my comment was probably irrelevant.

Here's a good forum for Firebird/Mozilla-related tips: http://forums.mozillazine.org/

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by jimlintott
Try ->Tools->Options
Then under Web Features there is a button for fonts and colours. You should be able to set a minimum font there.



Yes, brilliant! It seems to have worked. Thanks :)



Note that under General Features you can Use current pages for your home page. This will set all your current tabs to open as default.

I like using the third mouse button for opening links in a new tab. I click a bunch of links on a page and they all load up on seperate tabs. Great for viewing images. [/B]

Yeah, it's great. :D

[heath]

Originally posted by joyrex
This (http://texturizer.net/firebird/extensions/#sessionsaver) will do the trick for you - it automatically saves your session and restores it in the next program start.

Well there goes Opera into the bin then. Thanks Joyrex.

[Interesting Ian]

I had loads of problems trying to get it to be like IE. It started loading a blank page instead of my homepage and wanting all the time to install this software everytime I opened the browser. Didn't make any difference whether I said yes or no. So got rid of folder and reinstalled it, but it won't work at all now. ie I doubleclick the icon to open up the browser and nothing happens. Did a system restore, but that hasn't helped either.

A waste of time.

[Zep]

Originally posted by wayrad
How about Firebird vs Mozilla 1.5? I like the e-mail application included in the latter. I know there's Thunderbird, but I'm used to the convenience of only having to click on one icon. Does Firebird have compensatory advantages? If I read the Mozilla site correctly, the Mozilla browser has two major components: the browser (offered separately as Firebird) and the email client (offered separately as Thunderbird). You simply pick one, t'other, or two-in-one, as you prefer!

[Zep]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I had loads of problems trying to get it to be like IE. It started loading a blank page instead of my homepage and wanting all the time to install this software everytime I opened the browser. Didn't make any difference whether I said yes or no. So got rid of folder and reinstalled it, but it won't work at all now. ie I doubleclick the icon to open up the browser and nothing happens. Did a system restore, but that hasn't helped either.

A waste of time. Do a proper software uninstall first via the Control Panel, then it will reinstall properly.

You can set your home page easily enough at Tools > Options > General.

What software was it trying to install? That is unusual...

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Zep
Do a proper software uninstall first via the Control Panel, then it will reinstall properly.

You can set your home page easily enough at Tools > Options > General.

What software was it trying to install? That is unusual...

It's ok, I've been messing around again and now it's working again. Will just have to see how it goes. One disadvantage is that I can no longer use my ie spellchecker. So if I start to misspell words you'll know why! Is there an equivalent spellchecker for firebird?

[Zep]

There appears to be a 3rd party one available via here (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=34799). I'm trying it out currently.

[El Greco]

Ok, you convinced me. I downloaded it. It'd better be good or I'll want my money back.

[Zep]

http://www.radaforex.com/Greek_Drachmas2.jpg

[wayrad]

Originally posted by Zep
If I read the Mozilla site correctly, the Mozilla browser has two major components: the browser (offered separately as Firebird) and the email client (offered separately as Thunderbird). You simply pick one, t'other, or two-in-one, as you prefer! My understanding is that the Mozilla browser is based on Netscape code, while Firebird was written from the ground up. I wouldn't mind trying Firebird and Thunderbrd, but I dislike the idea of having to go through another step to open my e-mail (all right, I'm lazy). With Mozilla, you just have one icon to click on, and can select which window you want to open on top. Maybe there's a way to configure Firebird to do that - anybody know how?

[Zep]

Originally posted by wayrad
My understanding is that the Mozilla browser is based on Netscape code, while Firebird was written from the ground up. I wouldn't mind trying Firebird and Thunderbird, but I dislike the idea of having to go through another step to open my e-mail (all right, I'm lazy). With Mozilla, you just have one icon to click on, and can select which window you want to open on top. Maybe there's a way to configure Firebird to do that - anybody know how? Firebird is just the browser component of Mozilla, so it is highly similar to it in most respects, just way lighter and simpler because the email client is not included. It is based on the Gecko engine, the same one used to power Netscape. Thunderbird is exactly the same deal except it is for the email client component. Imagine Mozilla just split in two!

If you want to use both components, browser AND email client, I'd suggest sticking with Mozilla because they are already integrated properly then.

[wayrad]

Originally posted by Zep
Firebird is just the browser component of Mozilla, so it is highly similar to it in most respects, just way lighter and simpler because the email client is not included. It is based on the Gecko engine, the same one used to power Netscape. Thunderbird is exactly the same deal except it is for the email client component. Imagine Mozilla just split in two!Not quite, if the Firebird FAQ at http://texturizer.net/firebird/faq.html#q1.3 is to be believed. But they aren't at all clear on how significant the differences are - it sounds like they may be minor. Guess I'll stick with Mozilla then. I see v. 1.6 just came out.

edited to add: Hmm, http://www14.brinkster.com/hao2lian/firebird.html says Mozilla Firebird is also based on a new toolkit and was a spinoff of the Mozilla suite's browser. Today, it will soon be replacing the old browser in the Mozilla suite in Mozilla 1.5. I wonder whether they mean it replaced the previous browser in 1.5 or 1.6? And why is all the Mozilla documentation so incredibly confusing? :)

[Interesting Ian]

The only problem I have now with this firebird is that I can't specify a homepage. It just opens up at the last page I was at! :confused: :eek: :mad: Any advice?

[Zep]

Originally posted by wayrad
Not quite, if the Firebird FAQ at http://texturizer.net/firebird/faq.html#q1.3 is to be believed. But they aren't at all clear on how significant the differences are - it sounds like they may be minor. Guess I'll stick with Mozilla then. I see v. 1.6 just came out. Well, not EXACTLY identical, but close! :)

[Zep]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
The only problem I have now with this firebird is that I can't specify a homepage. It just opens up at the last page I was at! :confused: :eek: :mad: Any advice? Zep: You can set your home page easily enough at Tools > Options > General.

[J Coplen]

Firebird rocks! :)

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Zep

Zep: You can set your home page easily enough at Tools > Options > General.


Easily enough?? :eek: You're kidding, right? Obviously my homepage address is there, but it doesn't work.

[Zep]

Big hmmmmmmm....

What extensions have you added, if any?

OR...

Browse to your desired homepage first, then go to Tools>Options>General and "Use Current Page". See if that helps.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Zep
Big hmmmmmmm....

What extensions have you added, if any?

OR...

Browse to your desired homepage first, then go to Tools>Options>General and "Use Current Page". See if that helps.

No I've tried that already. Err . .added loads of extensions. Can't remember which ones. The dictionary one which is really useful :)

Also tried to fix my homepage by the bookmark, but that won't work either. The browser always opens at the last page I was viewing. And absolutely nothing I can do will alter this! :mad: Oh well.

[Zep]

It's one of the extensions you have doing this, as it is not "normal" Mozilla/Firebird behaviour (I had one for Full Screen operation that was not particularly nice either). Can't help you without knowing what you have there! Maybe someone else can?

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Zep
It's one of the extensions you have doing this, as it is not "normal" Mozilla/Firebird behaviour (I had one for Full Screen operation that was not particularly nice either). Can't help you without knowing what you have there! Maybe someone else can?

OK, I'll try disabling one at a time to see if it makes any difference.

[Zep]

Some of the extensions are adjustable - just check through them first. It may be an obvious knob or lever somewhere...

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Zep
Some of the extensions are adjustable - just check through them first. It may be an obvious knob or lever somewhere...

When I clicked the disable button for all of them it didn't make a difference. OK will now check all the knobs and levers.

[Zep]

I suspect you may have to exit and restart Firebird for them to take (non-)effect...

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Zep
I suspect you may have to exit and restart Firebird for them to take (non-)effect...

Managed to get it to start a blank page LOL Going to have to give up on this one. I'll use this browser for a few days to see how it goes. It seems to suffer from a few problems. Or maybe just it and I are incompatible!

[Zep]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Managed to get it to start a blank page LOL Going to have to give up on this one. I'll use this browser for a few days to see how it goes. It seems to suffer from a few problems. Or maybe just it and I are incompatible! Indeed there are one or two little glitches that I don't like myself, but I will wear them happily if it means I don't get attacked by popup storms!

[El Greco]

I've been using it for a day and it's really good. I don't miss IE so far.

[Soapy Sam]

Straightforward download. Simple installation (extraction). Seems to run fine. Home page changes easily. Can't see any great advantage over Opera so far, possibly slightly slower. I'll give it a few days and see.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Soapy Sam
Straightforward download. Simple installation (extraction). Seems to run fine. Home page changes easily. Can't see any great advantage over Opera so far, possibly slightly slower. I'll give it a few days and see.

I've still got a blank page for my homepage LOL

[Yahweh]

I enjoy Firebird. I loads up fast, displays all images and text just fine, I like the tabbed browsing. Just a few problems:

Even after I've installed the plugin, it does not load Flash videos. I have to open IE to view Flash videos.

When one window dies, they all die.

[Zep]

Originally posted by Yahweh
I enjoy Firebird. I loads up fast, displays all images and text just fine, I like the tabbed browsing. Just a few problems:

Even after I've installed the plugin, it does not load Flash videos. I have to open IE to view Flash videos.

This is after restarting Firebird? Mine plays them OK...

When one window dies, they all die.

That's because you have only one instance of the app, even though you have multiple tab windows. Customise your toolbar and add the icon that looks like a plain window with a green plus-sign lower left. Clicking on this gives you a new instance, just like IE "new window" style, which will stay active if the original one dies.

[Janus]

Originally posted by Yahweh
Even after I've installed the plugin, it does not load Flash videos. I have to open IE to view Flash videos.


I had to copy the flash plugin to the plugins directory manualy.

The dll you are looking for is called npswf32.dll

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Yahweh
I enjoy Firebird. I loads up fast, displays all images and text just fine, I like the tabbed browsing. Just a few problems:

Even after I've installed the plugin, it does not load Flash videos. I have to open IE to view Flash videos.

When one window dies, they all die.

If you have a few tabs open they all close when you close the window. Is that what you mean? Yes that's extremely irritating. And it's a bit involved getting rid of a tab because I have to right click a tab then choose close. Or is there a simpler way anyone?

No idea what a "flash video" is so I don't know if they work. How do I test it?

[Interesting Ian]

Zep
That's because you have only one instance of the app, even though you have multiple tab windows. Customise your toolbar and add the icon that looks like a plain window with a green plus-sign lower left. Clicking on this gives you a new instance, just like IE "new window" style, which will stay active if the original one dies.


Just gives me a blank window.

[jimlintott]

There is a handy guide to plugins at the mozilla site. Here. (http://plugindoc.mozdev.org/windows.html)
Did you have Mozilla installed before? If I remember correctly the Flash installer will try to install there but doesn't really know about Firebird. Just go to the Mozilla install and copy the appropriate files to your Firebird install. (I don't use MS Win so I'm guessing a bit.)

To close an individual tab there should be an X at the end of tab bar. It will close the current tab.

To test or find out what plugins are installed go to the address bar and enter: about:plugins

[Interesting Ian]

[i]Originally posted by jimlintott

To close an individual tab there should be an X at the end of tab bar. It will close the current tab.

[/B]

Ah yes. I never noticed it! LOL Excellent :)

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


I've still got a blank page for my homepage LOL

I've just fixed it. I put config:setup or something like that in the address bar and it came up with loads of values. I scrolled about half way down and the browser startup page had a value of "0". I changed it to "1", and it now works! :D

[joyrex]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
Ah yes. I never noticed it! LOL Excellent :) Also CTRL-W works. And CTRL-T opens a new tab.

[El Greco]

Unfortunately I'm starting to notice the bugs...

I couldn't get the bookmark folders to sort by name. In the "manage bookmarks" window the sorting works, but when you return to the browser nothing is changed in the order. I had to move all folders to another one and then move them back under the root in order to make the sorting to work. But it seems I have to do the same with all the bookmarks in every folder.... Why on earth there isn't a right-click context menu command "sort by..." ?

And why aren't there the bookmarks organized in a folder, like in IE ?

Firebird associates jpeg images with it, and if I change the jpeg association it reports that "Firebird isn't the defaullt browser"!

There are a couple more bugs I've found, but I'll give it one more chance. What pisses me off is that these things are bloody obvious and serious. I mean, what do I have to do in order to get my bookmarks sorted correctly ?

[El Greco]

And I haven't found a way to make the reply box wider... :(

[El Greco]

Here's the same in IE. Notice the scrollbar that is missing from Firebird :confused:

[heath]

Originally posted by El Greco
Here's the same in IE. Notice the scrollbar that is missing from Firebird :confused:

Interesting. The forum is producing different pages depending on browser.

IE gets

textarea name="message" rows="20" cols="70"


while firebird gets

textarea name="message" rows="20" cols="40"


for the text box difinition.

Firebird is doing exactly what it's told to do.

Might be possible to get monkey boy to change the style for Firebird/mozilla/geko browsers in the form config. Should also be possible to make firebird identify itself in the "useragent" string as IE, not sure how, don't recomend it.

[jimlintott]

I never noticed that the bookmark manager wouldn't sort other than manually moving them. It will sort for viewing only. I never noticed because I dont sort alphabetically but by which sites I want open when I tell it to open a folder of bookmarks in tabs. I would consider this a missing feature rather than a bug.

The jpeg thing probably has more to do with your OS. MS Win is always fighting with itself over who should do what. The number of times it would rearrange or let some software rearrange my preferences is one of the main reasons I stopped using it.

The text box will scale with the font and if you overflow it, a scroll bar appears. Silly IE drawing a scroll bar before one is needed. Now there's a bug.

You can use whatever you want though. It isn't like you lose a big investment with Mozilla/Firebird/Thunderbird if they don't work out.

[Interesting Ian]

Originally posted by El Greco
And I haven't found a way to make the reply box wider... :(

Yes mine's the same width. But it was wider when I first installed it! And the text that you actually type in the box was much bolder as well. God knows how I get back to it being like that :(

[Interesting Ian]

[i]Originally posted by jimlintott

The text box will scale with the font and if you overflow it, a scroll bar appears. [/B]

Ah! So when I changed the default font that altered the window I'm typing in now?

[El Greco]

Originally posted by jimlintott
The jpeg thing probably has more to do with your OS. MS Win is always fighting with itself over who should do what.

It's not OS dependent. Firebird just checks to see if it has the jpegs. Nothing happens automatically, it's just that when Firebird doesn't have the jpegs it thinks it isn't the default browser.

Originally posted by jimlintott
The text box will scale with the font and if you overflow it, a scroll bar appears. Silly IE drawing a scroll bar before one is needed. Now there's a bug.

I'd have to see the code to say who's got a bug. When you specify a scrollbar there is flag which makes it always visible even when not needed, it helps wihen you don't want the text to have to be reformatted. But I'd say that it's Firebird's problem. Probably not implementing the latest version of common controls.

Originally posted by jimlintott
You can use whatever you want though. It isn't like you lose a big investment with Mozilla/Firebird/Thunderbird if they don't work out.

Of course, but I'm just sad because I like so much the unique features of Firebird... and these bugs are rather obvious, I mean someone should have fixed them by now.

[Interesting Ian]

[i]Originally posted by El Greco



Of course, but I'm just sad because I like so much the unique features of Firebird... and these bugs are rather obvious, I mean someone should have fixed them by now. [/B]

Yes I agree. It's a great pity. I'm still disposed to say that it's better as a whole than IE though. It's this damn narrow window for the text area that I don't like. And when I move my wheel on my mouse it doesn't scroll down. I wonder if we could contact the creaters of this browser and mention these drawbacks so they could fix them for the next version? And I no longer have a spellchecker! So appropriate apologies if I misspell anything lol

[El Greco]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian
I wonder if we could contact the creaters of this browser and mention these drawbacks so they could fix them for the next version?

It seems there is a dedicated forum (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=9) for reporting Firebird bugs. I can see a lot of people posting there, so I wouldn't exactly hold my breath...

[ceptimus]

I tried it out for a day, but am back to IE (in Widoze) now. I still use Mozilla under Linux.

For all the complaints about IE, it's not that bad in my opinion. I have popups blocked anyhow via Norton Internet security. The tabbed browsing in Firebird is nice, but with broadband, pages load pretty quickly, and the lack of the tabbed browsing feature is not such a handicap.

I'll try it again in 6 months or so, when they've had a chance to iron out some of the bugs. There may be a version of IE with tabbed browsing coming out in the meantime.

[jimlintott]

I've never encountered a parameter for displaying the scroll bar in a text area when creating a form. It's just different browser behaviour.

The line from this site that creates the text area is:
[td][br]
(I've craftily substituted [ ] for <>)

The source code for Firebird is available from the Mozilla web site. I have compiled it on my machine (whoopee).

You got me on the jpeg thing. I've never encountered this problem in Linux or Windows. IE is set as the default browser on my Windows partition here but I don't use it.

Remember the version numbers here. IE is something like version 6 and Firebird is .7, not even a 1.0 release yet.

[tygirwulf]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian

And when I move my wheel on my mouse it doesn't scroll down.

Now that's odd. I've used Firebird for six months, and I assure you, if it didn't scroll with my mouse wheel it would have been off my system long before now. Make sure you have the browser window targetted by clicking in it or on it once. If that doesn't work, delete the Firebird directory and re-install it. I once got a bunch of weird bugs with it, which were fixed by doing that.

About the width of the reply box, funny enough, when I first started using Firebird, it was the same width as for IE. Then about a month later, it was this skinny, narrow little thing. I thought someone had fooled around with the forum code but I assumed everyone else liked it like that so I kept my mouth shut about it.

Flash did work on FB for me once upon a time but now it doesn't. I have no idea why. I've got the necessary files in the plugins folder. It doesn't matter to me anyway, since I don't normally like flash in the first place, and the rare instances I really want to see a flash based site, I still have IE. Although it's excruciatingly slow now.

[Zep]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


[Opening a new instance of the app] Just gives me a blank window. Correct. It's quite independent of the other instance of Firebird running, so use it as you see fit! Treat it as another program running on your PC.

[Zep]

Originally posted by Interesting Ian


Yes I agree. It's a great pity. I'm still disposed to say that it's better as a whole than IE though. It's this damn narrow window for the text area that I don't like. And when I move my wheel on my mouse it doesn't scroll down. I wonder if we could contact the creaters of this browser and mention these drawbacks so they could fix them for the next version? And I no longer have a spellchecker! So appropriate apologies if I misspell anything lol Mousewheel: Click inside the reply box and the mousewheel scrolls there, but will not scroll the screen down. Click outside the reply area and the screen will scroll but not the reply box contents. That is, the scrollwheel does not automatically change focus depending on the cursor position on the screen.

Narrow reply box: As said above, it is doing PRECISELY what the HTML says. To a server, it appears as a Netscape browser (Gecko engine), so it seems likely that the JREF server has differentiated its HTML this way, i.e. it isn't Firebird's fault. Personally, I have no practical problem with the narrow box, but still I do think it is a bit silly. There's plenty of real estate on the screen going to waste, even at 640x480...

Next versions: I heartily agree that Mozilla should be told about wants and desires! I have already dropped them a line or two!

[Zep]

My own gripe with Firebird is when you switch to Full Screen mode (F11). (NB. Firebird seems to respond to many IE commands well enough.) In that mode, the main system tray disappears as per IE, but it will not reappear when the cursor is moved to the bottom of the screen, which is normal IE behaviour. So, in that mode, to see the system tray I have to switch out of Full Screen mode, minimise Firebird or switch to another program that shows the system tray (usually Outlook in my case).

Neh.

Another is that when I'm working inside text boxes, e.g. the JREF reply text box, sometimes paragraphs of text either get partially blanked or are highlighted for no reason. This is confusing, probably more so to a naive user. The cure is to either scroll the text or click outside the box (forces a redisplay, I think). I suspect this is due to some "programming efficiency" to do with screen display. Needs work anyway...

[tygirwulf]

I figured out my little problem with getting Flash to work. I don't know what causes it, but I created a new profile and voila, all my plugins started working. All I had to do was import my bookmarks from the other profile and spend about five minutes readjusting my settings.

[heath]

A very nifty extension I just found (firebird just keeps getting better :) )

tab extensions (http://white.sakura.ne.jp/~piro/xul/_tabextensions.html.en)

allows you to control a huge number of parameters to do with how tabs and windows are handled and much more.

[edit to make link a direct link rather than just text]

[EdipisReks]

Firebird mostly rocks. i looking forward to seeing the new Omniweb, though.

[Cecil]

It's somewhat well-known that typing about:<text> into the address bar of a web browser gives you an html page containing the text you type in. A funny easter egg in IE is typing about:mozilla, which gives you a blue screen.

Try typing about:mozilla into Mozilla Firebird. :dl:

[iain]

A new version is out for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It's been renamed (again) and is now called Firefox 0.8 (it was originally Pheonix). I downloaded it last night but haven't installed it yet; but it sounds like a worthwhile upgrade.

[Sindai]

Originally posted by iain
A new version is out for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It's been renamed (again) and is now called Firefox 0.8 (it was originally Pheonix). I downloaded it last night but haven't installed it yet; but it sounds like a worthwhile upgrade.

I got it yesterday.

I found it seemlessly transferred all of my links and preferences from Firebird, which I deleted after installing Firefox.

Loading a bunch of pages simultaneously this morning seemed to go much, much faster than usual, but that may just have been my college's servers being less crappy than usual instead of the browser.

Other than that the only noticable improvement for me has been the new download managing, which is great because that was the only aspect of Firebird I evr found lacking. :D

I've heard of problems with plugins (like tabbed browsing ones) after installing Firefox on other forums, but I'm not sure how severe they are.

[iain]

Yep, the Linux version seems to work fine (on my Mandrake 9.2 laptop anyway). Just untarred it and ran it. No installation routine to run, it picked up my bookmarks no problem. I did have to copy the plugins across but that's no big deal.

Seems fine so far, but I haven't really tried out the new stuff yet.

[Cleopatra]

I just downloaded Firefox and the problem with the narrow window prevails, now I read that we must wait for Jeff to fix it.
Mwahahahaha

Anyway, maybe it's only a matter of habit because I seem to like this new toy.

As always thanks for the really informative posts that one can find in this forum. You people rock. :)

[Ed]

I played with opera for a while. As I recall there were wierd incompatibility issues with some sites (I think Safe-Mail was one). In any event, I didn't wand to dick around with the workarounds so I ditched it.

[Zep]

And Firefox done got a cute new icon! A fire fox...

http://www.randi.org/vbulletin/attachment.php?s=&postid=1870397921

[iain]

Been using Firefox for a couple of months now and I'm very happy with it (though my wife still prefers Konqueror; but the choice thing is what Linux is all about, I guess).

I can remember when I started using Opera about three years ago, probably about 5% of sites really didn't display well. I think Opera has improved; but I certainly haven't found any sites recently that didn't work in Firefox or Konqueror (occasionally I have a hiccup on one and use the other, falling back to Opera if necessary).

The only sites that really stop me are the ones that use code to prevent non-IE browsers browse their sites. Some banks are like this - forcing their customers to use the most buggy, insecure and poorly-featured browser on the market. Luckily, my two Internet bank accounts work fine with Konq and Firefox.

[Underemployed]

I have just given firefox 0.8 a try, it's very nice and the pages do seem to load quicker...

Two serious problems:

When I first started it up, the bookmarks contained a folder of all my imported IE favourites. When I started it up again after a reboot, they are gone.

The download manager does not seem to give you the option of opening the folder containing the downloaded file, or of executing it like IE does. I find this very inconvenient as I don't want to have to have the damn folder open all the time and search for the file whose name I have usually already forgotten (and my old pop-up blocker from panicware blocks the download manager...but I can live with that)

Edited to add:
Sorted the download manager thing...I didn't realise you managed access to the files in the download pop-up too. Still annoyed about losing all those IE bookmarks though - can't seem to do anything except visit them all and add them one at a time!

Edited again to add:
Ahem....Sorted the bookmarks with IE's export feature...Will give Firefox a go properly now.

[Captain_Snort]

Just to say I had firefox crash on me twice so far tonight, mainly because I had opened far too many tabs I think.


Still, its the best browser I ever had, and look at firefox, hmmm,I do believe IE is implementing tabbed browsing in its next release.

[Zep]

Originally posted by iain
The only sites that really stop me are the ones that use code to prevent non-IE browsers browse their sites. Some banks are like this - forcing their customers to use the most buggy, insecure and poorly-featured browser on the market. Luckily, my two Internet bank accounts work fine with Konq and Firefox. My experience with online banking is that they RELY on pop-ups to do the actually useful stuff. With Firefox, popups are disabled for all sites, so you click on something, a few lights blink, nothing happens real quick...

It's just that the usual bank Customer Helpdesk "cure" for that complaint is the standard non-thinking fallback - "Use IE - our site only works with IE" (to which I usually reply "Buffalo patties, you dimwit!", but anyway...). Because IE has no default popup protection.

You can individually allow popups to work on a per-site basis with Firefox (Tools, Options, Web Features to get to the control area). All popups are blocked by default, but you can whitelist the sites you want to work. This is actually on a per-user basis if you have NT, 2K, or XP. Have done so with my bank - works fine now.

[Cleopatra]

Hmmmm Since I started using Firefox my system that has been very very stable so far ( I am using XP Pro) experienced two severe crashes. Both of them yesterday when I tried to access a forum I used to post.

Not only that the automatic diagnostics blamed it on the memory. The truth is that my laptop runs XP pro with a 128 MB memory. Anyway since I am using this browser the machine is giving me the sense that it tries too hard. The fan keeps turning on for start.

Shall I change the memory or return to IE?

[Zep]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
Hmmmm Since I started using Firefox my system that has been very very stable so far ( I am using XP Pro) experienced two severe crashes. Both of them yesterday when I tried to access a forum I used to post.

Not only that the automatic diagnostics blamed it on the memory. The truth is that my laptop runs XP pro with a 128 MB memory. Anyway since I am using this browser the machine is giving me the sense that it tries too hard. The fan keeps turning on for start.

Shall I change the memory or return to IE? Cleo, what do you call "crashing"? Does the PC seem to freeze up or does XP actually really crash (blue screen of death) and reboot?

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by Zep
does XP actually really crash (blue screen of death) and reboot? This is what happens dear doctor. :)

[Skeptoid]

IMO, 128MB of memory is an insufficient amount of memory to be running Win XP. For all practical purposes, I wouldn't try to run XP unless I had a minimum of 256MB of memory.

[Zep]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
This is what happens dear doctor. :) Oooooooo! Your PC dun broke!

All symptoms point to bad physical memory in your laptop, as you suspect. The diagnostics saying memory is bad is a poor sign for a start. If the fan runs all the time it may also mean the laptop is overheating - memory or CPU could be problematic (overheating usually means close to failing).

Off to the repair shop with you, post haste! :)

NT/2K/XP is fairly careful with memory and won't let a single program cause whole system crashes (Windows 95/98 would though). Such wayward programs usually just disappear without warning, or possibly with the "Can I tell Microsoft about this problem?" box.

I'm running Firebird/Firefox on XP-Pro and have done for about 12 months, and this has never happened to my PC. So I would imagine that the use of Forefox is coincidental to your crashes (although with Microsoft OS's it can't be ruled out).

[Zep]

Originally posted by Skeptoid
IMO, 128MB of memory is an insufficient amount of memory to be running Win XP. For all practical purposes, I wouldn't try to run XP unless I had a minimum of 256MB of memory. Pretty much, yes, I agree. However, lack of physical memory doesn't stop XP from working. Virtual memory is like New Coke - the Real Thing is better.

Incidentally, if you are forced to work with a limited-memory XP machine (or even 2K or NT), try using a small but fast second disk or partition completely given over as the paging disk - it helps things noticeably. But not as much as more real memory, of course.

[Cleopatra]

Ok I will change the memory but I suspect that there is a limit to the upgrade I can have right?

[Zep]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
Ok I will change the memory but I suspect that there is a limit to the upgrade I can have right? Depends entirely on the model of laptop. If it's a newer model, say within the last 2 or 3 years, you can probably get more than a gigabyte of memory into it if you wanted it - plenty enough. As Skeptoid said, 256MB or more would be preferable for XP-Pro. See how fat your purse is first...

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by Zep
See how fat your purse is first...

Yeah and it's a DELL laptop an american product in Greece... The guarantee has expired I wonder if it is wise to buy a memory of a different brand.

[Skeptoid]

Cleo,

Does your laptop work fine otherwise? I get the impression that it's only when you run the browser that you have a problem. Is that correct? The diagnostics may be reporting insufficient memory rather than bad memory. At any rate, I'd take it in and have as much memory installed as your motherboard will take.



edit - speling.

[Zep]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
Yeah and it's a DELL laptop an american product in Greece... The guarantee has expired I wonder if it is wise to buy a memory of a different brand. "Dell-brand" memory is actually someone elses with the Dell brand stuck on. :con2: :)

There's lots of good memory manufacturers, and bad ones too. You will get lots of advice from here and elsewhere. No doubt there will be alternatives you can substitute. What fun you have in front of you! :)

My own policy is to use known name brands (Kingston, preferably) if it really matters. Otherwise, the cheapest! :)

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by Zep
What fun you have in front of you! :)
Hahaha This is exactly what I hate with pcs. There is not an ultimate truth, it resembles to religion in that LOL


Thanks Zep!

[Zep]

Originally posted by Skeptoid
Cleo,

Does your laptop work fine otherwise? I get the impression that it's only when you run the browser that you have a problem. Is that correct? The diagnostics may be reporting insufficient memory rather than bad memory. At any rate, I'd take it in and have as much memory installed as your motherboard will take. Insufficient memory on one app won't stop the PC working and make it crash BSOD. I doubt it is Firefox - my own measurements show it is way lighter than IE on system resources at any time (IE and Outlook are particularly heavy resource hogs anyway). I suspect she has a failing chip - my experience with them is that they check at POST OK(-ish?) but fail when accessed by the OS.

I agree - "max the memory" is a good policy.

But I've just noticed - aren't we getting off the thread topic here?

[Zep]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
Hahaha This is exactly what I hate with pcs. There is not an ultimate truth, it resembles to religion in that LOL

Thanks Zep! Heh! I've been in the computer game for over 30 years, from long before PCs were even around. You're right. Computers are merely a tool to get a job done, not an end in themselves. Many people seem to forget that...

[Rat]

Isn't this usually the point at which someone jumps in to say that their Mac never crashes?

Or their Linux installation never crashes?

Cheers,
Rat.

[Zep]

Happy to oblige.

Ahem.


"MY MAC LINUX NEVER CRASHES."

[Cleopatra]

Originally posted by ratcomp1974
Isn't this usually the point at which someone jumps in to say that their Mac never crashes?

Or their Linux installation never crashes?

Cheers,
Rat.

:D :D :D

[Whyatica]

Originally posted by ratcomp1974
Isn't this usually the point at which someone jumps in to say that their Mac never crashes?

Or their Linux installation never crashes?

Cheers,
Rat.

Mandrake 9.2 crashed on me a few times..It stopped after upgrading to Mandrake 10.

[Rat]

Originally posted by Whyatica Mandrake 9.2 crashed on me a few times..It stopped after upgrading to Mandrake 10.
Windows 2000 never once, in three years, crashed on me at all (except when I was doing things that I fully expected to bring it down, and you can crash any OS if you try). Since I 'upgraded' to XP I've had no end of problems. It was ever so.

Cheers,
Rat.

[Whyatica]

Originally posted by ratcomp1974

Windows 2000 never once, in three years, crashed on me at all (except when I was doing things that I fully expected to bring it down, and you can crash any OS if you try). Since I 'upgraded' to XP I've had no end of problems. It was ever so.

Cheers,
Rat.

I haven't had many problems with XP at all. 98 was a buggy little thing.

[Beanbag]

OK, I'll bite on FireFox. Been reading up on all the CWS problems on the "Smash my computer" thread, went and looked at the HijackThis site, and noticed the one common element seemed to be that almost EVERYTHING went after IE.

I've got FF loaded on the destop machine in the living room, and will check it out for a couple of days before I load it on my other five machines. So far, I like what I see, especially the fact that I can mousewheel the text up to larger sizes than with IE. My eyes aren't what they used to be, so hopefully there will be fewer misspellings. (Personal note -- bifocals suck when using a computer: guaranteed headache for at least an hour).

Regards;
Beanbag

[Whyatica]

I love tabbed browsing. It makes multitasking possible without opening 500 FireFox windows.

[Sindai]

Originally posted by Zep
You can individually allow popups to work on a per-site basis with Firefox (Tools, Options, Web Features to get to the control area). All popups are blocked by default, but you can whitelist the sites you want to work. This is actually on a per-user basis if you have NT, 2K, or XP. Have done so with my bank - works fine now.

Actually, every time FF blocks a popup a small blue-circle-with-a-white-i-in-it icon appears at the far left of the status bar. Click on the icon and it opens a window containing a list of the sites whose popups were blocked on the current page, and you can whitelist any of those sites from there. Very handy.

FF also seems to be quite clever about knowing when I *do* want a given popup window to open. I only very rarely have to enabled popups manually.

[Zep]

Originally posted by Sindai

Actually, every time FF blocks a popup a small blue-circle-with-a-white-i-in-it icon appears at the far left of the status bar. Click on the icon and it opens a window containing a list of the sites whose popups were blocked on the current page, and you can whitelist any of those sites from there. Very handy.

FF also seems to be quite clever about knowing when I *do* want a given popup window to open. I only very rarely have to enabled popups manually. Cool tip! However I run FF at full screen (F11), and the status bar is not visible then. Point to note for new users.

[Oleron]

More info on this problem with the narrowed post reply box.

If you use Opera 7.11 to view the forum, it allows you to change the 'Identify Browser As' property on the fly - as you are browsing.

The default is IE6, and Opera displays the post text box fine in this setting.

Changed to 'Mozilla 3.0' and reloaded, text box narrowed slightly.

Changed to 'Mozilla 4.78' and reloaded, text box narrowed further.

Changed to 'Mozilla 5.0' and reloaded, text box narrowed further to the same size as Firefox.

Changed to 'Opera' and text box widened to almost same size as IE6.

In all cases the scroll bar remained in the text box.

Definitely a browser ID problem then. Since a lot of members are now using non-IE browsers, can the forum techies do something about this?

[iain]

Another forum I post in - www.linuxquestions.org uses the same vBulletin software and has a nice wide text entry window with Firefox so maybe someone can look at their code (or ask them) and just copy it across to here.

[Oleron]

Great idea Iain.

[ceptimus]

Unlikely to happen, as Jeff's efforts are going into preparing the new FuseTalk forum software. vBulletin will be gone from here once Dell supplies a decent server, and we can make the jump to light speed. :D

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by ceptimus
Unlikely to happen, as Jeff's efforts are going into preparing the new FuseTalk forum software. vBulletin will be gone from here once Dell supplies a decent server, and we can make the jump to light speed. :D
Ceptimus, would you happen to know if the switch to FuseTalk transfers all the vBulletin databases to the new software. If FuseTalk and vBulletin are not created and designed by the same group, I wouldnt imagine it be possible.

[Underemployed]

Why should it take long, it's just loading a few disks isn't it? At least that's what our customers seem to think most of the time.

It is a universal law that ANY change of platform will ALWAYS take longer than planned and cause unforseen problems.

Or maybe I'm too cynical...

[Cleopatra]

I have a question. Although I have made FireFox my main browser when I log in PalTalk the pop-up windows load in IE and they cause a mess. Is it possible to fix that?

Thanks.

As Zep has predicted, I got used to the narrow window. This is what is really nasty in life folks, you can get used of everything even of the indifference that some people show.

[Rat]

No, as far as I know, it's not. Paltalk is loaded with adware, and there's nothing you can do about it. It will pop up IE windows on startup, then every now and then on exit. It runs IE directly, rather than just a URL to the default browser.

Cheers,
Rat.

[Cleopatra]

Thanks Rat and it seems that there is no pop-up killer to deal with those windows.

[Rat]

I haven't really looked into it, but it may be possible to prevent IE running at all. If you could set a policy to prevent it, you could knock up a script to switch it on and off.

Or I may be naïve to imagine that you can take IE out of Windows.

Cheers,
Rat.

[NightG1]

As a Mac user, my browser choices are not quite as limited as other types of cross-platform apps like games and the like. Apple would really prefer I use Safari but I keep coming back to plain-old Mozilla with the Afterglow theme. I even use the built-in mail client instead of Mail - the OSX mail client. I have tried Firefox and keep the app shortcut on my dock but I prefer Mozilla for reasons I can't really explain.

[Riddick]

The standalone Mozilla Firebird browser has been renamed to Firefox and received an upgrade to version 0.8.