Firefox: It's a love-hate thing

[prathapml]

Firefox: It's a love-hate thing

ZDnet blog

Now that I've had some time to use Firefox day-in and day-out for a while, I'm no longer quite so enamored of the browser as I originally was. That said, I'm still using it because, despite its shortcomings, Firefox still light years ahead of the alternatives.

Last week's news that Firefox is cutting into Internet Explorer's (IE) lead came as no surprise. It should also come as no surprise that Microsoft appears to have softened its originally rigid position that IE would not take on any new features. After all, with IE not having been refreshed in what seems like an eternity, a new browser doesn't have to do much in order to get people to try it. Judging by my e-mail, Firefox's optional tabbed interface (as opposed to separate Windows) is the most talked about feature and the one that most clearly separates Mozilla's browser from IE (unless you're using the Maxthon customization of IE). However, Apple's Safari (which is only available on Mac OS X) has a better implementation of tabs. Each Safari tab, in addition to displaying the name of the Web page, also has a close button on it. This allows me to close a tab without right-clicking or switching to it. In Firefox, there's a "close button" for each tab, but you must switch to the tab in order to get to it.

One of Firefox's killer (and I mean that literally) features is its built-in ability to block ads of all types (specific images, third party-served, pop-ups, banner ads, box ads, and even ads based on Macromedia's Flash technology). This feature alone makes Firefox worth the move. Ads are often placed on Web pages by a Web server other than the one you actually visited. For example, Doubleclick.net serves ads into Foxnews.com. By blocking Doubleclick's domain, I not only keep Doubleclick-served ads from appearing on Fox, but all other sites I visit too. You can even import "black lists" from others who have shared their lists with the public. This is a great feature, but Firefox needs more granular control over how such ad servers are blocked. For example, I might want to block the Doubleclick domain from serving ads into some sites, but not others. Having the ability to quickly and selectively "show me the ad that was supposed to be here" is missing as well. (By "here," I mean a region of the screen that was supposed to show an ad but didn't because it was blocked.) Also, the way in which the translucent "Block Ad" button that appears underneath automatically detected ads forces the page to stretch vertically by additional pixels is a poor design choice. Since the button is translucent, my preference would be for it to be displayed in the ad's foreground. That makes it harder to see and advertisers might not like the idea of browsers interfering with their messages, but it only takes a few of these buttons before you might need the browser's scroll bar to see something that might normally have appeared on an unscrolled page.

Another love-hate feature that I see often discussed is Firefox's Live Bookmarks. XML feeds have surfaced since the last time IE was updated, which is why IE doesn't support them the way Firefox does. But after using Firefox on my Mac and setting it up with a bunch of Live Bookmarks (on Windows, I was using Newsgator's plug-in for Outlook), I discovered that the feature is not as manageable as I'd like it to be. For example, there's no easy way to set polling intervals so that, instead of constantly looking for new content, the feature only goes to certain feeds once a day or once a week. What's the big deal, you ask? Well, the big deal is that when I deleted all of my Live Bookmarks, I noticed a considerable slowdown to my PowerBook's fan (which can blow like a hurricane when the processor gets hot). This to me was an indication that Firefox's Live Bookmarks feature has a healthy appetite for processor cycles. With newer, faster Powerbooks that don't break a sweat, this may not be as much of a problem. But, it doesn't take much to whip up a storm with the fan in my first generation 867 Mhz G4-based 12-incher (if you have any experience in pushing these systems beyond their 640 MB RAM limit, please let me know).

Finally, there are Firefox's pre-programmed search engines. When I downloaded Firefox for the Mac, the only version I could find was the British version. I don't mind the British spellings of words like "Minimise" and "Favourites." But I'd rather have the pre-programmed search engines take me to google.com instead of google.co.uk. In the drop-down menu where you can select which of the pre-programmed search engines to use for your next search, there's a nice menu that says "Add Engines" and by clicking on it, you're taken to a Web site that makes it easy to download more pre-programmed searches. The site has an option for deleting existing ones that tells you how to do it. Instead, there should be a built-in option so Firefox can (as "they" say) just do it.

[SiMoNsAyS]

i have to agree about the tabbed close button, ads and live bookmarks features, don't we forget that firefox is still on deployment and before this month it was a nearly 1.0 version but about the last paragraph... why didn't he downloaded the localized version of firefox?! i downloaded mine and google leaves me in www.google.es.

i would remove the last point and add the thing that i don't need those amazon and e-bay searches and i think most of people didn't need them too, and to reply me: firefox is a FREE alternative and need to be supported this way

let me left it clear: for me, firefox is the best browser ever.

[XtremeMaC]

well okay 1 other thing everyone likes about and i've been hearing about it the short period of time it takes to load a page. that's always a nice feature

well personally i manage to crash all the programs i come across bc of random things, so on IE and firefox if its gone its gone, i won't remember the last pages i was at and nothings saved. but on opera even if it crahes it saves the last windows displayed so even if it crashes on next open i can resume all my windows back,

i don't open 1 window and surf the internet with it, i usually have 5-10 sometimes more tab's at the same time. opera also has nice popup stuff,

if using IE there are many ad killing stuff, they block the ads so that they won't get displayed. i personally don't have a problem with having more than 1 program on my computer to do 1 thing.

I like everything about opera, skins, shortcut tools, tabs, ease of use, everything..

firefox to me seems a little dull,

I also like IE bc there are many programs for it,

1. ad blocking programs (admuncher)

2. password saving programs (roboform)

3. pop up blockers..

4. google/yahoo/etc toolbars.

though i often use opera i sometimes go back to IE. well for single and fast views i open firefox,

[Tarun]

i would remove the last point and add the thing that i don't need those amazon and e-bay searches and i think most of people didn't need them too

You can remove those. Just go to...

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\searchplugins\

I deleted everything except...

1. google.gif
   
2. google.src
   
3. dictionary.png
   
4. dictionary.src
   

So, now I just have those two buttons in my search.

[Zxian]

It is indeed a love-hate relationship with Firefox...

I certainly hope that this doesn't turn into another non-FF bashing thread like there are so many of in this forum.

For those of you who have FF working to your liking, great! Use it!

For those of you who like Opera over FF and other alternatives, great!

For those of you (myself included) who like Maxthon, great!

My interpretation of the talk about different browsers can be paralleled to cars.

Some people just can't get enough of the high-end cars with wood-trim and all the luxuries, including the iPod holder, NAV systems, and other add-ons that you can get for your BMW/Merc. (Most like Firefox, you can always find plugins to suit your needs)

Others like the really lightweight and fast browser alternatives. They use less resources and are usually easier to set up and get going. (Most like Maxthon, pretty much full right out of the box)

And then there's the people who like the big heavy SUV's that can handle just about anything. Get it up and running and take over the webpages that you're surfing on. (Most like Opera, really heavy on resources, but a well developed browser)

For me, I like m Maxthon. It's really bloody fast right "out-of-the-box" so to speak. Have a look at this test rendering page.

http://scragz.com/tech/mozilla/test-rendering-time.php

I picked the link up from another one of Tarun's posts elsewhere.

I've been getting pretty consistent 2.15-2.30's for the most part. Load up the page once and then refresh it. The webpage for some reason starts counting before the whole page has been downloaded.

Just for reference sake, I ended up getting consistent 5.0-5.3's with Opera... I decided to see what xMac and prathapml were talking about. It's a nicely laid out browser, but the 50MB of memory usage by the end of my session (only playing with settings and toolbars) made me cringe...

Just so that no one comes and tries to take off my head. I do enjoy hearing about the new features and abilities of the Firefox and I would like to see it be developed into a better browser. As long as all these programs are freeware, I think that it's really awesome that people can compare the different types of browsers and point out what they like and don't like. I know for one that there are people who have commented on the Maxthon forums about certain aspects or plugins that are available for FF and how they would like to see these features integrated into Maxthon. Likewise for the FF forums.

For the time being, FF just doesn't suit my needs and my likings. Everyone's different in this world, and that's what makes it an interesting place.