Use Firefox !!!!

[camioneur]

I've noticed agrowing number of people answering questions with.."USE FIEFOX" Don't they realise that this is seldom the answer the person is looking for? I'm writing this whilst on Firefox and to be honest it's absolutely no different to anything else at all except....

I track vehicles for a living and Firefox does not support their software as it will not open the IE pop up of the map. You need to download all sorts of stuff to make it work as well as say the "Avant" browser, where you don't have to add anything at all to make it work like the rest.

I use Avant for everything as it does support IE Pop ups and everything else I want it to without getting asked for another" add in " or "exrtention" but I don't answer questions with "USE AVANT" Another thing with Firefox is that it opens my banking web site in a differnt sized font to all other browsers making it difficult to read, and if you alter the font it makes other sites fonts too big.

I wouldn't expect anyone to buy a 44 tonner because I did so .........

It's not the answer to everything as some would have you to believe. So, if you haven't got an answer worth reading Don't publish one, thanks

[saxy_jag]

Agreed. I use Firefox because it rarely gives me any day-to-day operational problems - I don't seem to get so many bugs etc. as with IE. However, it has its drawbacks. I can't, for example, format my posts here. There are certain chatrooms etc in which I can't use the full range of tools, and many websites don't display the same as on IE.

They're faults that I tolerate because I like the rest of Firefox, but it certainly wouldn't suit everyone.

[vehelpfulguy]

Part of the reason people say use Firefox is an anti Microsoft thing.

The internet, the www and the HTML language were all supposed to be a standard and any browser was supposed to work the same no matter what the HTML was like.

Microsoft then started adding things to their browser that did not follow the HTML standard, but because it was Microsoft people wrote HTML to the MS standard not the official standard.

Firefox is written to the official standard and it would be great if everyone used it becuase this would stop Microsoft trying to corner the web for themselves.

That is why so many people push Firefox.

[camioneur]

Now you may think that's why so many people push Firefox but in reality, the people pushing it, for the most part, have no idea about HTML and Bill Gates and the like

It's merely a "I use it so it must be best" mentality and I dare say that 999 people out of 1000 people using it have absolutely no idea about Firefox being written to an industry standard, me included!

Anyway, Mr Gates is the Industry isn't he?

[fo3nix]

Many people now have firefox that do not have a clue about W3C standards, etc. That's agreed.

I'm one of the ones on here that pushes firefox, and for good reason. I am a web developer, and have been using Firefox since it was just a little baby (Mozilla M2), simply because I care about and write code that follows the W3C's standards.

All these sites that do not work with firefox are, as vehelpfulguy explained, due to the authors of that site writing bad code that only works in Internet Explorer. The authors of firefox can't do anything about this, but as more people switch over to firefox, the number of IE-only sites will reduce.

Incidentally, other browsers are also affected by this, such as Opera, Safari, Omniweb, Konquerer, etc. The all design their browsers to follow the standards too, by the way. It's just Microsoft that don't. They've improved some things with IE7, but it's still far from being as good as Firefox or Opera. And guess what? The nice guys at Microsoft have also made sure that some sites now that work in IE6 won't work too great in IE7.

Avant only works fine because it's just IE with some extras. It's still no more safe (in terms of security holes) than IE itself is. Other browsers however, are a whole lot more safe.

saxy_jag: there is no more formatting on here because the editors removed it. Simple HTML works fine though.

[saxy_jag]

Thank you for that snippet of info, fo3nix. Guess I'll just have to brush up my html. Is that the stuff that uses < and > or [ and ] ? (I tell you, I'm a real numpty at this web stuff - I'm trying to do my own site at the moment. It's a long, steep learning curve I'm on).

[fo3nix]

Yes it's the < and > stuff. Very simple though. Great tutorial here.

The [ and ] stuff is generally special code used in forums, that the server-side code changes to good old HTML when needed.

In the meanwhile, AB could use the excellent tinyMCE because people shouldn't have to learn and write basic HTML if they don't have to.

camioneur: sorry to hog the thread.

[vehelpfulguy]

saxy_jag, if you want to look at more HTML do as follows.

While viewing any web page select the View Source option (on the View menu on IE) and it will display the HTML that makes up that page.

Do not expect to understand it all, but it is sometimes interesting to see the HTML behind a web page.

[camioneur]

Yea, it's much as I thought! Same names crop up defending it, no surprise there then eh?

Thing is, you're all getting away from the initial thread are you not? I was not looking for a lecture on HTML and the like. I don't need to know the workings of an internal combustion engine in order to be able to drive a car now do I? Just as well really, or there wouldn't be any lady drivers at all and 95% of men drivers would dissappear as overnight!

Though in fareness, it wasn't you guys giving the "Use Firefox" response to a question,

[fo3nix]

camioneur: you're right. but what we're (I'm?) trying to say is that the fact that certain sites do not work in firefox is not the fault of firefox. It's still the superior browser, by a long way. It's just that some people have written the website code a while ago, and wrote it only for internet explorer. no other browser will work properly with it. it's entirely the fault of the site author.

you use the analogy of the combustion engine. it's as if a set of standard nuts and bolts are available for its construction, but some company (microsoft) comes along and builds their own engine with their own nuts and bolts. most engine makers still use the standard, agreed on nuts and bolts specifications, but some use the ones that only fit the microsoft engine.

for those sites or systems (i.e. intranets) that require internet explorer, use it. it's always OK to write code that's IE-only on an intranet system (though cross-browser, standard code is still better), as you know that anyone accessing the intranet at that company will have IE installed. on a website it's different because you can not guarantee that the viewer is using IE. they may be using some other browser.