Chances are about three out of five that you are reading this site with Internet Explorer.
Well, stop it. Get and install Firefox immediately via the button above. It will change your browsing world for the better. And. It. Is. Free.
The benefits to switching to Firefox and dumping Explorer are myriad. Add an extension and bye-bye popup ads, for instance. If you are using IE now and you think about the time you are going to spend in the next week just clicking pop-ups closed, the time spent downloading and installing Firefox is a huge savings in effort and aggravation.
A month ago, the percentage of readers of AD using Firefox was 12%. Today is is over 23%. What do these savvy readers know that you've been putting off?
No more excuses.
"Just do it."
Note: A free gmail account to the first six commenters who swear they've downloaded and installed Firefox. If you've got a Gmail account, do it anyway.
Posted by Vanderleun at January 5, 2005 11:12 AMDone. Conversion was painless. Love the tabs. The menus are a bit slippery, but no big problem.
Posted by: slimedog at January 5, 2005 11:41 AMGood going. I've installed Firefox on all of my computers, my father's computer and my brother's computer. We're all so much safer now, heh.
But seriously, if you like Firefox, you should also try the Thunderbird email client. Great spam filtering built-in.
Thanks for your writing. I much enjoy visiting this site every day.
Roy
Well I did it a long time ago- does that count? :-)
Posted by: Jim at January 5, 2005 11:53 AMSlime dog... confirm email address via my gmail account on the upper right of the site... gmail invite will be sent.
Roy,
Thanks for the kind words.
Jim? Jim?
Posted by: Gerard Van der Leun at January 5, 2005 12:00 PMNot only have I installed it myself, I also install it on machines here at work. (It's sometimes good to be in IT.)
Posted by: Stephen B at January 5, 2005 2:21 PMI have used Firefox ever since it came out. I got Mozilla a long time ago, IE has long since cured me of any possible attachment I might have had to Microsoft.
Posted by: Final Historian at January 5, 2005 2:25 PMI've been using Firefox both at home and at work. I think it's great. I like the tab feature that allows the opening of multiple web pages without opening a separate browser.
Posted by: J.R. at January 5, 2005 6:10 PMWhat's so bad about IE? I used Mozilla for a little while. It seemed fine, but I was just used to IE so I kept using it. Most of all my popups get blocked anyway. Can Firefox get rid of Drudge's, though, and those animation flash ones when you go to some newspaper sites?
Posted by: mark butterworth at January 5, 2005 6:12 PMI just installed the 1.0 version (was using the pre-release). Perfectly happy with both.
Posted by: P.A. Breault at January 5, 2005 6:31 PMI've had it for a while. It destroys IE.
Posted by: Dubya at January 5, 2005 7:25 PMAs much as I like Mozilla, there are simply some things that I've never been able to get it to do. To this day, I still have problems getting the video to work. Aside from those rare moments when Firefox doesn't do the job, I just don't touch IE.
Posted by: LRFD at January 5, 2005 9:49 PM Okay, I've have only had a computer for five
years. Took me four years to learn how to cut
and paste. IE is all I've ever known. My little
brother is a geek and has all his gear on Linux.
EVERYBODY is saying Firefox. But I will take your
word for it, Gerard. So now I will attempt to
install it. If you don't hear from me again you
will know that I have crashed and burned. And be
that the case, send a telegram to my Mother.
Well, that was painless. But I can't seem to
get my faves back on the FF homepage. I have
SBC DSL which has Yahoo as its browser. So the
faves are still there. Now I'm going to query
all my paranoia programs and see how they feel
about the change.
Aside from those rare moments when Firefox doesn't do the job, I just don't touch IE.
Agreed. But the cynical part of me wonders how long before the IE-molesting vermin set their sights on Firefox.
Posted by: P.A. Breault at January 6, 2005 8:13 AMAs a Mac user reading your site, I gave up IE a long time ago when Apple shipped Safari with OS X. Now I've left Safari behind and switch to a beta of OmniWeb. It is even better than the release version of Firefox which I tried on my Mac, and use on a PC. Fortunately Mac users don't have to put up with the nonsense that MS inflicts upon WIndows users. We just have to put up with Steve!
For more info go to: http://www.omnigroup.com/
Posted by: mwayne at January 6, 2005 11:05 AMI've been using Firefox for several months and would never consider going back to IE. I've also been a Gmail user since the beta started, and it's now my primary e-mail tool.
Readers who are still trying to obtain Gmail invitations should check out this site:
http://isnoop.net/gmailomatic.php
It's an automated spooler for Gmail invitations. Gmail users with extra invites can donate them, and people seeking invites can request one (if any are available; they go pretty fast). I have given away 18 invitations there in the past week. (And I'm all out now, so don't write me and ask for one!)
Posted by: Pat Berry at January 6, 2005 11:26 AMDon't need Gmail, but I'll chime in: I use Firefox and ain't likely ever going back.
Posted by: McGehee at January 6, 2005 8:25 PMFirefox is sweet. I love the extension that allows manipulation of my music library by using the lower menu bar on the FF browser.
Posted by: JohnO at January 7, 2005 5:51 AMI recently switched from IE to Firefox and will never go back. My favorite feature is the option that lets you change the font size of any web page by scrolling your mouse wheel. That alone would make the switch worthwhile.
Posted by: Philomathean at January 7, 2005 10:07 AMOkay, I'm using it. Are you HAPPY NOW!
Well, I am. Anything I can do to knock Microsoft is fine in my book. It blocks even Drudge's most annoying popup of the U of Phoenix. This is good stuff.
Posted by: mark butterworth at January 7, 2005 3:28 PM...been using Firefox since last August (? - I think ...since v0.9, at least).
Try this (if you're using XP as an OS).
1. Start Task Manager [TM]. Click the performance folder tab. Note the "PF Usage" amount & chart. Minimize TM, but don't exit.
2. Start Firefox. Find a site with a bunch of images (like Xmas cards or something). Download a JPG image (save to disk). Check the PF Usage in TM. Download another. Check PF Usage. Repeat (around 30+ times). Ouch, eh?
(I've read that the same effect happens if you open a bunch of images - like 20 or so - in different tabs in Firefox.)
I'd like to know what happens on YOUR system, if you wouldn't mind (please download enough images - about 20-30 or so - to see the effect).
...I'd guess this is why some people have reported that Firefox can seem to "slow down" their computer after awhile btw (and it doesn't seem to matter if you have 512MB or 128MB of physical RAM).
...and all I can suggest is that you go to Tools --> Options --> Downloads ...and unclick the "Show Download Manager". This DOES help.
And. When you exit Firefox, you will "get your memory back".
I tried downloading the four CD ISO images for Linux from Redhat a couple of days ago using Firefox at a few different FTP [mirror] sites ...apparently the same kind of thing happened (I didn't check it thoroughly this time ...I finally just gave up, and used IE, which had no problems downloading the 2.4GB of ISO images at all; I didn't have a suitable FTP program at hand, or I'd have just used that).
No, I won't be going back to IE (Firefox is simply way too feature rich, and IE is too much a security problem) ...but I'm not deleting IE, yet, either.
And yes, I DO have a bug report in at Mozilla (with an update ...sorry, can't recall what I called it right now; I added to an existing report though).
Don't need gmail (in fact, I was giving it away last week on my sites), but Mozilla is so much better than IE it will take a while for me to get too pissy about the few things I don't care for.
Go Colts! (couldn't resist)
Posted by: greg at January 9, 2005 6:16 AM
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