Mozilla good, IE bad

Story: Mozilla good, but IE not badTotal Replies: 7
Author Content
Void_Main

Jul 25, 2004
7:47 AM EDT
Although the tab feature is a nice feature opening another window is difficult where if forces you to use profiles and won't just allow you to open a window by clicking on the icon.

Huh? I don't use profiles (other than "Default User"). What's he getting on about? I open new windows all the time. I can click on the Mozilla desktop or menu launcher and open as many as I want and they pop right up. I can also open a new window if I already have mozilla open by pressing "CTRL+N" (new window). I can also pop a link open in a new window by middle clicking it. I guess I need help seeing where that is difficult.

The browser doesn't do all it could do to ensure that web pages are rendered correctly for every site. Yeah, the web developers out there could do more but since they DON'T mozilla needs to do more.

No, web developers don't do everything they can to follow standards. They write sloppy and non-standard code and check to see if it looks good in IE. It is not up to Mozilla to emulate all the bugs in IE. I send the web developer a nice note about how their site is broken. I even usually take the time to fix their code and send it to them to show them what they have done wrong.

Bookmark organization is nice in Mozilla but it is much nicer in IE.

I suppose that is a personal opinion, one that I do not happen to agree with.

As for integration and even some of the basic usability features IE can and does beat Mozilla.

I guess I will never know since it only runs on Windows.

If you are using Mozilla on Linux getting java to run properly is not a great positive thing. The experience is rough and doesn't always work every time.

# apt-get install mozilla-j2re

Works *every* time for me. This message was edited Jul 25, 2004 12:19 PM
zjim

Jul 25, 2004
9:09 AM EDT
You thought about the same as I did of this article. I'd like to add my two cents worth as well.

tab feature

The guy doing this article, probably still has IE set up as the default browser under Windows. He also thinks that having a directory of URLs is much better than having an organized html file. Of course, this has nothing to do with tabbed browsing. Typical MS User FUD.

HTML Compatible

It's IE that's broken and so many web developers decided to do it MS's way instead of the W3C standards way. I'm always having to make adjustments to my HTML so IE users can view my pages correctly.

Bookmarks

From an end user's prospective I'm not sure how they can tell the difference between managing Bookmarks in IE or Mozilla. The storage methods are different, but the tree management is similar. One big difference in IE over Mozilla is that they try to let users change Bookmarks on the fly. I have always found this very buggy. I will delete a bookmark and it's still there until you either reload the favorites or close IE. Then there is drag and drop bug. If you click and hold you begin to move, instead of loading the web page. Next thing you know you've messed up your well managed links.

Integration

Again, Mozilla is integrated in Windows, if it is the default browser. Under Linux it is integrated as well, as is any other Linux browser with GNOME or KDE.

Java

yum install mozilla-j2re

This works great too. :)

peragrin

Jul 25, 2004
5:55 PM EDT
Why Mozilla's bookmarks are better than IE favorites

home.rochester.rr.com/degarmoind/Peragrin/bookmarks.html

I use 3 different computers daily, and travel a lot. I send intersting links to one computer, update, upload, and download as it's convient. also I have access to my bookmarks from anywhere. Notice how it's a long but straight foward and organized page, unlike the favorite directories most people have for IE.
MESMERIC

Jul 26, 2004
12:01 AM EDT
The profile bit is what I find most annoying Ok will try the CTRL+N or whatever Sometimes I set my Evolution or AMSN to work with Firefox but on the second window opening Firefox (or Mozilla) ask which profile to use - if I choose Default - it says that is being used already If I exit - well then I exit which was not my intention. Checking the box - "DO NOT ASK ME NEXT TIME" - doesn't work - it keeps asking me the same.

Whatever method ppl use for dodging the Profile Dialog Window it cannot be intuitive. I am a normal Linux user and find it very annoying. I always end up giving up on Firefox and going for Epiphany instead which is kinda OK.

Get rid of that Profile thing and I will happily go back to Firefox
Void_Main

Jul 26, 2004
6:13 AM EDT
Get rid of that Profile thing and I will happily go back to Firefox

Like I said, on my distribution (Red Hat/Fedora) I do not have this problem. It all has to do with the script that is used to start Mozilla or Firefox. It has to detect if it is already running when you call it, in which case it will call Mozilla/Firefox and tell it to open a new Window from the existing running copy. Here is a thread on my forums that should help you:

http://voidmain.is-a-geek.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1112
MESMERIC

Jul 26, 2004
11:38 AM EDT
Your script is very different from mine. Mandrake. Can't remember if I installed from source or from rpm - but do remember both generate the same bug.

Studying the Mandrake version of the script may give some light why and how this happen. But it happens in Windows too.

Thing is most users won't have a clue about bash & scripting, and I sincerely wish this unused feature was gotten rid of, once and for all - only for the benefit of more ppl moving to Mozilla.

Anyway I think Opera is the best webbrowser for Windows - not Mozilla. It's very clean.

Another bug I find on Mozilla-based and inherited browser on my Linux, is that every 60th line or so, the row of letters becomes sort of unreadable, highlighting it with the cursor fixes it. I grew used to that.

So instead of complaining even more, will see if I can raise a bug-tracker but am pretty sure both has been raised before.
Void_Main

Jul 26, 2004
1:03 PM EDT
That script is part of the Red Hat and Fedora RPM version and installed automatically. It works perfectly (on Red Hat and Fedora) and I didn't have to write anything. I also have no issues with the fonts you are describing (although I do on Sun Solaris, but Solaris is crap anyway so..). I can't say what is the best browser for Windows since I don't use it.

What it sounds like needs to be done is for the proper scripts to be included with the stock Mozilla/Firefox packages that do not exhibit this behavior and that will work on any distro. There is no reason the proper bash script (or *.cmd) script couldn't be included that starts a new browser up properly when a browser is already open. I've been lucky that Red Hat and Fedora includes such scripts I guess.

Here's the first thing that popped up on Google that is Mandrake specific that might help:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?threa...

The above search terms were "firefox mandrake script openurl". Googling might also find a script for Windows but the above link indicates the latest build of Firefox is no longer supposed to exhibit the undesired bahavior by default anyway. YMMV.

This message was edited Jul 26, 2004 4:18 PM
MESMERIC

Jul 26, 2004
11:18 PM EDT
alright cheers going to have a look at it. the day i get mono, mono-develop and eclipse smoothly working together that day i will be windows-free .. err not quite hehe (may have to jump a few times to test apps back in Windows)

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