What are the advantages of using these programs ? I hope it's not just a "So I don't have to use microsoft...."

I've gone to it in my school district. It has single handedly stop 90% of my tech calls!!!! Still a few things that require IE but overall.....this is now "our" browser.

This has saved me more time in page loading than anything. Wonderful browser. Went to switch to Thunderbird though and missed Outlook's calendar function. Any suggestions for work arounds in T-Bird? I'd love to slowly and surely start ditching all MS products.

Mike

Stonefield, the big reason I switched is to avoid the numerous and notorious security holes in Explorer and Outlook.

As I understand it, Firefox and Thunderbird are not intertwined with the OS the way MS products are, and are therefore less likely to be used as "ports of entry" through which malware and viruses can pass.

This will probably begin to change as Firefox and Thunderbird become more ubiquitous, but the fact that these products are open source (is that the right term?) means there's an army of people working independently AND with one another to fix flaws.

I am a Firefox convert, too. It was getting to the point where I was a slave to Adaware and Spybot, and even so, my PC was getting hosed with Spyware that would change my home page to some undesirable search engine/portal, and it would take an excorcism to get it back to normal. Hasn't happened once since I stopped using IE, and I haven't had to run either of those anti-spyware programs (although it's still a good idea to run them once in a while as a precaution). 1 out of 100 Website don't work the same in Firefox, but if they're trustworthy sites, I may occasionally use IE for those.

Stonefield,

Download Firefox and give it a try. It coexists with Internet Explorer fine.

Within a day, you will know if you like Firefox or Not. I loved tabbed browsing myself.

I use Avant Browser which has my favorite interface and Firefox. Firefox makes text very easy to read using Cntrl +

Ok...sounds like a good weekend project. Anyone got a link for the download ?

Hi Stan, check DSE's first message above. Got a link there.
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-1.0.2&os=win〈=en-US
As mentioned, spyware is DRAMATICALLY reduced. In fact, I used to use IE and (shockingly) would get 10-25 spyware slams every two days or less (as noted by AwAware). That's every day or two!!!
Since I've started using FireFox exclusively, I haven't had even on bit of spyware. I'm amazed.
And Thunderbird is a great prog as well. I use that very nearly exclusively as well.

The primary reason that I first converted to Firefox was the tabbed browsing. Simple feature, yet so convenient.

The browser loaded much quicker than Netscape (also has tab browsing).

And it is easier to delete all cookies and cache and password history simultaneously.

Cheno,

Firefox, T-bird, etc. are all considered to be standalone components based of the Mozilla Suite. As such, you might have some trouble finding a calendar extension for t-bird. However, they are working on a calendar app:

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/

It appears to have much of the same functionality as outlook's calendaring tool, but personally, I don't use outlook for email, but will probably continue to use it for scheduling because of its interoperability with other tools (PDA, other software, etc.)

also look up the various firefox configuration changes, they can dramatically improve download/surfing speeds even faster..


ken

Here's the odd thing. We use IE and Outlook and to date not a single bit of spyware or malware etc. But we do live behind a firewall. If that's all that's keeping us safe then perhaps changing browsers isn't really doing much to make you any safer. To my mind sitting on a web connection with a fixed ip address is asking for trouble yet most broadband connections are still run that way.
Bob.

>>> What are the advantages of using these programs ?<<<

I haven't used IE in many eons, other than having access to certian sections of the MS site whie "Require" IE's use. I have never ever used Outlook. I used netscape for borwser, newsgroups and email up until verions 4.7 and they came out with Netscape 6 - that was baed on Mozilla. I disliked Netscape 6 but loved Mozilla, so I dumped Netscape and have used Mozilla ever since.

Main reasons for me were that Mozilla is a smaller footprint and runs faster. I stayed away for IE because I really did not like it and never used outlook because of how easy it was to take it over. With Mozilla it is the same - most spam attacks happen via outlook. Mozilla has had a "pop up blocker" built in for a while now which was/is nice. Mozilla is open source so there are nightly updates if you wanted to go that route and update all the time due to some bug. If you wan to download the latest "stable" (release) version of the Mozilla "suite" you can do it here: http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.7.6/mozilla-win32-1.7.6-installer.exe.

Now as for Firefox and Thunderbird - they are an offshoot of the elements in the Mozilla suite as that is being phased out and more work being put into the sperate elements. Word has been that version 1.7.x is the last "suite" release of Mozilla and one will have to get the individual elements at some point in the future. Following the same open source idea there are Firefox nightly builds and Thunderbird nightly builds always free for the download.

And part of the reaosn that the whole Mozilla idea works is not because, IMO, it has a small marklet share but because it is free and open for anyone to make it better. Thusly the code is public and all the hAkEr BoYz and GuRLz can join in the fun as easy as other, more legit, developers can. Pretty much as soon as some bug or weakness is found it is fixed and available for more testing. People are less likely to exploit somehting like the Mozilla project becase it is freely out there. MS is always bosting and charging for its products and they are much more of an "easy" target because of it.

One thing I do want to add is that because of how java runs even these browsers are open to attacks. I constanty get virus pop us warning about scripts trying to run in the background. I have a firewall and virus scanner up and running. Without them I would have to lock off my broswer - turn off Java and java script support fully. I would say that 99% of all sites now use some form of java - so turing it all of would render most sites usless. Not too long ago I made a post/thread about a virus/spyware attack that I had - came off of Mozilla but I have been able to track down it was something in the Sun Java code that allowed it to happen, not the core of the browser. The soulution was/is to update to the latest verison. But the fact is that I got hit even though I consider my maching to be fairly well protected.

John,

Also Firefox is not connected to the operating system like IE is. So the potential for damage from a security hole may be much greater with IE.

That is a big adavantage for me.

Is anyone here using "Mouse Gestures?" They are neat if you learn them

Marquat:

I should preface my response by saying that I am not an extraordinarily sophisticated user of any software, and am probably unaware of many of the features of even the software I use regularly.

Though Outlook (and, I suppose, perhaps Thunderbird) may offer lots of features, the only thing I ever did with Outlook was send and recieve email. I never used the calender or the scheduler or whatever the hell else you can do with it. Same with Thunderbird: My main thing is, send, recieve, and archive email.

I got / get spam with both programs. In this regard Thunderbird doesn't seem any better at filterering spam than Outlook (thought it may in fact be better, I don't know.) Spam is easy for me to deal with---I'm pretty good at spotting it and immediately deleting it. I never bother trying to filter it. Like regular junk mail I get in my mailbox, I just toss it immediately.

Again, keeping in mind my relative lack of sophistication (which may render what I'm about to say complete BS) the main reason I switched to Firefox and Thunderbird is because I was led to believe, by a few people whose knowledge of software far surpasses mine, that Outlook and Explorer were more likely to allow adware, spyware, and viruses to plant themselves on my machine. Part of this may be because of 1) their close integration with Windows, and part of it may simply be because 2) these programs are more attractive to bad guys because of their sheer market share---if you want to spread mischief, it's a lot easier to do via Explorer or Outlook than it is, say, via Mac software. I suspect both possibilities may be valid.

Still, I don't believe any software is invulnerable to exploitation. In fact, the most recent update of Firefox was due to security flaws someone discovered in the previous version.

Spam is neither here nor there to me, but I am quite concerned with adware, malware, and spyware and my understanding is that you're less likely to have to deal with it if you use Firefox and Thunderbird (or other non-MS products like Opera or Eudora.) Obviously, simply switching browsers and email programs isn't enough. I have a decent software firewall, a decent antivirus program, and FOUR (count 'em!) anti-spyware / adware programs which are updated and run regularly. I plan on buying a hardware firewall as well.

So maybe I'd have no troubles at all if I continued with Explorer and Outlook, but since Firefox and Thunderbird work every bit as well as their MS counterparts, and I lose no functionality (at least, based on MY pretty basic demands) and the programs are free, then, uh, why not?

In the end, it might be worthwhile to experiment with alternative programs side by side with ones you've been using, and see which one serves you best. But if you're happy with what you have, there's probably no reason to switch. For me it was simply a matter of trying to keep my machine clean of crap.

Thanks for the dialogue; I'd appreciate hearing your insights.

Firefox is up to 30 million downloads now, the program was probably taped a few weeks ago.

Firefox doesn't work on some web sites, because it refuses to support some of the more wacky .ASP features on some web sites. This is also a big part of what makes this browser actually safer.

One scary thing is that IE is open to outside attack even when you don't have an open IE window. Microsoft testified in court that the IE code was so tightly integrated with Windows that it coldn't be removed. However, one judge performed a demonstration where he had figured out by himself how to do it.

I think there are some hacks available online for disabling large chunks of IE code in the OS, and replacing it with code from your favorite browser, but I haven't tested them.

I have stayed out of trouble so far by using good basic hw& sw protection, and never visiting suspect web sites or opening scummy e-mails.

Ok, I've been using Firefox for about 15 minutes now and , yeah, I'm a convert. I love it.
First site I went to was my own...heh. And it actually looks better.

Gonna try the email thingy later. See what that's like.

Marquat,

My bad. The current number at Mozilla is 25 million.

I like your scummy site wording, it should be mandatory :O)

B.J.

much as i like mozilla, and i really do, there's just too many pages that don't display properly. i know the arguement goes it's bad design, and i agree, but unfortunately not being able to see choices (usually in frames), or other 'important' iyems, means i'll play with mozilla, but suffer ie until mozilla either reads properly, or the vast majority of people design properly....

my 2.05 pence worth

leslie

leslie: sorry to hear that. It hasn't been my experience though. The last time i recall coming across a site that only worked in MSIE* was, in fact, this website. The prices and options wouldn't show up in mozilla when shopping. But, they fixed that probably two years ago. I haven't encountered any problems anywhere since then.

The single biggest culprit has probably been the <IFRAME> tag which Mozilla has never supported properly, if at all. Fortunately most web designers realized it was a bad design choice anyway and ditched it. Ironically enough, the reason most ditched it was because people were still running older versions of MSIE that had problems with it.

*Well, with the glaring exception, of course, of the Microsoft Windows Update site. But, i'm willing to accept that one.

...Thunderbird allows the user to download just the header portion of the e-mail message...

I've been using since I came across it. The feature set is very similar to Thunderbird and it allows me to continue using Outlook Express for email. In addition to dispalying the header information and file size (I'm on dial-up at home and detest getting large attachments from well-meaning friends), it also has "bounce" and "Spamcop" options built in.
BTW, I discovered Firefox around the same time and now use it exclusively. Great browser but I wish it would remember the password on this site :-(

Mike

edit: While it appears that you have to pay for MailWasher, you can run it as. There will be a few options you can't access (sorry but I'm not sure what they are).

"BTW, I discovered Firefox around the same time and now use it exclusively. Great browser but I wish it would remember the password on this site :-("

Mine does. Since 1.0.

Did you at one time tell it to not remember passwords on this site?

The only site I don't use FF on is Yahoo when sending HTML mail.