I'm getting TOO passionate about firefox

[[GSV]Trig]

Maybe my FFpx needs tweaking then but the way I browse sometimes locks it up..

ie.

I'll goto the new posts menu on the forums, then open the ones I wanna read in a new tab while staying in my original tab if theres more than 1 page of new posts, when theres no more new posts I'll use my original tab to open the new forums until I've got everything I wanna read open..
Slows down my machine at home as well as my work machine...

[Paul Adams]

Strange, here's my browsing habit:

Bookmarks are all locked, many with auto reload of various intervals - "tab sessions" help me just fire up my common bookmarks once I've launched Firefox.

Default action on clicking a link is a new tab, as my bookmarks are locked this makes it easy to stay at the top level of a forum or sub-forum and read individual posts without losing my place.

So, if I go into Google and start searching, then click on "next page of results" a few times, it's easy to end up with way over a dozen tabs, then when I've found what I was looking for, I select the last Google tab and hit CTRL-W for each results page.

I have a number of forums and news sites up throughout my working day, all auto-reloading so I know they are up to date as I select them.


I used to think this machine was a bit swift, but that goes to pot once you install the Novell NetWare client, so it's not amazingly fast (P4 3GHz Compaq Evo thingy with 1Gb, Windows 2000 Pro).
(Also I use it as a test-bed for all sorts of playing around, as it doesn't actually belong to me )

Outlook 2003, NetWare Admin, MSN Messenger, AD MMC are always running in the background, with ZA Pro and McAfee sitting in the system tray no doubt taking their toll.

I can't explain why you should be finding it so slow, especially to the point where 10 IE windows are quicker than 1 Firefox one.

[Iain]

so it's not amazingly fast (P4 3GHz Compaq Evo thingy with 1Gb, Windows 2000 Pro).

if that's your corporate box then I may well have to order an assassination attempt.....

[Paul Adams]

if that's your corporate box then I may well have to order an assassination attempt.....

Hehe, I had to really prove my need for a decent spec machine, the old Deskpro just couldn't keep up - luckily it came around the time that Compaq (as they were then) introduced the Evo - the illegitimate offspring of a VCR and a microwave is how I described it

My mistake - it's a 1.5GHz P4, must have got carried away there!
It did seem a little strange when I tried to work out how I've had that spec PC for about 2 years

The guy who orders the workstations questioned what on Earth I would do with an entire gigabyte of memory, surely 128Mb was more than anyone could need?
You can therefore imagine what a chore it was to justify a 19" monitor

Oddly, it was easier getting work to pay for 1Mb ADSL at home though

If it was up to me, we'd have a huuuuuuge Metaframe farm and just use thin client as everything's been tested on it that we use, but I can never get that one past the board (tried for about 3 years now).

[SilentDeath]

Just my opinion here. IE is evil, and 90% of the people, as Az said, dont care about there browser. They dont care becuase they dont know.

If all major sites were to put a message, or something, linking or advertising that article (http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/249) then im sure the amount of IE users would decrease dramatically. While the examples in it are extreme and very unlikely, they are what people need to make them stop using IE.

However that article is closed minded. Firefox is not the only other browser.. I use 3 browsers regually:

firefox, for general crap... anything ..

Opera for researching stuff. Nice browser and I LIKE how it saves the last open windows - good for browsing forums, like hexus
Need to find something liek this for firefox but cba.

And lastly IE, dunno why I still use it... ease of use I suppose... only for bank really, and ordering stuff online sometimes - usually when opera doesnt work. My bank works in opera but I cba for some unknown reson... so yes only sites I know are safe for IE.

IE is fkn annoying though, goto any random site in opera or firefox, 50% of them will tell you your browser:
doesnt support cookies
doesnt support javascript
isnt IE
and more crappy messages... resulting from poor web design. Microdirects online store is an example. Works FINE in opera (if you give it the proper url - get from IE after site loaded), but as opera is detected, it gives you a text file lisitng products instead of the online shop. Its as if they are too stupid to relise other browsers exist (they do acctually appear to have fixed it!!!)


"Outlook 2003, NetWare Admin, MSN Messenger, AD MMC are always running in the background, with ZA Pro and McAfee sitting in the system tray no doubt taking their toll."

Hmm yea... outlook.. what a pos. Msn messenger, would have to say the same.
ZONE ALARM?? WHY !!!! I cant belive people actually use this crap. Yes it has a colourfull interface, enough to be bloody annoying infact... thats why most people buy it... but is it good? doubtfull.
Get your self a hardware firewall, something that will do its job properly... and then remove mcafee. Sorry but my opionon is that mcafee and most (all?) av apps are designed around computer-illiterate people, e.g those who open virus-containing attachments in outlook. People that know what there doing shouldnt have to use such crappy software, and ive managed fine for 99% of 10 years without any AV soft. Not had any viruses yet as a result of no av app.

[Paul Adams]

Hmm yea... outlook.. what a pos. Msn messenger, would have to say the same.

Yep, that would definitely be a personal opinion then
Pre-2003 Outlooks aren't great, and I use Thunderbird at home (though I think it is missing a number of features), but I don't know why anyone would have anything against MSN Messenger, lol.

ZONE ALARM?? WHY !!!! I cant belive people actually use this crap. Yes it has a colourfull interface, enough to be bloody annoying infact... thats why most people buy it... but is it good? doubtfull.

Why? Because it works, and I have tried alternatives but found them to be overly complex, make an impact on system performance or just plain break NetWare-connected clients.

My opinion of the first incarnation was that it looked like "My First Firewall" or something, but the interface has been dramatically improved in recent versions.
I've been using it for 3 years or so (BlackICE before that) and for me it works perfectly... what defines "good"?
(To me, if something works, is easy to use, has all the features I want, is not expensive and has no side effects or conflicts, then it's "good".)

Get your self a hardware firewall, something that will do its job properly... and then remove mcafee. Sorry but my opionon is that mcafee and most (all?) av apps are designed around computer-illiterate people, e.g those who open virus-containing attachments in outlook. People that know what there doing shouldnt have to use such crappy software, and ive managed fine for 99% of 10 years without any AV soft. Not had any viruses yet as a result of no av app.

Hardware firewalls are typically port filters, that is it.
If you're lucky and it is a professional one, you have outbound port filters as well as the typical inbound ones, but that means for every Internet application you use on the network you need to configure the firewall explicitly for it.

Hardware firewalls are great for large network environments that need to have a corporate policy, but in the case of getting a trojan or root kit on a client they offer no protection - AV or "personal" firewalls help here.

I consider myself fairly IT literate, and I've had McAfee pop up a message that it trapped a virus attempting to run from doing nothing more than visiting a website.
I've also had eTrust AV more recently pop up on a fresh Windows XP Pro SP1 install and tell me it found a worm posing as an FTP client and removed it.

I've had the arguments of personal vs hardware firewalls, which personal firewall is best, why we should/shouldn't use AV, whether "stealth mode" is worth anything at all, etc. a hundred times - if my website was up I'd point you to a page I've prepared which explains good practices and dispells certain myths.

No way would I ever trust an Internet-connected LAN to have clients without AV, and ideally (centrally managed) personal firewalls.

[Iain]

Opera for researching stuff. Nice browser and I LIKE how it saves the last open windows - good for browsing forums, like hexus
Need to find something liek this for firefox but cba.

There's a session saver extension for Firefox

[SilentDeath]

Thanks.. found it now.... rep points added

Paul Adams Ive not used recent outlooks.. so yea... might be better...
Msn I know had a few secureity probelms... but I hate it for other resons - like the sever being unreliable = cant always sign in a lot of the time.. anyway I prefer irc.. much more usefull...

Zonealarm - the version I used anyway, was too basic and being a NAT router/firewall I didnt see the point in using it.

I dont know nearly as much as Id like about security... currently my lan is relying on a NAT router + firewall with DMZ disabled. I'd like centralised solution for the whole lan and im considering a linux box to do that but is it needed or you think the router does enough by itself? (its a d-link 504 btw). The router isnt that bad though, I havent had any problems with worms, blaster for example, on any pcs and none had soft firewalls.

Id be very interested in reading that page if you could get it up

Ive just found out my evil aunt is the cause of virus spam to my email, I know its becuase of outlook and IE (and her stupidity...).. Im going to get everyone onto firefox this week.

My dad doesnt seem to like thunderbird as much as outlook, any suggestions? I think its ease of use/he's not used to it..

[Kezzer]

My dad doesnt seem to like thunderbird as much as outlook, any suggestions? I think its ease of use/he's not used to it..

How hard can it be? Point and click