I've finally became a dedicated Firefox user.
After trying for days to get into the Air Canada site to book a flight to Affiliate Summit West, and always getting the message “Internet Explorer' cannot open the Internet site…” it finally occurred to me that the problem (for once) wasn't Air Canada, but my Internet Explorer browser.
I cracked open Firefox and voila! I got into Air Canada no problem, so I set Firefox as my default browser.
One of the aspects that I didn't appreciate about Firefox before, I now view as an asset.
Firefox is really temperamental in how it reads CSS and HTML coding. For example, the standard old hspace and vspace coding for images does nothing in Firefox and therefore aligns the images directly adjacent to text, which looks like hell.
So, what I've found in using Firefox regularly to check my coding is that if your page looks proper in that browser, it will look good in Explorer, which isn't nearly so picky about coding.
One thing you should know however, is that you might have troubles copying and pasting into your web-based applications using Firefox.
That's easily overcome by typing “about:config” into the address bar, and double-clicking on “signed.applets.codebase_principal_support“. When you double-click, it bolds the line. After doing that, close and re-open your Firefox browser window. Now you can copy and paste to your heart's content.
Perhaps the best reason NOT to use Internet Explorer at this point are its known security issues – a bug which Microsoft confirms is within all its browsers and puts “users running any of those browsers on Windows 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003 or Server 2008 at risk“.
Hello Firefox!!!
OK, go ahead. Tell me you told me so. 🙂
Comments, questions or suggestions? Please leave a comment below!
Cheers,
FF is way better than IE. It’s nice that google have come up with this. I really like its search engine because it’s brief and should i say precise when giving it’s results. And that “SEO for FF” is very helpful. I’m also using the Google Chrome, really cool. Just a tip, if possible avoid saving/remembering password especially to your important accounts like your e-mails, paypal/moneybookers or other bank accounts. I had a friend who got hacked with his mail password and the hacker was able to get some money from his electronic bank account. Remembering password feature is helpful but security comes first.
Tom
FFox is much better than IE.
Great extensions are:
WOT – Web Of Trust
All-in-one-Gestures
Brief
Custom Buttons
Delicious Bookmarks
Download Them All
Fast Video Download
Image Fetcher
Menu Editor
Minimize To Tray Enhancer
Minimize To Tray
Stumble Upon
Shipper
Thanks for sharing info with us
You might enjoy taking a test drive of SeaMonkey the all in one suite from Mozilla. As an old Netscape fan, this browser with built in composer, email and chat has become the backbone of my browsing and editing. It is great to grab a page right off the web, edit it and FTP it right back up.
I have amazed more than a few design clients by fixing their concerns in real time, right in front of them.
Firefox is great also and more developed than SeaMonkey. I use it about half the time. IE, never! Not for about 5 years now. Don’t miss it, don’t even think about it.
=> Dave
“…saving passwords to my most important entities in a browser (domains, email, autoresponder accounts) is something that I’m uber paranoid about.”
A little paranoia is a healthy trait to have these days.
Take a look at Roboform (an associated FF plug-in).
Roboform is awesome for saving logins and other important info. Two clicks to any site. All data is encrypted. Saved logins can be printed to hard copy for a nice “old-school” backup. Too many features to list.
Probably the most useful utility I ever purchased.
Greg Cheak
“about:config” ? Never been there before, but OMG — a techie’s dream control panel for their browser!
Web Developer Toolbar – Yes, that’s a great one; I highly recommend. Lots of helpful tools (like a ruler to measure the size of objects, and window resizing, disable referrers/javascript/refresh, etc.).
Fear no evil. ;-).
I think you know, Jim Edwards-he uses it, and has written about it. He is one of the most security conscious people I know, and Mr. Word Press himself, Sherman Hu also used to tell people to use it.
I just find that having it right there, I can instantly make changes on the fly. YMMV.
Hey Ros
Now that you’ve come over to the dark side, you really should check out all the incredible add-ons.
One add-on that I simply cannot live without is FireFTP. Once installed, it becomes part of your browser fitted with all your logon information for any and all sites that you may be managing.
Check it out! I think once you start using it. All those other FTP programs will go the way of IE.
Good luck on your trip,
Mike
Hi Mike,
Although FireFTP sounds great, having had one of my sites hacked by spammers, saving passwords to my most important entities in a browser (domains, email, autoresponder accounts) is something that I’m uber paranoid about.
Perhaps you can allay my fears? 🙂
Cheers,
Ros
Hi Rosalind,
If you don’t have it already you absolutely must try the free plugin called “SEO for Firefox.” This program gives you a little on/off switch in the lower right side of your screen. When it’s on, it adds some killer information to the google search results you can use to check out your competition on different keywords. Things like a sites page rank, how many incoming yahoo links it has, .gov and .edu links, alexa rank, and a ton of other things!
Lastly, I will never forget the day I was in Borders books and found The Super Affiliate Handbook. It was my introduction to affiliate marketing and still I believe the best book of it’s kind. Your writing style is so friendly and fun.
Cheers,
Steve
Hi Steve,
I just installed SEO for Firefox and yes, that’s a very handy little tool. The only thing I’ll have to remember is to turn it off so as not to get all those red-highlights on subsequent pages… but then, perhaps the color can be changed?
Thanks too for your kind comments about the Super Affiliate Handbook. I’m glad that your found it helpful.
Cheers,
Ros
Hi Rosalind!
I love Firefox, it’s screaming fast and has lots of neat addons. That’s the power of open source. 🙂 Another one to check out would be Google Chrome and with Google’s innovative power, it promises to have a strong climb up one of these days.
For now I use Firefox as my default. It even has a neat add on that emulates Internet Explorer called “IE Tab”. Use this if you want to not open IE for those odd situations that come up now and then.
Please let me know if you need anything. I figured that the fastest way to learn how to go about things is to be available to people. 🙂
All the Best!
Regards,
Erwin Chua
Hi Rosalind,
I came here from your FB profile. I stopped using IE approx 4 years ago for all the reasons above and then some.
I switched to Firefox and then started using Flock about 2 years ago, because of it’s social media plugins. I don’t know if it will be ideal for you, but I love it – although it’s very distracting if I have my People panel open.
I would recommend trying it out. I don’t know anything about security and CSS issues but it’s based on Firefox so I would imagine similar issues apply. Please let me know what you think.
Best regards
Desiree
Hi Desiree,
Thanks kindly for stopping by!
Although I’m sure that some of our readers will love Flock for the social aspects that you mention, the thought of putting even more distractions on my plate at the moment terrifies me.
I’ve actually gotten very good at being anti-social. I just checked my Facebook account now and there are:
* 5 friend suggestions
* 176 friend requests
* 13 event invitations
* 1 photos i like! request
* 1 photos i like request
* 97 other requests
🙂
Ros
Hi Ros,
You’re most welcome.
I understand you completely on the anti-social part. I’m getting into the routine of following Tim Ferris’ popularised practice of accessing my communication channels just a few times a day instead of constantly.
This thread will be really useful for those setting up a basic FF plugin config – thanks for sharing.
All the best
Desiree
All the best with
Sounds great Ros!
I converted a year ago. FireFox is a must have if you do any kind of web development too.
Extensions…I love ’em!
Colorzilla – Get the color code of any area on the page.
FireShot – Take screen shots of a web page, edit and save.
Scrapbook – Save web pages and store them locally.
TableTools – Sort, Filter and Copy any table on a page.
Web Developer Toolbar – Must have if you fiddle with WordPress themes.
Firebug – Get inside the code and see why it does what it does. Good for debugging JavaScript.
Greg
Hi Greg,
Thanks for the great tips about the extensions. I had no idea and they do sound very handy… especially the Colorzilla and Web Developer Toolbars.
I’ll check ’em out.
Thanks!
Ros