Firefox Browser - Questions

Okay....this Firefox browser sounds interesting. In another thread, it was mentioned that Firefox has an integrated spell check. That would be great!!!

How hard is it to get used to? I remember back when I had my first computer. I had Netscape Navigator, and it was really confusing when I first changed to Internet Explorer. Would changing to Firefox be confusing for me?

Is it a free download or is it a program I would need to purchase? Would it be compatible with my Panda Antivirus and Firewall? Is there a way to trial it? So many questions!

It is free and you should keep IE on your computer as there are a few websites that are not FF compatible.

It should work fine with Panda, it is just a browser.

It does take some time to get used to as it is more user controlled. Rather than have everything and anything built in you choose your 'extensions' and add them yourself (it installs them for you you just click to say you want them), but once you have set it up it very user friendly.

You can check it out and download it at www.getfirefox.com

It should be compatible with Panda...Scott and I haven't heard of any anti-virus it isn't compatible with....

It isn't hard to get used to at all. I actually prefer it...less cookies, and I liked the tabs feature before IE upgraded theirs to be the same. I like the spell check feature as it helps me with mis-types on TCS.

You can download it for free:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

PS We haven't run across too many websites lately that aren't compatible. It was more so a few years ago when it was still new. Scott uses IE for all his bookmarks etc. It's easier keeping things separate like that....

I've moved this to Tech Talk.

FireFox is a browser available at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/. It is a free browser. I didn't have any problems moving from IE to Firefox. In fact IE7 added a few features that were originally in Firefox.

There are only a couple of problems I've had.

One is that some IE-centric web pages don't view well in Firefox, but there are add-ins like IE-Tab which allow you to view pages in Firefox but use the IE rendering.

Two, sometimes the add-ins can cause problems. One add-in had a memory leak and I ended up removing it because it caused Firefox to eat up a lot of memory.

If I install it, how would I switch from Firefox to IE, if that was necessary to access a site that wasn't compatible? In some things I'm fairly computer savvy, and others I'm a complete neophyte!

Originally Posted by Pookie-poo

If I install it, how would I switch from Firefox to IE, if that was necessary to access a site that wasn't compatible? In some things I'm fairly computer savvy, and others I'm a complete neophyte!

Click to expand...

You can use add-ons like IE-Tab or IE-View which render the page for IE with a click of a button.

If I install the Firefox and decide I don't like it, would I just uninstall it and I would automatically go back to IE, or would I have to install IE again? I'm assuming that I wouldn't have to uninstall IE to install Firefox. Or would installing Firefox automatically uninstall IE? I honestly can't remember how I did it so many years ago when I had Netscape. I do know that once I installed IE, I never even tried to go back to Netscape, so I never knew if it was uninstalled or not....and I was way too new to computers back then, to even know anything about browsers, programs, install/uninstall, etc.

You don't need to do anything with IE. They can be co-resident. In fact they can both be running at the same time.

If you don't like Firefox, you can just uninstall it. (And the two add-ons I mentioned require IE).

There are also cute themes like this one https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/812 that you can use.

I know that Glows for username and title don't show up in firefox.
I use it as my back up to Opera. I haven't found any sites that it isn't compatible with YET!

I see the glows just fine with Firefox.

I have my FF running a green cat theme

Originally Posted by Arlyn

I see the glows just fine with Firefox.

I have my FF running a green cat theme

Click to expand...

Hmm weird. I don't see the glows or shadows on Firefox or Opera.

Originally Posted by Crazyforinfo

Hmm weird. I don't see the glows or shadows on Firefox or Opera.

Click to expand...

Either do I.

Originally Posted by Pookie-poo

If I install it, how would I switch from Firefox to IE, if that was necessary to access a site that wasn't compatible? In some things I'm fairly computer savvy, and others I'm a complete neophyte!

Click to expand...

If you choose not to install one of the Firefox add-ons Jana (katachtig) suggested, all you would have to do is close Firefox, and open IE.

I have four browsers installed: IE, Firefox, Opera, and AOL's. I have Firefox set as my default browser, as that works best for me with Photobucket and my email client. I use it with the IE-Tab add-on, so it's easy to switch the very few times I encounter problems accessing a site with Firefox. Opera is very similar to Firefox, and has terrific widgets, but I've had problems with the last few versions "freezing up" on my laptop, as there seems to be some incompatibility with some of the German software I regularly use.

I work with Firefox and just love the features and addons.
still keep IE for some sites as suggested above.

After 12 years of resistance Firefox made me give up my Netscape for browsing.

I still use Netscape for mail and I have IE just because it's there.

Since day one I had been happily using Netscape 7.2 then one day it started crashing. Being stubborn I kept using it. I even upgraded to 8.0 and went back to 7.2 for the mail feature.

Finally one day it annoyed me much I decided to try Foxfire and haven't looked back. So far I have not encountered one thing that will now work with it.

I have been using Foxfire for a long time with no problems. I use the Red Cats Blue theme. You would still need to use IE though for your Windows updates. Aileen

You will never find a better browser with more features than Firefox. Aside from it being easy to use, there are so many downloads and upgrades you can get for it for free. I especially like the mouse gestures. By holding the right mouse button and moving the mouse in a certain direction you can tell Firefox what to do. Here's a couple I have found. RM (right mouse button) and up opens a new tab. RM and left goes back a page. RM and down opens a new window. RM and right is forward. And then there are a bunch of other combinations like RM and down then up then down duplicates the tab. There's so many different things you can to with mouse gestures.

My 2 favorite add-ons are Ad-Block and Hyperwords.

Ad-Block gets rid of 98.5% of advertisements and banners on webpages (even this one!)

Hyperwords allows you to right-click on a word and get translations. Or right-click on currency and get a conversion.

Pretty cool!

Okay...I'm almost convinced, lol!

Aileen...how would I continue to get my Windows updates with IE, if I'm using Firefox? Just open IE and manually do the downloads, or would the downloads automatically install, just like they normally do for IE? Sorry to be so stupid....

I love how i can drag favourite websites to my toolbar which makes them into links, which is really handy for things i use all the time. Plus you can make different browser windows for family members etc, so my parents and i have differently named windows, with our own personal bookmarks, favourites, histories etc.
You can also find pretty much any add-on you want on the firefox website, and its all peer to peer, no big corporations, which i find amazing. I mainly use the spell check though.
Atm I'm using my mum's laptop, which has IE and no ieSpell.