Browsers for Windows

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » August 19th, 2011, 1:34 am

I am a long time convert to Firefox, but lately it has become bloated and horrible, eating up my resources and running some awful thing called plugin-container.exe which gets my poor old computer roaring away, not closing it until you close Firefox, even if you are no longer on a page that "needs" it. This happens whenever a web page has Flash content, I think, but also on Gutenberg since they decided in their wisdom to put those ridiculous Facebook and Google +1 buttons on every book page.

Also they seem to change versions every week. It was only a few months ago that I installed version 4, and now I seem to have missed 5 altogether and they have got on to 6. I may try installing that to see if it is any better, especially as I now read elsewhere in this forum that you can get the WordCount add-on working again.

I decided to try Chrome, but I can't stand the silly way bookmarks are treated there either. I want a neat drop-down of all my bookmarks and their folders - not have them all sprawling across yet another toolbar. I don't need a search box taking up space permanently in my toolbar either. The options are minimal and mostly seem focused on allowing Google to run your life. Rather like Apple's modus operandi. Can't block ads, can't disable scripts. Also it doesn't seem to be any better in the resource-hogging stakes, as it opens a new process for every tab.

I think I will look and see what Opera is like these days. (I ignore Intarweb Exploder on principle.)

Ruth

Post by **annise** » August 19th, 2011, 2:54 am

Ever since I upgraded to 6 and downloaded winamp lite I am getting a toolbar I don't want , my MP3 files put into a music library that I don't want - and which doesn't even give the size of the files and when they were downloaded - I fear you and I both long for the days when we decided what our computer did. Troglydytes both of us. Oh for the good old days when I wrote programs in Assembler -- toddles back to her bath chair.

Anne

GabrielleC · Post by **GabrielleC** » August 19th, 2011, 4:54 am

RuthieG wrote:I decided to try Chrome, but I can't stand the silly way bookmarks are treated there either. I want a neat drop-down of all my bookmarks and their folders - not have them all sprawling across yet another toolbar. I don't need a search box taking up space permanently in my toolbar either. The options are minimal and mostly seem focused on allowing Google to run your life. Rather like Apple's modus operandi. Can't block ads, can't disable scripts. Also it doesn't seem to be any better in the resource-hogging stakes, as it opens a new process for every tab.

I think I will look and see what Opera is like these days. (I ignore Intarweb Exploder on principle.)

Ruth

Intarweb Exploder

- love the way you put that! And I totally agree!
As for Chrome - Inused Firefox for a while and it was good, but then the whole family converted to Chrome because it is supposed to be mores safe and secure. I didn't like the bookmarks thingamajiggy at first, but I grew to appreciate it. And if you don't want it, you can have it not show that toolbar, and you can put your bookmarks in a drop-down thingy, organized by folders in stuff. For adblocking? That's what extensions are for! There's a free one named simply Adblock that we use for that. I also have a few other extensions that I like, Google Dictionary, one from Weather.com, ands a Google Reader extension that will helpfully notify you when you have an unread item there - instead of having to manually go and check it yourself!

I only got Opera because nothing else on my Linux laptop would run some of what I needed to for school. I haven't used it much at all, but I don't like it's looks. I am sticking to Chrome, with Firefox as my back-up.
Hope that helps at all!

Oh, and Anne - they say computers do what you say, though not what you mean. May be true for the most part, though sometimes they don't do what you say, and do what you don't say, and then sometimes they'll get real naughty and flatly refuse to do anything you want! I suppose they're getting to be a lot like people.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » August 19th, 2011, 6:14 am

you can put your bookmarks in a drop-down thingy, organized by folders in stuff.

How?

I don't want it to keep appearing on every new tab I open. I just want a button that I click and my vast list of nicely-organised bookmarks appears. I tried to do it using the addition of --bookmark-menu to the target in Chrome Properties (per Lifehacker), but got the message that it's not a valid target.

Actually, don't worry. I just looked at Task Manager, and watched the FOUR Chrome processes (I have just one tab open - the LV forum) ticking up and up on Memory Usage. It will be just as greedy as Firefox, sadly, so another browser for the bin.

ETA: It even had the nerve to open Intarweb Exploder after I uninstalled it, whining about Google Help.

Ruth

GabrielleC · Post by **GabrielleC** » August 19th, 2011, 6:54 am

I actually remembered wrong - you can do the drop-down, but you need to have the extra toolbar. Just put your bookmarks down under 'other bookmarks' and you'll see the list.
Blame it on Windows for opening Internet Exploder after you uninstalled it! Dell/Microsoft/Windows happen to think it's the greatest internet browser in the whole wide world (surprise! Good review from the author, right?

) and so of course it will set as the 'default' when it thinks it can get away with it.

Oh, well! I hope you can find a browser you like better! You know, you can always downgrade your Firefox to the last version that worked. Find all versions here: ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/. It's going to look scary, because it's a directory. So, find the version you want. Then select your operating system, which I assume will be a 32-bit version of Windows. Then you'll see a million folders. Those are the different languages. I think you'll want to scroll down and select the one that says 'uk' - because I think that's British English, but if I'm wrong and it downloads an alien version of it, then do either en-US or en-GB or something.

Then just select the file that has the .exe extension on the end. Run that installer, and you should be good to go!
Hope that helps!

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » August 19th, 2011, 8:05 am

Thanks, Gabrielle. I could have reinstalled 3.6 from http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html but there wouldn't be much point, as it still has the silly plugin container thing, and Word Count Plus wasn't compatible with it anyway. Versions older than that are no longer updated for security, so they're a no no. Still looking.

Ruth

Post by **TriciaG** » August 19th, 2011, 8:12 am

Word on the street (as related by my husband) is that Firefox eventually wants to do away with version numbers altogether - you'll just be told whether you have the "latest version" or not.

Personally, that sounds horrid because how can you tell what version someone else is using, if they have a problem?

I use Firefox, even though it does bloat and use a lot of system resources. I try to close it once in a while (every couple days) to clear its memory.

I don't want to switch to Chrome because Google is getting way too monolithic, IMHO.

Post by **Availle** » August 19th, 2011, 8:40 am

TriciaG wrote:Word on the street (as related by my husband) is that Firefox eventually wants to do away with version numbers altogether - you'll just be told whether you have the "latest version" or not.

Personally, that sounds horrid because how can you tell what version someone else is using, if they have a problem?

FF will simply download and update on it's own, without you interfering. So you can always assume that the person on the other end - if connected to the internet - will have the latest version, just as you do. Unless you have to restart Windows to update, I think that's still the case.

However, I'm not happy about this one either, because as someone else wrote above, I prefer to be the one telling the computer what to do, and not the other way around...

Post by **KiltedDragon** » August 19th, 2011, 8:54 am

In the menu, go to Tools, Options, Advanced, Update and you can tell FF not to update automatically.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » August 19th, 2011, 8:55 am

Yeah, Ava had me worried for a minute there. I thought they had removed that option.

Ruth

miss stav · Post by **miss stav** » August 19th, 2011, 9:06 am

Availle wrote:
TriciaG wrote:Word on the street (as related by my husband) is that Firefox eventually wants to do away with version numbers altogether - you'll just be told whether you have the "latest version" or not.

Personally, that sounds horrid because how can you tell what version someone else is using, if they have a problem?
FF will simply download and update on it's own, without you interfering. So you can always assume that the person on the other end - if connected to the internet - will have the latest version, just as you do. Unless you have to restart Windows to update, I think that's still the case.

However, I'm not happy about this one either, because as someone else wrote above, I prefer to be the one telling the computer what to do, and not the other way around...

And how would I know if it's still working with my screem reader? And what if, let's say, I am pleased with things as they are and, just like me, don't want to change something I'm pleased with?

Post by **m8b1** » August 19th, 2011, 9:50 am

If you are willing to go in and change things on your own, you can switch things back to the way previous versions looked/worked, without going back to an old version. A few versions ago I didn't like a few things that were changed, so I googled it and found ways to get around it - and it's stayed put with every version since.

Basically you have to get into the about:config page and change things.

I always google exactly what I want to do, so I have exact instructions and can't mess it up.

Cori · Post by **Cori** » August 19th, 2011, 11:40 am

I use Opera as my default, and really like it. It doesn't always load pages properly, so if there's some kind of "cannot find this page" error, I strongly recommend a couple of retries before concluding site problems. Occasionally javascript links stop working, too (i.e. the 'delete' / 'save for later' links broke in my Amazon shopping-basket earlier today.)

Even with those issues, it's still my favourite browser. I really like the speed-dial home-screen, and really dislike the smugness of Firefox, the Google-docs failure-rate and clunkiness of Chrome and the over-simplified feel of IE8. I use all four on a daily basis at work, and have no regrets about Opera-ing at home.

(N.B. That said, I am using Opera 11.01 and have no intention of upgrading any higher, absent major security issues. I'm on FF4 at work for the same reason, and just put up with being nagged from time to time about upgrading.)

FNH · Post by **FNH** » August 20th, 2011, 10:35 am

Firefox has become a much worse resource hog. It also seems to cause massive memory issues with Microsofts free security software.

Internet Explorer, is slow and bloaty, takes forever to start on my system.

I tried Opera and Chrome and opted for Chrome because it looks nicer.

WHATEVER BROWSER YOU CHOOSE, MAKE SURE YOU USE THE LATEST VERSION!

If you don't use the latest you're more likely to be attacked by the malware black-hats.

Stay latest - stay safer.

.

RuthieG · Post by **RuthieG** » August 21st, 2011, 3:27 am

Yes, for security reasons I can't go back to the old Firefox, which I loved (half the size of FF6 and totally lacking bloat).

I have stuck with FF, now v.6, and am gradually removing some of the "features" I don't like, the absolutely most annoying of which is their greying out everything except the domain name in the address bar. Oh dear, what an idiocracy we are living in. Everything is designed for morons, and to hell with people who actually want to see exactly which page they are looking at.

Fortunately that one is easy to fix:

http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/questions/863231#answer-233316

Ruth
now enjoying seeing URLs as they should be again