Firefox 3 and Extensions You can't live without

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

Okay. Just so I can show my uber Luddite cred: What is Firefox?

i'm just going to assume that was a joke, because i could never vote for someone who doesn't know what firefox is. please tell me you're not actually using <shudder> IE. you do realize that demon spawn masquerading as a browser is anathema to us webdesigners, right ?

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by pshrynk

Okay. Just so I can show my uber Luddite cred: What is Firefox?

Short answer: Arguably the best web browser in existance.

Long answer: a descendant of Netscape Navigator. Back when, Netscape decided to create the next generation web browser, as a replacement for their Netscape Communicator product. It was to be a complete rewrite of the existing code. Netscape called the project Mozilla. They made it open source, and invited outside developers to get involved.

Development took a couple of years, but Mozilla code eventually surfaced in Netscape 7. (There was a terribly buggy Netscape 6 release which is better forgotten.) Meanwhile, AOL acquired Netscape, and eventually decided to cancel the project and lay off most of the developers. They turned over the code, the rights to the code, the servers used in development, and a couple of million in seed funds to the newly created non-profit Mozilla Foundation, and development continued.

Mozilla issued the Mozilla suite, which was identical to Netscape 7 save for branding and a few features like integration with AOL IM.

The Mozilla developers rethought the premises, decided not everybody wanted a full suite with browser, email/news reader, HTML editor, and Calendar ala Netscape Communicator/Mozilla suite, and began work on separating the pieces as independent products which could be installed individually but work together if more than one was installed.

The browser became Firefox. The email client/newsreader is Thunderbird. The Calender is Sunbird, and the HTML editor is Nvu. Development of the full Mozilla suite was stopped, and has since been resumed as a "community" project called SeaMonkey, hosted by Mozilla but worked on by volunteers, and not part of the mainstream development.

Firefox is promoted as a much more secure alternative to Internet Explorer. Too many folks use holes in Windows, IE, and the Active-X mechanism to create exploits targeting IE. Firefox deliberately doesn't support Active-X, so such exploits bounce off.

I appreciate the security, but prefer Firefox because it's more powerful. Under the hood of FF is Gecko, the rendering engine that interprets the HTML and actually displays the page you are viewing. As well as HTML, Gecko understands CSS, JAvaScript, and XUL, a language designed for creating user interfaces. The actual "look and feel" of Mozilla products is determined by XUL, CSS, and graphic elements, with JavaScript providing the actions.

Developers can use XUL, CSS, JavaScript and custom graphics to create themes that alter the way Firefox looks, and extensions that modify and enhance what it does. Many have, and there are literally thousands of FF extensions in existence. This thread lists the favorites of various posters.

Give it a try. I think you'll be pleased.
______
Dennis

[igorsk]

Why IE when you have Opera

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by igorsk

Why IE when you have Opera

Why IE when you have just about anything else?
______
Dennis

[zelda_pinwheel]

gah, opera. it drives me crazy. in gmail, if i click the "open message in new window" in the ajax interface (or javascript or whatever it is), the new window can't go outside of the original window. what is the point of opening a link in a new window, if you can't have 2 of them side by side ??? i ask you. plus opera seems to have a few display anomalies of its very own when it comes to displaying html and css code... i can remember one site in particular where i had to write a couple of css rules just for opera to get the nav to display correctly.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Why IE when you have just about anything else?
______
Dennis

yes you're right, *that* is the real question.

[astra]

Hmm. I am using IE only.

I have Firefox as well but i have not noticed anything special about it to give up on IE.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by astra

Hmm. I am using IE only.

I have Firefox as well but i have not noticed anything special about it to give up on IE.

that sound you hear is millions of webdesigners around the world, screaming in pain.

also, every time you launch IE for anything other than testing purposes, a fairy dies.

perhaps you should re-read Dennis' fine post just above ; he explains it far better than i could (first because he clearly knows a lot more about the technology, and second because if i tried it would just degenerate into an incoherent tirade of abuse. IE is reason number 1 why Bill Gates is On My List (before the BSOD !!).

[vivaldirules]

Originally Posted by astra

Hmm. I am using IE only.

I have Firefox as well but i have not noticed anything special about it to give up on IE.

Apparently, you and pshwynk and I are the only ones on this planet not using FF. I will have to give it a geaux. Man your hovercrafts! Unload the eels! Let's go!

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by astra

Hmm. I am using IE only.

I have Firefox as well but i have not noticed anything special about it to give up on IE.

*sigh*

You obviously haven't really looked.

Firefox is probably the most standards compliant browser. IE has web developers tearing their hair because it isn't standards compliant, and requires all sorts of work-arounds to get things to render correctly that work fine in other browsers. (CSS support is a particular problem.) It's also insecure as hell, even in IE 7, which was supposedly the big security fix release. IE 8 (with beta 1 available) is supposedly the big standards compliance release. I expect it to improve standards compliance about as well as IE 7 improved security -- not enough.

Firefox is the most secure browser, and the most powerful. Look at the Sidebar (which is sort of IE Favorites on steroids - all sorts of things besides bookmarks can go in the Sidebar.) Look at the thousands of extensions which have been written to alter and enhance the way FF works. (I posted some of my favorites previously.) Look at the number of themes available to change the appearance, if your taste runs to eye candy and skinning.

But mostly, just take a closer look.
______
Dennis

[zelda_pinwheel]

heed the... um... space-alien / astronaut bunny, y'all (there's a sentence i never expected to say). is a wise, wise bunny. will go far in life and make many friends among webdesigners and developpers everywhere.

[astra]

Of course I cannot argue about security or internals of the browsers.

However, I don't care how it looks like. I never use any side bars or tool bars because I hate them. They litter the screen. I like to have the most of my screen available for my web browsing.
Right now I am typing in Firefox and I cannot say the its interface is any better than IE.

I don't really understand why do I need this huge list of add ons if IE does just what it is supposed to do - surf the net. I have yet to find one single website IE cannot open.

Anyway, I am going to give it another try again. I just installed better gmail into my FF 2 and imported bookmarks from IE Favourites. We will see how it goes.

So far, I had to use IE do download the add-on because FF declined to download it even when I clicked on "allow" so ironically, I had to start IE to download add-on.

P.S. I also find IE interface a lot more intuitive than FF.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

heed the... um... space-alien / astronaut bunny, y'all (there's a sentence i never expected to say). is a wise, wise bunny. will go far in life and make many friends among webdesigners and developpers everywhere.

Just for the record, the avatar is Glenda the bunny. Glenda is the logo of the AT&T Plan 9 OS project, at http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/

Plan 9's name derives from "Plan 9 from Outer Space" by the late Ed Wood, arguably the worst SF film ever made.

I encountered Glenda, and said "A logo for a cool open source OS project, whose name is based on an SF film. What's not to like?" and grabbed it as my avatar in forums like this. (I had fun on another forum asking folks to identify the source. No one did.)
______
Dennis

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Just for the record, the avatar is Glenda the bunny. Glenda is the logo of the AT&T Plan 9 OS project, at http://plan9.bell-labs.com/plan9/

Plan 9's name derives from "Plan 9 from Outer Space" by the late Ed Wood, arguably the worst SF film ever made.

I encountered Glenda, and said "A logo for a cool open source OS project, whose name is based on an SF film. What's not to like?" and grabbed it as my avatar in forums like this. (I had fun on another forum asking folks to identify the source. No one did.)
______
Dennis

ha, excellent story ! i like it even better now. (i liked it before already. space-alien / astronaut bunny : what's not to like ??)

[zelda_pinwheel]

downloading now. will install tomorrow, prolly.