Is Firefox & Thunderbird better than IE & Outlook?

[Nanaki]

Again, since I made my family switch to Firefox, i had ZERO viruses.

Now that's proof. =p

[Bâshrat the Sneaky]

Again, since I made my family switch to Firefox, i had ZERO viruses.

Now that's proof. =p

That's the best proof indeed! Because - in general - 'the family' isn't exactly smart when it comes to security issues... (read: which settings to enable/disable)

[matrix0978]

Yeah my computer internet runs smoothly and no problems with and i have firefox.... but my parents arnt the computer savy so they still use the IE ewwww....

[m8E]

I've just started using Firefox and am getting used to how it works, the tabs are handy yet they are taking a little getting used to because after using IE I forget the tabs are there and keep looking at the bottom of the screen for the other windows however that's just because I'm new to Firefox I guess.

One thing I have been looking for on Firefox which was in IE is how to put a shortcut onto the desktop. With IE I could click on "File", "Send" and then "shortcut to desktop" and a shortcut would appear on the desktop, but I've not yet found how to do that with Firefox.

Also with Firefox is there any way to get rid of Google search toolbar?

[aadipa]

I am using mixture of IE without opening IE and Firefox.

I mean I use Maxthon and Firefox

Though i prefer Maxthon coz it have all features of Firefox, plus it is compatible with the sites i need to surf (eg. www.icicidirect.com)

With firefox it simple don't open any link.

Though for some sites Firefox works like charm, fast. eg. Yahoo Mail.

So its 50-50 for me. But if u tell me to choose only 1, I will go for Maxthon for sure.

About Mail Client, I have Outlook 2003, does all the job for me. So never tried other clients. May be i will try The Bat in few weeks.

[meno]

Firefox is the only way to go, much faster especially with the "Tweak Network Settings" extension. IE only beats it in the initial load since its integrated with explorer.exe

[Jeremy]

Even BlackViper made a statement long ago about switching from OE to Thunderbird and said he was very impressed.

[prathapml]

about opera:

• prathapml did I miss any cool feature
  

Millions probably.

I still keep discovering new features in opera even 5 years after having started to use it.

- Most important, just works, no s***

- unattending friendly

- all settings in one place - if you want you can delete it and be back to a virgin browser...

- the page reload every X seconds feature

- the facility to show status bar in address bar is super cool! (you can't type in new address until the page you've asked for comes up - very useful for old people who just can't see the progress bar and will keep clicking "Go".

- easily isolate a frame and load it in new page.

- pages that remove your toolbars and leave you only with title-bar? A ctrl-F8 and its all back.

- Its hell of a lot easier to save images (especially when you have lot of large images to save as in you-know-what)

- copy text to opera notes. and then find the text from search there.

- ability to restrict to only one total window (any more windows will open as tabs)

- ability to restrict memory usage

- fast and light out-of-the-box. No firewall needed, opera can be a stone wall if you choose so. And no virus EVER slips through it.

- gives maximum screen space for YOUR perusal

- its search is great, its bookmarks is great (by default!)

- the integrated downloader is very cool - go to a site, start download. Then stop it and copy the link to file and paste into a full-fledged download manager

- resumable downloader is part of opera!

- comes with a good set of color schemes by default and has loads more online

- ties in properly into your windows, just like IE could.

- the tabbed browsing is ten orders of magnitude better than anything seen in others (click your current tab and it will show you what tab you were seeing before that)

- ability to change browser identity (identify as IE/mozilla/opera/etc.)

- ability to stop checking re-directed pages for updates. Supercool thing that you can't find anywhere - effectively this means that a dynamic page that is generated everytime you visit, can still be loaded instantly with its previous contents - of course even a kid knows to refresh when needed.

- ability to load only cached images. Another supercool feature never seen anywhere. I've seen load images, I've seen don't load images. But this is something BETWEEN the two! Displays whatever images have already come into your cache!

- per-page image loading settings - this is a WONDERFUL feature NEVER seen anywhere (i.e., you can have tab1 and tab2 with images on, and tab3 with images off, and tab4 with cached-image status. And when you spawn another window from tab3 by clicking a link or something, the newly created tab remembers that its parent had images turned off!)

- The wand feature... the per-server maintain details feature...

- the "open last closed tab" feature (Ctrl-Z)

- an email app and IRC and hell lot more integrated - all of them pretty good.

- the concept of saving "sessions" (to save all open tabs to be opened later in groups)

- Opera-show!

- kiosk-mode!

- The inline find is also very light - just press the forward slash when focus is in empty space

- fit large pages into window!

- on-the-fly zoom up and down

- Ability to clear all private data at once.

- ability to see pages how YOU want it (you can setup a custom CSS)

- hide it into the system tray easily! (Ctrl + H).

- the level of detail about page loading it shows..... unbeatable

- check for standards compliance on-the-fly (very useful for web devs)

- it can ask for confirmation whern exiting, and all of this is configurable!

- site navigation special toolbar for sites that support it

- deal with entire page just as easily as with individual frames on it

- fantastically simple interface and fantastic power beneath it! (you can make it look as complex as you want, if you were mad)

- gmail supported

- an F12 to quickly set global prefs

- you can add more menu configurations and switch on-the-fly

- mouse gestures

- voice-enabled browsing control

- pop-up blocking

- configure java/javascript to be exactly how you want it

- can disable mail/chat if you don't use those functions of opera

- supports 7 protocols as compared to far less in competing browsers

- micro-level cookie and referrer management

- all of the above is in the standard install! no need of friggin extensions for each new feature you want

- most of what is mentioned above is features that differentiate opera over other browsing suites. Opera obviously contains all the standard functions seen in any modern browsing suite.

- looks like a lot of bloat? its fantastically light and occupies as little as 2 MB of memory!

- just a 4 MB installer as compared to other browsers

And lots more that I can't possibly type since I don't have whole day to waste, lol. To put it in very simple words, its too painful to use any other browser after the ease you get accustomed to with Opera! Try the browser for yourself and see. It beats the pants off any **** browser any day. Opera lovers, unite!

Seeing all the above, firefox really stands nowhere. There's approximately ZERO reasons for opera users to migrate elsewhere. And that long-standing grouse about opera being ad-funded, you can't really fault it (since it keeps them alive to bring you better products). Its just a line of text for god's sake - if you don't want it, purchase a license key!

# Really can't stop laughing at firefox fanboys who don't even know its heritage comes from mozilla. I've even seen firefox idiots flaming mozilla users - The height of militant open-source evangelism! And people who are sick of IE and run to Maxthon are silly as well - if features was what they lacked, then its fine - but these sillies are claiming maxthon makes them more secure/blah-blah which you guys definitely know to be the wrong notion (Maxthon is 100% IE at its heart, its just a shell for IE).

[aadipa]

And that long-standing grouse about opera being ad-funded, you can't really fault it (since it keeps them alive to bring you better products). Its just a line of text for god's sake - if you don't want it, purchase a license key!

1 more way to block ads on opera...

use firewall and configure it to block all traffic of opera to www.opera.com

it works, at least worked for me when i was using opera.

[prathapml]

Oh, interesting.... but I doubt that most people will do it, because

- most ads are from google actually

- if you love opera you will support it

- if you block their homepage how can you download new versions, or get help, etc. (proxies? lol)

Anyways, seeing fresh ideas is a good thing. Thanks, now I'll get the opera devs to change how the ads work, lol (to prevent blocking).

[m8E]

Something I'm still wanting to find out with Firefox which I mentioned earlier, I'm looking how to put any website shortcut onto my computer desktop using Firefox, with IE I was able to click on "File", "Send" and then "shortcut to desktop" and then a shortcut appears on the desktop but I've not yet found how to put any website shortcut onto my desktop using Firefox. Any ideas?

[m8E]

I've not been using Firefox for long but so far I've found that in general Firefox has been running slightly slower than IE, which seems to go against most of what has been said here. The security features which Firefox has are nice and they seem to work well. Also I've not found a way of getting rid of the google bar.

[Alex75]

Guys I don't have a clue about things like proxy servers, networks, or how to configure whatever they are so please be gentle with me! ....

If you have no idea how to set proxy servers up -Proxy Switcher could help you out. I must add that it's not free but it has saved me a lot of time and clicking. :

[m8E]

thanks Alex75, I'll take a look at that

Hey everybody How do a put a website shortcut on my desktop using Firefox?

[Brando569]

IE is the most widely used browser because MS ships it with every version of windows and its installed automatically. most of the people that use it aren't computer literate (all they know is point and click) or are barely computer literate, and you expect them to go into GPedit.msc and set all these permissions? they probably have no idea on how to even get to it! sure IE is good for somethings, but the cons outweigh the pros. i would say 95% of the stuff IE can do Firefox can do it too, if not better! firefox is so much better then IE for these reasons:

1. It's Free and Open Source! (hmm ever wonder why open source programs perform better then closed source programs and have less security flaws? because theres more people to look at it and figure out the flaws! for example look at Linux)

2. firefox is really easy to configure

3. you can download 100's of plugins ranging from displaying the NSA threat level of the USA (or whatever its called) to Ad-Block, which is a wonderful plugin that will block any ad as long as you put in the correct strings, there is a site out there somewhere that the webmaster hosts updated lists of ad block strings

4. Java, JavaScript, ActiveX and that other crap that people use on Warez/porn sites doesnt effect Firefox one bit! no dialers being installed w/o you knowing, no spyware being installed, no ads relentlessly popping up, etc...

as for the OE/outlook and thunderbird battle i have no opinion cuz i have only used OE