RFF MUCH faster with FireFox than Explorer

[Merkin]

another good way to improve your browsing, especially if your connection isn't the greatest, is to reconfigure your computer or router to use the opendns dns servers. just do a google for opendns. it is super easy to do, and has made a world of difference for me.

 

[Nando]

One can Firefox to be faster by tweaking its settings to better match your computer and connection.

Here's a guide:
http://www.tweakfactor.com/articles/tweaks/firefoxtweak/4.html

This is bit complicated for many people but luckily there is a Firefox Addon called FasterFox that makes it easier:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9037

Since FasterFox is classified as an 'experimental' addon, one must create an account on Firefox Addons website to download it.

 

[novum]

Tee-hee!

Merkin.

 

[bsdunek]

As Explorer is the most popular, it bugs me that it messes up my web site. The last gallery splits. I can't figure it out. It works perfectly with Safri and Firefox. Parade says the site is optomized for Safari, but I would think it would be ok with Explorer. As I have to use Explorer at work, I find it doesn't always display other sites properly either. Glad we have the other choices!

 

[rxmd]

Chrome's speed advantage largely comes from its great Javascript engine. Since javascript is used on many websites and especially sophisticated web-apps like Google Docs and Flickr, many people will see a speed increase over Firefox.

Wait until Firefox 3.1 becomes available. It will have a new Javascript engine called TraceMonkey. The Firefox developers are claiming that it will be faster than Chrome.

I've currently got Chrome, Safari 4 (Beta), IE 8, Opera 9.64 and Firefox 3.1 beta 3 on my computer here for development purposes. Out of the IE alternatives, Firefox 3.1 subjectively seems the slowest, Safari 4 is a bit unstable, and Chrome generates user-specific identifiers and sends them to Google (there's a version called SRWare Iron that has this patched out).

Firefox has an outdated codebase that is increasingly difficult to maintain. It's made up for somewhat by the enthusiasm of third-party plugin developers, but as far as the core is concerned, in many ways even IE8 is probably technologically more advanced nowadays. I'm mostly browsing with Opera.

Regarding IE 8 on unlicensed Windows: the problem is not the licensing, it's the product activation. It depends on how your particular cracked copy of Windows has been activated. If it's installed using an activation-less volume license key, it's unlikely that much is going to happen. If the activation has been disabled with a crack, IE8 may not work. In general, if you can run Windows Update without problems, you should be able to install IE8. If you can't run Windows Update, in all probability your computer already is a worm-ridden, remote-controlled, spam-sending zombie liability that should be taken off the Internet.

All of those are better than IE 6 or 7, though.

 

[Bill58]

I think I've installed FireFox and deleted Explorer at the control panel, BUT Explorer is still in operation instead of FireFox. What do I do now?

Obviously I'm no techie, sorry.

 

[rxmd]

I think I've installed FireFox and deleted Explorer at the control panel, BUT Explorer is still in operation instead of FireFox. What do I do now?

You normally can't (easily) delete the Internet Explorer completely, because Windows still needs it (to display system help, for example). Also Explorer and Internet Explorer are not the same thing - well technically they pretty much are, but they serve different functions. Explorer (the "non-Internet" Explorer, that is) is used to browse the file system, display folders and so on, so you can't easily delete it and it will still be running. Never mind though, because it's for the file system and not for the Internet.

In order to use Firefox to browse the WWW, just open the Firefox icon you just installed (there's normally one on the Desktop and one in the Start menu). You get a browser window - it looks similar to the Internet Explorer, but that's because there's not much variation in how browsers look, they all have a big empty area for the web page, an address bar, buttons for back, forward and stop operations etc. When you're browsing, just look at the title bar of your window. Mine currently says "Rangefinderforum.com - Reply to topic - Mozilla Firefox 3.1 Beta 3" and has the red-and-blue Firefox icon. If yours says something similar, you're using Firefox to browse.

Philipp

 

[wolves3012]

I've been using Mozilla/Firefox for years. I dumped IE quite a few years back on Windoze but now use Linux anyway (except at work, where I have no choice but XP and IE). Firefox is a lot faster for me and I have always liked the tabs feature which IE has never had (until now, I believe). I used to use Netscape in preference to IE anyway, before Firefox came along.

 

[italy74]

I too find Firefox much faster than IE (Being (actually) connected via MODEM (!) it's even more noticeable!)

I have IE 6 - IE 7 is the worst I've ever seen and I've never seen IE8 (I guess it's standard with Vista that I don't have)

 

[Nigel Meaby]

unless I'm mistaken I think Bill is saying that IE is still operating as the default browser. If that is the case go to preferences on the browser and click on General and you can change your choice of Default browser.

 

[rxmd]

I have IE 6 - IE 7 is the worst I've ever seen and I've never seen IE8 (I guess it's standard with Vista that I don't have)

No, Vista comes with IE 7. IE 8 just came out a few days ago, it's (still) an optional installation.

Reading RFF via modem is a pain!

 

[HuubL]

I switched to the Mac last year and use Firefox (3.08) and Safari (4 beta). I don't see much difference in speed between the two. I like FF because of the available add-ons. Auto Pager, Adblock Plus and Zotero. Zotero is just awesome!! I already used FF on Windows and it was MUCH faster than IE 7. What also irritated me was the amount of real estate that IE claimed for its menu bars, button bars etc.

 

[rxmd]

What also irritated me was the amount of real estate that IE claimed for its menu bars, button bars etc.

Well to be honest FF isn't that much better in the out-of-the-box configuration (menu bar, address bar, bookmarks bar, tab bar, status bar). The nice thing is that it's much more configurable; I've now disabled everything except the address bar, the menu is on a button thanks to an extension, and the tab bar only appears when there's more than one tab open.

 

[momus1]

Firefox and Opera (not the current version of Opera, the earlier one) are both excellent browsers. I especially like Opera Speak, where you can let the computer read text to you. Why in the world anyone would use Explorer is a mystery to me. It's a virus trap, bloated, and slow.

 

[jarski]

Why in the world anyone would use Explorer is a mystery to me. It's a virus trap, bloated, and slow.

I know quite a few people who make 1:1 linkage from that "IE" icon in their Windows desktop, to "Internet" that everyone knows. if no "IE" icon, no "Internet". sad but true 🙁

 

[vkomu]

Firefox with firegestures, adblock and download statusbar ftw! Switch to Chrome when there found those addones

 

[rxmd]

At present Chrome generates a user-specific ID, tracks much of what you do and synchronises it with Google's servers. Google thus gets a very detailed profile of your internet usage and search behaviour. I wouldn't want to use it until it stops doing that.

 

[dmr]

At present Chrome generates a user-specific ID, tracks much of what you do and synchronises it with Google's servers. Google thus gets a very detailed profile of your internet usage and search behaviour. I wouldn't want to use it until it stops doing that.

This is one major turn-off to me about trying this. The hardcore geeks tell me that you can't opt out of much of the user tracking, and that it's even difficult for a savvy user to disable it. 🙁

I really don't like the "phone home" feature of this and I hope the trend does not continue. 🙁

 

[jke]

Safari4 beta. Now that it has automatic checks for updates, it is much easier to deal with the beta. Rarely have there been any bugs, especially now that it is in late stages of development.

I am surprised that photographers would use any browser that is not color profile aware. Safari automatically reads embedded color profiles and Firefox can also do this if settings are changed (though perhaps now it does it automatically too - not sure as I don't use Firefox.) AFAIK, Explorer still doesn't do this.

If you don't think this makes a difference (i.e. everything on the web is sRGB anyway, isn't it?) then load Safari and load Explorer, and then go look at Flickr and compare.

Saft is also a good addition for Safari.

 

[amateriat]

Not that i have a dog in this fight (I use Macs), but I wonder how the latest build of IE (8) for Windows would shape up in comparison.

On both my Macs, Firefox 3 is quite peppy loading RFf. I might try the Safari 4 beta and see how that fares.


- Barrett