Will Success, or All That Money From Google, Spoil Firefox?

THe New York Times ^ | November 12, 2007 | NOAM COHEN

[fallingwater]

Only a couple of years ago, Firefox was the little browser that could — an open-source program created by thousands of contributors around the world without the benefit of a giant company like Microsoft to finance it.

Since then, Firefox, which has prospered under the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, has grown to be the largest rival to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, with 15 to 20 percent of the browser market worldwide and higher percentages in Europe and among technology devotees. It is the most popular alternative browser since Netscape, with about three times as many users as Apple’s Safari.

[Still Thinking]

Click Tools/Options/Main and there is a group of download settings where you can specify a standard download directory or choose to be asked for the location each time.

[jpsb]

tools->options, set downloads prefferences.

[shorty_harris]

Once upon a time, there was a program called "NCSA Mosaic" ...

I remember when I first discovered this. A whole new world opened up before my very eyes.

I migrated from Mosaic to Netscape, to Opera, then to Firebird (later Firefox). I've never used IE, except when I was forced to.

[pepsi_junkie]

Firefox has a problem and had had for years. On some platforms it occasionally starts to eat 100% of the CPU. This is intermittent and random. I don’t have the problem on my own laptop but the desktop that my wife uses has it and I cannot figure out how to resolve it. Clean re-install, disable java, flash, etc. None of it fixes things. So Firefox is simply unusable for her. Search the net, it is not an uncommon problem but there is no definitive solution that I can find.

[Varmint Al]

FireFox is the way to go. I have been using for years. Sometimes the script blocking prevents certain pages from loading properly, but one merely has to temporarily allow scripts from that page for it to work properly.

Even CrapCleaner has a special option to clean up for Firefox.

Good Hunting... from Varmint Al

[Señor Zorro]

I tried Ubuntu but found it didn’t upgrade well—most debian based Linux seem to be a PITA when they make major upgrades.

Really? I've never hit that problem. I run Kubuntu at work and Debian on my wife's laptop (before you start laughing, it's an old laptop with a broken CD drive; the only install media I could use was floppy and network. Debian was the only current Linux distro I could find that had an install floppy; the only one of the BSDs that had one was OpenBSD and if you think Debian is esoteric...). I have never had a problem running dist-upgrades, including when I did updates remotely through SSH.

but I now run Gentoo on one of my machines.

I love Gentoo; I run it on my personal laptop and on the home network's "server" (an old whitebox). The best thing of all isn't even the optimization, IMHO, it is two important facts: first, that the base install is absolutely minimalist (I find it is much easier to start small and build up, than start large and tear down) and that you can strip unwanted dependencies from the system with USE flags. As a result, Gentoo is a great tinkerer's OS, with access (usually) to the latest and greatest software and maximum flexibility.

It’s fun to play around with and learn more about the way linux works. Definitely not for everyone.

Right on both counts. Once you've got Gentoo down pat, you could roll your own distro--really. In fact, almost by definition, if you have a customized Gentoo machine, you are running a unique distro. But you're right. It isn't for anyone and it is most definitely not for someone looking for their first taste of Linux.

[KoRn]

"Now it always crashes on me."

I was getting the same, and traced it down to a buggy addon. Try removing all addons and see if it continues to happen. If the crashing stops, bring back the addons one at a time, until the crashing comes back.

[Betis70]

I think there were a few problems with Ubuntu 5.x->6 (I think that was the release) that I ran into, specifically with UI things. I ran into some circular xyz-lib dependency problems with non-Ubuntu programs I had installed. I don’t recall the specifics as it was a few years ago now. Rather than fighting with it, I decided to try Gentoo since it was my ‘play’ computer anyway.

I too have used debian on old crufty laptops too—one’s w/o CD drives running original pentiums. I think I have a set of floppies someplace with the install disks...

You are right about the minimalist install with Gentoo, that was one of the things that attracted me as well.

I tried doing a linux from scratch. That was fun, didn’t end up so good in the end, but haven’t tried *BSD installs yet.

[JoJo Gunn]

I pretty much run Firefox for most of my purposes. I found that Firefox 1.5 was very nice to use, but Firefox 2 is a disappointment.

Every so often they manage to break what wasn't broke, so I've been sticking with 1.5.0.6.

Get all your themes and extensions and tweak the browser the way you like it, and then get this program.  (It might not backup all variations of themes and extensions, but it has for my particular setup).

 

[ShadowAce]

I haven't found any issues with 2.0. As far as backups go, I back up everything (extensions, cache, and bookmarks) onto my server. If I ever have to re-install the browser for any reason, all my history, etc is all there again just as I left it.

I installed the latest Fedora yesterday, restored my .mozilla directory, and I was surfing again just like I was on Friday.

[JoJo Gunn]

Oops, pinged you and you were already here.

I have a friend whose Firefox automatically updated to whatever version a couple of weeks ago, and all of a sudden clicking on links brought up the auto-scroll function(!).

I love that little backup program. Some of the best money I ever spent. ;)

[qam1]

I could have swore I looked to do that before but I guess I didn’t and it works now.

Thank you

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

Dunno. It crashes on me now when I play youtube type vids, so I keep IE for that purpose, but I hate IE

I think Bill Gates is playing games. I never send an error report to microshaft.

I hope to be 100% Linux here soon

It's not Microsoft. i run SuSE with Firefox 2.0.0.9, and i have the same difficulty with YOuTube. It may be them.

[mysterio]

I am a firefox fan.

[mylife]

Thanks for the input

[AFreeBird]

I run Firefox on linux, and have never had a problem with youtube. I also run the plugin/extension "NoScript", and only allow the absolute minimum javascript to run for site that I need it to run on. Other wise I surf with Java/Javascript/Flash etc etc, denied.

Just make sure you Firefox and extensions are up to date.

[mylife]

Thanks

[AFreeBird]

But one annoying thing about Firefox, when downloading files for some reason it gives me no choice on which folder to download it to and it only downloads directly on my desktop.

That's a setting in preferences (or tools/options for you folks stuck in Winders). Should be under the "Main" tab.