So tonight I get a wild hair and download Firefox for a test drive. Anybody else tried it? If it works as advertised, I'll be dumping Internet Explorer from my machine.
All comments welcome!

Dennis, I have been running Firefox now for several months and love it. Really flexable program I am also useing Thunderbird for Email, it how ever I find a bit clumbersom but I am now getting used to it as well. I am by noway a techie but the geek well not that either.

Firefox is slick. Been using in for a few months to develop with on Solaris/Linux/XP it works well on any OS I've had it on.

Scripting it with XUL and javascript is cool. If you go digging around you can find how all of its menus and dialogs are put together.

Jason

So far so good. One thing I notice on my slow dial up service is that while page load times may be close, Firefox tends to load more of the page info before displaying it. But I'm looking into broadband this week. As for e-mail, I've been running Eudora since versions 4.** and really like it.

Jason,
Sounds like you've pretty well run Firefox through it's paces! From what I read on it, the developers really put a lot of work into making it user friendly, yet very flexible and capable for those like yourself. One thing I found good for those with even less computer savey than me, is the help items geared solely for IE users. Short, sweet, and to the point.

Which brings me to one more question. Will Windows XP Pro freak out if I delete IE and Outlook Express? Or should I just tuck them away in the corner, and tell Firefox it's the default browser.

well all the pc's i redo for my cleints get firefox and office 2003 pro in them then i set the acces defaults to to lock out I.E. and outlook express, i've found if you try to delete the program windows get's really mad, and windows update site sometimes will not work with firefox, it's just random though so fire up good old I.E. and get the updates done, also you can replace the icon with the big blue "E" if you want to confuse your freinds and family when they barrow your pc. try www.broadbandreports.com to help you with your high speed search, if speakeasy dsl is available i highly recomend them, I have about 10 places on there dsl line and have never had a problem, now sbc or new edge that a different storry. let me know if you need any other help.

P.S. don't fprget to download all the plugins for firefox.

Thanks! I had a feeling that deleting IE and Outlook might not be a good idea. Already been to broadband reports .com. Lots of good info! Being in a (once) rural area, my choices are limited, and part of my objective is to loose my land line service completly. I can save money by going to a wireless ISP, ditching the land lines, and using my cell phone full time!

I'll second the notion of not deleting IE and outlook. Windows needs IE to function. You don't have to use it or have the icon on your desktop, but it still needs to be there.

Check the tools->extensions menu for plugings. There are all kinds of crazy things that people have written for the 'Gecko' based browsers.

Plugins that work for netscape/mozilla should also work for firefox. I've had trouble with older versions of firefox picking up the flash plugins on XP. shouldn't be that hard to fix, just haven't been motivated. Got the linux version finding its plugins pretty quickly and just stuck with that.

Jason

Sounds like Mozilla has a good thing going with Firefox. I just read they have a near 8% market share for browsers, and the IE has dropped to below the 90% mark. Not too shabby!
I've been running Eudora as my default e-mail program for over a year now, and love it.

I'm interested but still stuck on IE here. But I'd like to check it out for development purposes.

Can it be installed without taking over and becoming a default browser?

Yup, It lives alongside with IE pretty well.

Jason

Never had a problem with it taking over the pc, remember it's not a microsoft or aol product so it plays nice with everybody else

As they said, it runs fine with either Firefox or IE set as the default browser. From what I understand, it is good for developers. (Not that I have a clue how to do any of that stuff!) I did read that AOL is conjuring up their own Netscape based browser. I think they're borrowing a bit from Firefox as well. Heck, Netzero is so anal and paranoid, that you can't set your e-mail program to check an account with them and another ISP at the same time. They somehow block getting mail at all. I darn near never figured that little fiasco out. I tried it with Eudora and Outlook Express. After some reading recently on several hosting service sites, I find that Netzero still does it. Even if it's an account on your own domain!

Since I work in the LPO (Linux Program Office) at a rather large company who uses and makes systems that work with Linux I use Firefox and Mozilla on a daily basis.

I prefer Firefox to IE or Mozilla. However, there are a few sites where things do not behanve correctly because of differences in browser / html interpretations.

Having said that I like it.. I use it at home and on my laptop.

- Shawn

Yup ... I love Mozilla, been using it for almost 2 years. Whats a pop-up Extensions like Foxy Tune to control media players, Single window, Status bar clock, Autohide make Firefox even more loveable

I've been using Firefox and Eudora at home for quite some time. I only use IE when it's absolutely necessary.

Hiya Dennis, you wont regret Firefox or the mail client iirc it is called thunderbird, they have been working beautifully for me for several months, no issues with ie , I left IE in (on xp) for the few sites that are tuned for ie only. (yechh)

quote:

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Originally posted by maxwell417:
Yup ... I love Mozilla, been using it for almost 2 years. Whats a pop-up Extensions like Foxy Tune to control media players, Single window, Status bar clock, Autohide make Firefox even more loveable

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On "What's a pop-up!!!! Hadn't had time to go rooting around and see what all Firefox can actually do. Once I get broadband, I'll have to go download some more fun stuff for it.

quote:

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Originally posted by derf:
I've been using Firefox and Eudora at home for quite some time. I only use IE when it's absolutely necessary.

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I knew I should have just picked up the phone and ask to meet you at Scotty's Diner and talk about this stuff! Have you downloaded Xp Service Pack 2 yet??? It took me several evenings to put everything back in place after Service Pack 1 decided to rearrange all my files. I'm still finding settings and such that it jacked with.

DO NOT DOWNLOAD SP2!! every computer that i've put it in is messed up! the only way i've been lucky with it is to do a fresh install go sp1 then sp2 or do a slip streamed install with sp2 already in place.

quote:

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Originally posted by Dennis Mitchell:
I knew I should have just picked up the phone and ask to meet you at Scotty's Diner and talk about this stuff! Have you downloaded Xp Service Pack 2 yet??? It took me several evenings to put everything back in place after Service Pack 1 decided to rearrange all my files. I'm still finding settings and such that it jacked with.

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What few things I'm running on Windoze, I'm still using 2000. I'm not sold on XP. My server is getting a fresh install of Linux now that I've got the components I need. My desktop PC will get cleaned with a dual boot so I can develop my TBI tuning software in both Windoze and Linux.