IE

Why I Recommend Firefox…

February 18, 2007 By Terry Stockdale

I guess it’s been a long time since I’ve gotten on the Firefox versus Internet Explorer subject in my newsletter. For a while last year, I beat it to death…

But, recently, in responding to a reader’s question, I mentioned that I recommended Firefox over IE for web browsing. His response was “You Do?”

The reason that I recommend Firefox over Internet Explorer boils down to security while web surfing.

First, there’s the ActiveX issue.

ActiveX is a proprietary Microsoft technology that allows a web site to download a program to your computer via Internet Explorer — and to automatically run that program.

Bookmark Converter – the Review

November 16, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

When you use several web browsers, whether just two such as Firefox and Internet Explorer or more, one thing you might want to do is to copy your favorites (your bookmarks) from one browser to another.

Bookmark Converter, from Magnus Brading, is a nice shareware/trialware program that will allow you to manually convert bookmarks in any direction between Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Mozilla, Netwcape v1-v4 and Netscape v5-v7.

Filed Under: Firefox, IE, Opera, Web browsing

IE7 vs Firefox 2

November 11, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

Windows Fanatics, a blog at lockergnome.com, has a very interesting article IE7 Vs. Firefox 2.0

The conclusion — install both of them and use them interchangeably. If a web site doesn’t work on one, use the other.

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But, he also had an alternative conclusion — don’t install either one — wait for a couple weeks for patches.

Personally, I don’t agree with the alternative conclusion. IE7 has huge security fixes to the ActiveX gaping security hole. If you keep using IE6 when you could change to IE7, you’re making a mistake.

Firefox 2 is much more of an incremental upgrade — but Firefox has seen a lot of new versions in the last 2 years. This is the first real IE upgrade in 5 years!

Filed Under: Communications, Firefox, IE, Security, Web browsing, Windows XP

IE 7 Automatic Update – Not Yet

November 1, 2006 By Terry Stockdale

Yesterday, I mentioned a blog entry that said IE7 was already pushing out as automatic updates.

I don’t think he was right — I think he had downloaded IE7 and started the install, then left and forgot about it. He did mention “…when I came back…”

But, the rest of that article is very pertinent, regardless of when you install IE7.

My desktop still has IE6 on it. I decided I needed to keep one copy of IE6 on it (but IE7 on all my other computers).

Anyway, I even tried Microsoft Updates and IE7 is not showing up there yet.

Why? I design web sites, so I need a copy of the ubiquitous IE6 to test designs, just as I look at them in Firefox (my normal web browser), Opera, and IE7.

Filed Under: Communications, IE, Web browsing, Windows Updates