As expected, quite a few people commented on my last entry, telling me I should add Firefox to the list. Here's one of the reasons I'm not a full convert yet (screenshot taken when I just tried to start Firefox on my desktop, which does have Firefox installed)
I love Firefox's tabbed browsing and better CSS support, which is why I keep trying new releases. Quite frankly though, it's just not as robust yet as IE and there are still quite a few sites out there that do not work well with Firefox. Also, I really like IESpell and am not aware of a similar plugin for Firefox.
And to those that suggest MyIE2 or AvantBrowser to replace IE6: no thank you. I've tried both and wasn't convinced, and both screwed up my default browser settings to where I had to manually hack the registry to get IE to become my default browser again after I uninstalled them.
So for now, I'm sticking with IE. If I can get past this Firefox crash I may play with it some more, and I'll be sure to get Firefox 1.0 when it comes out, but for now, despite all it's faults, IE just works best for me.
I found out about Firefox when Gmail wouldn't work on my IE (seems I'm not alone in that). I would love to use it too, but it doesn't handle the post editor in my .Text blog :( So, IE it is still. I do like it though - quite slick, and very smooth. I haven't had it crash, just compatability issues.
Posted by DragonSpeed at June 16, 2004 8:41 PMDid you perhaps install Firefox 0.9 over a previous installation? The release notes mention that upgrading is currently broken (it is pre-release software, after all). The proper procedure is to remove the previous version before installing the new one.
Posted by dak at June 16, 2004 8:47 PMStrange... there are some minor flaws normal with FireFox, but crashing isn't usually one of them.... I, like many, have more stability problems with IE than ever with FireFox... On a stable copy of windows, FireFox should never just crash like that.
Believe me, if it did, a lot of us who use it for 99% of our browsing wouldn't be recommending it to everyone. The only crashes I ever get are when I click a link without noticing it is a PDF and Acrobat decides to hang (which happens on about 30% of pdf links I click, regardless of if I load them from IE or FireFox)...
Posted by Alvin at June 16, 2004 9:06 PMDid you remove the folder in the c:/windows/application data folder before installing the new version?
BTW...your RRS reader rocks. Grabbed it a few days ago. What an app!!!!!!! Good work :)
Posted by mark at June 16, 2004 9:14 PMI'll 2nd the part about SharpReader rockin'! In fact I named it software 'pick of the week' on my new blog!
Posted by jon at June 16, 2004 9:18 PMNo I did not remove the FireFox App-Data directory; I'll give that a try to see if it resolves things...
Posted by Luke Hutteman at June 16, 2004 9:18 PMThe new version of Firefox has a "TalkBack" feature-- is Mozilla getting the information it needs from you to make Firefox work?
I will echo the notion that Firefox is great AND that your RSS reader rocks. ;-)
Posted by Jim at June 16, 2004 9:48 PMI use Firefox 0.8 but I used to use Crazy Browser. If you must use an IE based browser, I would recommend that as a tabbed alternative. It's freeware.
Thanks for Sharpreader btw.
Posted by X at June 17, 2004 3:26 AMI'm going to echo what Jim says. I know you're a program developer so I don't want to be patronising, but if you could get Talkback installed and submit the crash data I'm sure the Mozilla and Firefox devs would appreciate it. Alternatively, have a search around Bugzilla to see if it's been reported previously, and if not, submit it as a bug and include the debug information with it.
Posted by Neil T. at June 17, 2004 4:06 AMFixing this bug after an upgrade (the crash) was easily done for me by removing "prefs.js" from the Firefox application folder. (So you don't have to loose your bookmarks and everything). It might also be necessary to remove the XUL element cache (xul.mfl). Both files will be regenerated during the next startup. You will have to re-set your preferences, though.
I could replicate the bug by moving the old prefs.js back to the profile folder.
Don't know if there is a Bugzilla entry already.
cheers, .j
I had one perfect upgrade (two, if you count an import from IE on a friend's computer as an upgrade), and one perfect nightmare (on a machine that's had every release and tons of nightlies ever since 0.2 and dozens of extensions, several of them poorly written by me). I finally got out of the nightmare by just dumping every single Firefox-related program directory and profile directory into an archive where the installer didn't stand a chance of seeing them, and then copied my bookmarks (the only thing I really mind losing) back into the new profile.
Probably completely off-topic: I usually skip telling Microsoft about Firefox crashes, since I picture them just snickering, but a couple of months back I did, and got back a "here's a link to a page that might tell you how to fix it" which had a new modem driver that actually did improve things.
Posted by Phil Ringnalda at June 17, 2004 4:23 AMActually the "tell Microsoft about the problem" isn't always accurate. The crash data gets sent to Microsoft, but then independent ISVs, including the Mozilla and Firefox team, can sign up to retrieve crash data from the Windows Quality Online Services at https://winqual.microsoft.com/default.aspx. Yea, it requires a credit card for sign up which I know some OSS developers may rebel against - heck, signing up with Microsoft is against the behavior of many - but it might be worth it to obtain that type of crash data.
My blog covered this a while ago. (http://www.schkerke.com/blog/archive/2004/05/31/178.aspx) If you read the post you'll find a link to a post by a Microsoft employee about the matter, which then links to several others. I was impressed because it seems Microsoft goes out of their way to make that crash data available.
As for Firefox I too used it until I began using .Text as my blog. I really like the fancy post editor. :)
I also had one perfect upgrade and one nightmare.
Nightmare was on a machine which had both 0.8 and 0.9RC installed on it (successfully). Despite uninstalling both first (did it in the wrong order perhaps?), I still had problems. Eventually resolved it by uninstalling. Nuking the
C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\Application Data\Mozilla
folder manually, installed again, and then it ran fine.
Posted by Gordon at June 17, 2004 8:56 AMA colleague of mine was having exactly this problem.
Bizarrely enough, he found that if he unplugged his network cable, it started just fine... (And was OK if he plugged it back in after starting up.)
Then he turned off the option that tells it to check for updates on startup, and now it no longer crashes on launch.
Posted by Ian Griffiths at June 17, 2004 9:32 AMI didn't know that Avant Browser messes up the IE settings. I've never used it for more than 2 days & thus it hadn't remained installed more than that duration. I have IE6 & I love it but I use Crazy Browser(www.crazybrowser.com) & recommend it. It has tabbed browsing & a pop-up blocker. It gets the Favourites from the same folder as IE. It becomes the default browser only if you want & has an option to set IE as default browser.
What's cool is that you can place the tabs at top or at bottom, as you want. Not many tabbed browsing interfaces give this option, except maybe Opera 7.21+
I've been using it for more than 4 years now & haven't had any problems yet.
By the way Luke, why did you have to hack the registry to set IE as your default browser? There's an option to do that in the IE properties. In the Programs tab, there's a checkbox at the bottom which if checked will make IE check whether its default browser or not, everytime you launch it. You can set it as your default browser & then uncheck the box if you want.
Posted by Amit Gupta at June 17, 2004 3:22 PMBitten by Mozilla and Microsoft
One shouldn't install two "BETA" versions of software in one day, but I sure as hell did. First thing I did in the morning was install the Windows XP SP2 Release Candidate 2. I've actually been very happy with the...
Firefox, hmm...
http://gensystem.europe.webmatrixhosting.net/al/archive/2004/06/18/364.aspx
Posted by Anatoly Lubarsky at June 18, 2004 9:03 AMFirefox Issues
Geesh Luke....you are the only guy I know that has these issue. :) I really have not had this happen with me except on the occassion when I have left the same browser instance up over the course of a couple of months hibernating the latop daily. Maybe ...
re: Firefox. Independent point of view.
More problems with Firefox
There's another problem with Firefox 0.9. If you have it set as your default browser and enter a URL in the "Run..." dialog in the start-menu, you should see something like this: Unfortunately, this one affects SharpReader as well because it opens URLs...
OWA works fine for me on Firefox 0.9. Keep in mind that there are different versions of OWA so users may have different experiences. The ULR address bar is lightening fast for me. (MacOS)
Posted by pb at June 20, 2004 2:17 PMquote: "Also, I really like IESpell and am not aware of a similar plugin for Firefox."
Might want to take a look at this blog for information on a spellchecker for firefox v.9:
http://www.4serendipity.com/journal/archives/000140.html
Posted by jt at June 23, 2004 4:46 PMI've been using Firefox since it spun off Mozilla and I must say, I am extremely happy with the product. I keep IE around for sites that only work with this browser but I must admit, I've switched. I don't experience crashes and It always works well. I love the tabbed view and find it to be less clunky than IE. I actually find myself feeling strange when I use IE. It's in need of an update and it could use some spice.
FYI: I am running Windows XP Pro, two large 7200rpm hard drives, 512 megs ram, 1.7Ghz P4 with a GForce video card. I religously update my machine and equally run anti-virus, spyware and other like minded utilities on my machine. I don't know if any of the above mentioned contributes to my not experiencing FireFox headaches.
SharpReader and Firefox 0.9.1
There is a new version of Firefox released by the Mozilla Foundation (0.9.1) and the problems with using Firefox with SharpReader appear to have vanished ... Give it a try.
You should check out Spellbound, perfectly functional spell checker for Firefox based on the spell check component in Thunderbird. Works perfectly for me.
Posted by Hob Gadling at July 27, 2004 10:30 PMI have a textbox, well shown in IE, but shrinked in Firefox. Don't know why, anyone can help?
<asp:TextBox id="failure_description" Height="129px" Width="744px" runat="server" TextMode="MultiLine"
MaxLength="2000" CssClass="FAFieldText" AutoPostBack="True">
</asp:TextBox>