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Firefox - A New Religion?

Is Firefox a bad web browser? No. Is it the next coming of the Almighty? According to some it would seem that way. It is one thing recommending a program, it is entirely another to preach about something as if you were part of a religious cult.

*waiting for VTNC's response*

*eats popcorn*

Got any room on the bench next to you hawk

Beware of false prophets.

Firefox is not only inferior to IE performance wise, but as soon as it gets enough market share and malicious code writers give it some attention, it will be more dangerous than IE as well. At least for IE if you know what to do you are pretty much 99% safe. Firefox users feeling immune, will not be ready when $hit hits the fan.

While the Firefox (and Open Source in general) zealots can get carried away at times, that article is spreading some half-truths of its own:

Web pages that depend on ActiveX or were only tested in Internet Explorer will only render and work properly in Internet Explorer based browsers.

This implies that any web pages that weren't specifically tested with Firefox won't work with it... which is pure BS. Most web pages that avoid IE-specific extensions and make some attempt to adhere to accepted HTML coding standards will work just fine, whether they were explicitly tested with Firefox or not.

hellokitty wrote:

Firefox is not only inferior to IE performance wise,

The only performance issues I've noticed are A) initial load time is somewhat longer than IE; and B) Macromedia Flash. Comparing load times is somewhat unfair, given that much of IE's infrastructure is already loaded as part of the Windows OS before the user launches the browser. I agree that the Flash plugin performance can be a significant issue for anyone who relies heavily on Flash.

but as soon as it gets enough market share and malicious code writers give it some attention, it will be more dangerous than IE as well.

I find that implausible. While I fully expect Firefox-specific attacks to become much more numerous, how do you justify your contention that it will become "more dangerous" than IE? That sounds like little more than unsubstantiated FUD to me.

JBI...you must be one of the "zealots" in that article that has entirely too much time on your hands

This implies that any web pages that weren't specifically tested with Firefox won't work with it... which is pure BS

ActiveX specifically will not work and more often then not pages that are only tested in IE can and do rendering differently then the author intented in Firefox.

Mastertech wrote:

ActiveX specifically will not work

I never said it would. The problem I have with the article is the implication that pages which are only tested in IE simply won't work:

Web pages that depend on ActiveX or were only tested in Internet Explorer will only render and work properly in Internet Explorer based browsers.

and more often then not pages that are only tested in IE can and do rendering differently then the author intented in Firefox.

Does it happen? Sure. But 99% of the sites I use on a daily basis work just fine with Mozilla/Firefox. This would be essentially impossible if the compatibility issues were as bad as the article implies.

LicketySplit wrote:

JBI...you must be one of the "zealots" in that article that has entirely too much time on your hands

Jeez, I hope not! I find many of the Open Source zealots to be as annoying as the Microsoft apologists, in their own way.

Edit: Unless the author of the article considers anyone who doesn't run IE as their primary browser to be a "zealot". In which case, I guess I am guilty as charged!

Just goes to show you...there are "fanboys" in every facet of a computer..including software

Hawkwing74 wrote:

*waiting for VTNC's response*

*eats popcorn*

Soon you will *ALL* be converted to the Church of Firefox

hellokitty wrote:

misinformation

Usually I try not to resort to calling other's post bullsh*t, so I'll just assume you are being sarcastic and will ignore you.

Does it happen? Sure. But 99% of the sites I use on a daily basis work just fine with Mozilla/Firefox. This would be essentially impossible if the compatibility issues were as bad as the article implies.

Alot of people use their experience which happens to miss 99% of the internet.

VTNC wrote:

Hawkwing74 wrote:

*waiting for VTNC's response*

*eats popcorn*

Soon you will *ALL* be converted to the Church of Firefox

hellokitty wrote:

misinformation

Usually I try not to resort to calling other's post bullsh*t, so I'll just assume you are being sarcastic and will ignore you.

Amen!

If you put your fingers in your ears and close your eyes things don't exist.

IE dominance is the least of my Microsoft-related worries. *shrug*

Mastertech wrote:

Alot of people use their experience which happens to miss 99% of the internet.

If you base that 99% on sheer volume of pages out there, yeah. In fact it's probably more like 99.999%. But the meaningful statistic here is what percentage of pages that the typical web user visits on a regular basis render correctly?

Very few people will care if an obscure web site put up by some guy from Moscow with pictures of his pet cat doesn't render properly in Firefox. OTOH if cnn.com doesn't display correctly, then a lot of people are gonna be pissed.

It's not like I intentionally visit only sites that have been tested with Mozilla...

See now your classifying yourself as what the average user visits, even more absurd.

Mastertech wrote:

See now your classifying yourself as what the average user visits, even more absurd.

Being an idiotic flamebait gimmick, even MORE absurd

edit: forgot to place sarcasm tag

Being an insulting fanboy, ironic?

edit: I forgot to laugh.

Mastertech wrote:

See now your classifying yourself as what the average user visits, even more absurd.

No, I said what the average user visits is what matters.

Nowhere did I claim I was average; I just noted that for me, Mozilla/Firefox works very well. It's called a "data point".

No, I said what the average user visits is what matters.

Right and the average user visits 99% of what you don't, data point noted. Now we some 817 million more responses to confirm the theory.

Mastertech, have you EVER tried ANY alternative browser?

I've tried just about all of them.

BTW... just thought I'd point something out. The site linked in Mastertech's sig ( http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/OptimizeXP.html ) echoes that 'New Religion' blog/editorial practicaly verbatim regarding Firefox. Both sites are apparently written by someone named 'Andrew'.

Are you in fact 'Andrew', Mastertech?

No, My name is Vincent AKA Mastertech. Maybe the sites are by the same author neither is my site or one site copied another?

Mastertech wrote:

I've tried just about all of them.

And settled for IE?

PS: Firefox is evil like Herbalife

Moved to the General Software forum. (Although one wonders how many browser war threads we really need...)

Oh, and to all you fanboys: play nice.

Kevin

And settled for IE?

It works with the most pages and no problems.

Mastertech wrote:

No, I said what the average user visits is what matters.

Right and the average user visits 99% of what you don't, data point noted.

This statement exhibits a stunning lack of understanding of statistics and the www in general. A huge percentage of the total pages on the web are visited only rarely. The largest and most active sites account for the vast majority of page hits. These sites are what the "average user" tends to hit most frequently.

Edit: There's also the issue of people running versions of Windows prior to WinXP. There are still a lot of Win2K users out there. Are they all supposed to just pay their "Microsoft Tax" and upgrade to XP?

Nope, nothing wrong with IE on Windows 2K.

I use firefox exclusively, I just like the look and feel of it better. IE just feels tainted to me. However, I do use it for the sites that Firefox just doesn't render correctly.

I'm far from a fanboy as I think it still stands to be improved upon, but I do recommend it to most of my less computer savvy freinds due to their inability to regularly use a spyware program in conjunction with safe browsing habits and sp2 with IE.