Convince Me To Switch to Firefox

**Sarah** · Mar 25, 2004, 11:04

Guys - minor warning - agree to disagree maybe. Different Browsers suit different people, Opera is good, so is Firefox, good and bad points all around. But please this has been a great thread lets not ruin it by it ending up in a slagging match.

I am sure its made a few Firefox converts and Opera converts in its time, and if we can keep it going maybe a few more.

So tell us the links for added extra, hints and tips, but remember not everyone is going to agree with you

Thanks

**DougBTX** · Mar 25, 2004, 11:07

Originally Posted by Rynoguill

who wants to use their mouse? switching between tabs is as easy as ctrl-tab (hey, its even got the tab key in it, for tab, dang now thats intuitive)

Ctrl-tab also works in Opera, as does simply pressing the "2" button. Pressing "1" sends you in the other direction allong the tabs. Probably not as intuitive as Ctrl-tab, but it works better.

if you dont PAY MONEY for opera, youve got that nice big rotating flashing banner add at the top

I've got money to pay for niceties, that isn't really an issue. The text banner isn't as big as the old banner either (it takes up about as much vertical space as the menu bar), though I leave it turned off. If you can't afford Opera, then I guess it would be a factor.

Later,
Douglas

For the record: My tab bar is 26px high, if it was less than that I wouldn't be able to fit in the favicon things.

**Winged Spider** · Mar 25, 2004, 11:38

Why?

Plenty of reasons:

Take a look at my second toolbar. I've got external applications that I use the most, makes it easier to access programs right from your browser.

To right of those buttons is my buttons for my RSS reader which you can see on the left sidebar. This makes Firefox a must have. I don't have to check pages for updates anymore, I just boot up the RSS and find what's new. That's how I got to this thread.

To the right of that you see a CSS button. This allows me to edit CSS in real time OR make a page easier to view all live. Don't like reading a lot of text on a black background? 20 seconds of CSS editing and your done. Text too small? Not anymore.

The Calender is next which is pretty useful although I don't rely on it that much seeing as this program is still in beta. Gives me a quick and easy way to remember deadlines.

The next button is for a quick note panel. Quick note basically allows me to edit a text file from my side bar. The coolest part of this extension is you can pic the location of the text file. Everybody in the office shares the same text files. Making communication, to-do lists, content sharing 10x easier than before. We've used other solutions for this but none offer the kind of flexability that this does.

The Toolbar with Load Form can save form values that you've entered. Very useful for testing. Google's autofill does a good job too but you can't store different values. This let's me have a selection of testing "customers" when I'm changing code on a shopping cart system.

Next toolbar is a standard google bar without the pagerank. Not a biggy. It gives me the power of the google toolbar right on Firefox. One cool thing this add's is a button for dictionary searches.

The best toolbar in the world is next. I won't even attempt to list the cool features this one has. It's such a power tool that I'm quickly becomming very attatched too. I don't know what I'd do without it sometimes. Makes Web Developing easier and quicker.
http://www.chrispederick.com/work/firefox/webdeveloper/

Those are mostly extensions that I encourage non-Firefox users to check out. That's what make Firefox so useful. I wouldn't be using it without these.

Another really cool feature of Firefox is it's "dynamic bookmarks". I'm suffering from lack of sleep right now so Ill just show you examples.

If I type in "php sleep()" in my address bar it will immediately search php.net for sleep(). If I type in "php doggy" it will search php.net for the term doggy. I've got one set up for sitepoint.com too. I type in "sp Firefox" and I search sitepoint for the term Firefox.

Basically you set a keyword and replace a post value with %s. The default installation comes with Google's bookmark with this enabled. Check it out.

Install the extensions, give it a couple weeks, and you'll be wishing you switched sooner. I have Firefox in my startup folder now. It gives me everything I need from a single program window. If they added instant messenger support I'd be in heaven. Also recent builds can integrate your Inbox into a side panel. Talk about a all in one solution.

**DougBTX** · Mar 25, 2004, 12:01

Have to say I've not heard of half those extensions - that really is the Firefox advantage. Can you send some links to where to find those extensions?

Douglas

**Winged Spider** · Mar 25, 2004, 12:10

Originally Posted by DougBTX

Have to say I've not heard of half those extensions - that really is the Firefox advantage. Can you send some links to where to find those extensions?

Douglas

http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/

**Firestorm2003** · Mar 25, 2004, 12:36

I'm just hooked on IE. I'm so used to it and I don't want to leave it (sounds like a relationship

).

**Rynoguill** · Mar 25, 2004, 13:02

Originally Posted by Firestorm2003

I'm just hooked on IE. I'm so used to it and I don't want to leave it (sounds like a relationship

).

poor chap, i know what its like to be in a relationship like that. if nothing else, do yourself a favor and just install firefox (and opera for that matter) in addition to your ie. just so youll know what youre missing. remember what i always say, just because youre on a diet, doesnt mean you cant look at the menu. i promise, ie wont get upset with you, and if you dont, youll always wonder, what if?...

**Firestorm2003** · Mar 25, 2004, 13:24

LOL. I see your point, so I'll install Firefox and browse around for a while, and see what I think.

**Winged Spider** · Mar 25, 2004, 13:43

Grab the extensions and play with them. I used to be a diehard IE fan for a long time until I discovered the power of extentions.

I forgot to mention another really nice extension. There's a extension that adds a right click menu choice of "copy image to clipboard". Really nice when you have to make quick changes to a image and don't want to crawl through FTP.

**Rynoguill** · Mar 25, 2004, 13:43

Originally Posted by Firestorm2003

LOL. I see your point, so I'll install Firefox and browse around for a while, and see what I think.

glad to hear it!

just dont tell ie, what it doesnt know wont hurt it. i mean, its not really cheating is it?

seriously, youll be glad you did, especially if youre a webdeveloper and you get those extensions that everyones been talking about in this thread.

**Firestorm2003** · Mar 25, 2004, 14:39

I've installed it, it's very good! It's now my primary browser.

Though I'll be getting some themes for it - not to keen on the default theme.

**Rynoguill** · Mar 25, 2004, 14:52

ataboy, i knew you would like it. [thinks to himself, i wonder if firefox has a payroll... j/k]

i use bluestreak, its a very concise theme, maximizing your page realestate

**megamanXplosion** · Mar 25, 2004, 15:03

Originally Posted by tonyskyday

So, let me get this straight:

Good UI = hard to use at first

It really depends on your experience with using different browsers. If you're just now starting to get away from Internet Explorer, you'll be stepping into a whole different interface where things are named differently and you're presented with about 20+ more buttons than what you're used to. It can be overwhelming at first. If you're suggesting trying a different browser for the first time will come as second-nature, then you're wrong. I remember when my Dad got on here (IE user). He went to the address bar and typed 'japanese teahouse' to do a search and I was like "press g then space before that to search Google", he looked at me and said "why do I need to press the g then space? I thought you said this was easier. God forbid I can just type what I want to search for!". The interface is very different compared to other browsers and some people adjust faster than others

Bad UI = works the way you expect it to

Would you like to point out where I said Mozilla had a bad interface? Sure, the options can be organized a little better, besides that, I have no complaints about the actual interface. It's the shortcuts that I'm not provided with that Opera gives me, that aggrevate me about FireFox

I guess the difference between you and me is that you think Opera is awesome and that Mozilla Firefox sucks (fair enough viewpoint!), whereas I think they are both good browsers, but I prefer Firefox. For one thing, all I need is a browser, I don't need all the other things.

I never said that FireFox sucks. I said that once you're used to using Opera, the other browsers just don't seem as user-friendly. If you're switching from Internet Explorer to FireFox then yeah, it'll be user-friendly, but if you're switching from Opera to Mozilla then you quickly realize how much you're missing. I should also point out that you don't need to use the "other things". You can remove them from your interface and they will not take up memory or GDI resources. Opera's email client, news aggregator, and IRC client, is supplied using only a 200kb DLL which, last I heard, you could delete and Opera will adjust the interface accordingly by removing the mail and chat menus (you can't do this in 7.23, the 7.5 previews have this functionality)

EDIT: WingedSpider, could you please remove the large image in your post and just link to it? You're making this thread a REAL pain to read...

**Firestorm2003** · Mar 25, 2004, 15:05

Originally Posted by Rynoguill

ataboy, i knew you would like it. [thinks to himself, i wonder if firefox has a payroll... j/k]

i use bluestreak, its a very concise theme, maximizing your page realestate

Sounds cool. Link?

**Rynoguill** · Mar 25, 2004, 15:11

http://www.texturizer.net/firefox/themes/

Either mozdev.org is down or a JavaScript Error has occurred.

something must be wrong right now, check that link later, you should see it.

hrm...

**Mike** · Mar 25, 2004, 15:12

Firefox has the Google toolbar?!

Hmmm...

/downloads

**vgarcia** · Mar 25, 2004, 15:44

Originally Posted by naramation

Firefox has the Google toolbar?!

Searching yes (it's had the google search for quite a long time), but no PageRank. That's one of the things I still use IE for.

**Mike** · Mar 25, 2004, 15:53

Oh, nevermind

**The New Guy** · Mar 25, 2004, 17:06

http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/arts/reasons.html

**tonyskyday** · Mar 25, 2004, 18:56

Originally Posted by megamanXplosion

I remember when my Dad got on here (IE user)....

I've had similar conversations with people just showing them standard IE features!

Originally Posted by megamanXplosion

Would you like to point out where I said Mozilla had a bad interface?

I'm thinking I got what you said and what someone else said mixed up, sorry.

At any rate, I think we somewhat made the same "to each his own" point.

One thing I would say is, if any one out there is still just using IE, download Opera and/or Firefox, because IE has fallen so far behind the curve that it is just plain rediculous.

I, for one never minded the ads on Opera. They are pretty easy to just ignore, since they are in a part of the browser window you would seldom look at anyway.

**neodur** · Mar 25, 2004, 19:40

The download manager in Firefox gives you a finger.

(Please take this as a pro-IE point.)

**Rynoguill** · Mar 25, 2004, 19:41

Originally Posted by neodur

The download manager in Firefox gives you a finger.

lol, not this again. that really takes a lot of imagination or a very quick look. whats even funnier is someone actually submitted that to bugzilla, lol

**megamanXplosion** · Mar 25, 2004, 22:31

Originally Posted by The New Guy

http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/arts/reasons.html

Compare almost ANY new browser against IE and it'll more than likely win

I think that a better comparison chart would be Mozilla VS Opera

**tonyskyday** · Mar 25, 2004, 22:41

I remember one thing I really liked about Opera.

As I recall, in the upper right-hand corner, just above the viewpane, there is a dropdown box that lets you zoom in or out of a web page (that is veiw it at 110% or 90% or whatever). I did find that very handy on occasion.

For instance, if I went to a site that had large photos where it was more important to see the whole photo than to see the details, I could zoom out and see it all. It was pretty cool

**megamanXplosion** · Mar 25, 2004, 23:00

Yep, Opera's zooming engine is the best IMO.

Internet Explorer can barely change the size of text (it reacts differently according to the measurement used).

Mozilla is a little bit better, but it will zoom text so that sometimes the container will stretch (the DIV/Span/Table/Whatever) and sometimes the text will just overflow into another section. If you have black text on a white background, then reversed colors in your navigation panel on the right, then everything becomes unreadable. Another example if you have absolutely positioned some text on the page above your content and then you zoom in, the absolutely positioned text will overflow into the content area overlapping the lines of text. I can mention more problems with this method. Their implementation basically voids out the whole purpose of the feature.

In Opera everything zooms, not just text. It will always work, text doesn't overlap, the images can be zoomed out if they're too big too see, etc. I can't think of any drawbacks with this method.

btw Tony, there's a shortcut to do zooming in both FireFox and Opera. Hold Ctrl then use the middle mouse wheel. I find that it's much faster to find the preferred setting this way

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