Firefox Myths

[Monica]

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/FirefoxMyths.html

Interesting read. I personally love Opera, and I can't look back...

[Saffith]

Firefox is anything but Secure with multiple unpatched vulnerabilities allowing exposure of sensitive data to local users. You only need one vulnerability to be insecure. Since Firefox v1.x was released, users have been exposed to 72 security vulnerabilities and counting, 39 of which are rated as Highly Critical and 1 Extremely Critical.That's either out of date or simply misleading. On the very page they link to, Secunia rates Firefox's greatest unpatched vulnerabilities as "Less critical," whereas IE goes as high as "Highly critical." Also, they list only two unpatched vulnerabilities for FF, compared to 22 for IE.


The Mozilla Foundation lists 64 "known" security vulnerabilities, 18 of which are rated as Critical and 13 High.Well, that's definitely not out of date. As of 1.5.0.1, that's how many there are. However, this is even more misleading; they simply added up the vulnerabilities listed for each version, completely disregarding whether they had been fixed.


Notes - Internet Explorer has very good support (86%) for the most important web standard, HTML 4.01. In most educational systems an 86% would equal a "B" grade and without HTML the World Wide Web would not exist as we know it.Amusingly, one of the pages they cite as a source (regarding rendering) states:
By design, Firefox does not display web pages exactly the way Internet Explorer does. On the one hand, there are W3C standards and on the other hand, the way IE works. They are different. Firefox and Mozilla and Opera have opted to obey the W3C standards so page rendering differences between all these browsers and IE are to be expected. I run a few web sites and stumbled across some of my own HTML coding sloppiness that IE let slip by but Firefox did not. Just saying...
Incidentally, look around quirksmode.org (http://www.quirksmode.org/) a bit. CSS is more important every day, and IE does pretty poorly with that.


The Acid 2 Browser Test is a test page, written to help browser vendors ensure proper support for web standards in their products. Although the Acid2 Browser Test does not test every web standard, it tests the features considered most important for the future of the web. This test clearly shows Firefox does not fully support the most important web standards.Notice they don't show IE's results. Firefox's aren't perfect, but they're much better than IE's.

(Edit - Also: http://www.purezc.com/forums/index.php?act=findpost&pid=225415)

[jman2050]

Useless propaganda. Saffith pretty much wrapped up this thread from the getgo.

[Orion]

My question is... who really cares? If you don't like it, don't use it. I swear, people who try to push their web browser on you are as annoying as people who argue religion.

"Oooh nooos!1!! Firefoz has a vulnerabltlity!! It sux and your teh gay for using ti!"

[vegeta1215]

I read that article while back. I was happy to see someone finally had the guts to put all that stuff up, cause it's all true. Firefox is great, but it's not that great.

[Starkist]

I use Firefox as my primary browser, but I am not a holy warrior for the cause like so many here on the internet. Internet Explorer 6 SP2 is just as good, only the lack of tabs, adblock, and a customizable gui keep me with Firefox. (I have the IE7 beta, and while the tabs are nice, the lack of customizable toolbars is still a turn-off.)

Any browser is secure these days, both Firefox and IE warn you if you encounter a possibly dangerous file. Ultimately, it is up to the user to protect himself.

[Lilith]

Firefox is annoying because sometimes it randomly closes out. IE is annoying because I ALWAYS get full-screen pop-ups and have to ctrl-alt-del out of them. The end.

[AtmaWeapon]

It reminds me of the "100 things Linux can do that Windows can't" page someone posted in which I picked a random 10 or 20 and posted the way to do it in Windows.

Basically it is a page similar to all "Use Firefox instead of IE" pages filled with the same kind of hyperbole used by Open Source zealots, only this time the ridiculous claims are leveled against Firefox.

Too bad it isn't an Opera Myths page then I'd pretend like it wasn't ridiculous and enjoy it :)

[Beldaran]

I only use Internet Explorer. It may blow ass for some reason I completely fail to understand, but it always works, I never have problems, and it doesn't prevent me from doing anything. If that's what it means to suck, then I want a sucky car too.

[ZTC]

Bah, I tried Firefox for the heck of it a number of months back, and I haven't looked back.
Is anything perfect, heck no; but I've found that Firefox is hellva more usefull than IE. *shrugs*

[Glitch]

I switched to firefox a while back. Tabbed browsing fucking rocks.

[Stungun]

This stuff is all relative. If you made a test based on whether Opera and Firefox supported everythign IE did, of course they would fail. If you made a test based on whether IE and Opera supported everything Firefox did, of course it would fail. It depends on what you're using as your test measurements.

People have thier preferences. If the browser creators worked together to get global support for everything on one browser, it might do well. Individually they only have partial support, but if they worked together, just think of it.

Now I'm leaving before the browser wars start. Ta ta.

[Nicholas Steel]

Myth - "Firefox is Faster than Mozilla"

Reality - Ironically Mozilla is faster than Firefox 1.x overall.

Notes - Considering Firefox is supposed to be the lighter, leaner version of the Mozilla suite, this is very surprising.

firefox starts atleast twice as fast as mozilla suite if you turn off the function in mozilla suite where it stores a part of itself in memory for faster loading.

[vegeta1215]

I like Mozilla better, but last time I checked it ran too slowly on my (old) computer. The newest version may run better though. Currently I have Firefox on my computer as a secondary browser. (not that Firefox is very fast for me anyways)

We ran Mozilla on our Mac for the longest time until the OS X version of Opera caught up with the Windows/Linux versions. I think if I were to use a Mozilla based browser on our Mac again, I'd use Camino (http://www.caminobrowser.org/)

[koopa]

The biggest security vulnerability, independent of browsers, is users who download and open any file they're asked to on a webpage. Pretty much all ad- and spy-ware can be downloaded with any browser.

I use firefox because I like the tabbed browsing (the newest IE7 will support it too, I hear) and the adblock/flashblock extensions (yes IE has a popup blocker in the latest version too). In the end, it all comes down to taste and firefox suits mine.

[Ich]

I run Firefox on a Linux system because I like it.

This is also my justification for drinking beer in perhaps inappropriate quantities.

[AtmaWeapon]

I like Firefox better because it has more memory leaks :)

[gdorf]

I like atmaweapon because he is such a joker. Good one buddy! :)

I've been using firefox since someone here (vegeta?) posted a link to it when it was called phoenix. I use it with a few extensions I really love, and it works perfectly for my needs. Have fun debating the merits of each browser, as for me, I'll stick with firefox for awhile. Mostly because I don't like change. :shrug:

[punkonjunk1024]

I switched to firefox a while back. Tabbed browsing fucking rocks.
/signed

Basically why I use it.
And it is faster, on my modem. It loads more efficiently, compared to IE.
It's just a bunch of stupid propaganda. Mozilla is sexy. IE is boring. *shrug* Some people might think the direct opposite.
I'd sure like to give opera a shot, though. I might look into that, since it's tabbed too.

[Gerudo]

i cant really say anything that hasnt already been said, but for me, it's all about convenience. firefox allows me to easy do the 'cover up my tracks' procedure (erasing history/cookies/cache) by pressing 3 buttons. tabbed browsing is absolutely essential for me daily browsing, as well as plugins and extensions. i am stuck using a computer that is not mine, so i use chatzilla as opposed to mirc or pjirc. there's even an extension that allows for seemingly faster browsing called Fasterfox (whether it works or not is still up to debate as i currently am stuck using dialup).

like many people say, it's all down to preference, as well as the user to protect themself from harm.

firefox's capabilities work for me.