Mozilla Firefox... rules!

Ok, I'll admit that I have been using "IE only" afer Netscape went bad years and years ago... today I took the plunge and installed Firefox - and it sure seems nice! I liked the flawless import wizard that took my IE info and favourites and those tabs are so handy. I like the built-in Google search too... tested few pages with IE vs. Firefox and there were some differences but generally everything looks the same.

Now the question part: does anyone know what are current browser percentages among the net users? I'm making my new website and would like to know what browsers should I bother to "support"?

% According to the W3C...

Regardless, if you ask me, your main browser compatibility targets are IE (pain in the butt to support once you get a site following W3C standards), Firefox, and Opera....because odds are, if your site looks fine in Firefox or Opera, it'll look fine in any other obscure browser that manages to not stink.....and it'll be completely broken in IE!


Regarding Firefox, I'd recommend picking up these extensions to make your surfing experience better if you haven't explored them yet.....(man I love the built-in spell-checker in 2.0)

- CustomizeGoogle (must-have for Googlers imo)
- Ad-Block (why isn't that built-in to Firefox yet?)
- FlashBlock (requires user to click flash files for them to load, great for keeping Flash-Ads disrupting your window)
- IE View (adds "View Page in IE" to right-click menu)

I'd recommend "IE Tab" to view IE within Firefox when the need comes along.
As far as I know it has the same features, but it also has a handy button on the status bar and (not sure if IEView does this) it will embed IE within Firefox, even getting FF's Back and Forward buttons to talk to it.
Very neat stuff, when the need comes along.

Anyway, feel free to fiddle with it a lot. You're a lot more free here than with IE.
For one thing, experience the joys of manipulating the toolbar (button for Tab Sidebar right where the tab icons popup is for IE 7 :b) and check out addons.mozilla.org for all sorts of extensions. (My favourites are the already mentioned ones, BetterSearch, Web Developer, Flashblock, Search Sidebar, GMail Space, Google Browser Sync and Search Engine Wizard).



For web sites, I don't support any web browser except the W3C Validator.
I do make sure it looks somewhat correct in IE, though.

September Stats: IE: 82.10%, FF: 12.46%, Safari: 3.19%, Rest: 2.25%

ahh yes, a new ff-extension recommendation thread. ok, here we go:

- Tab X: adds a close button to each of the browser tabs
- NoScript: Disabling javascript/flash etc globaly for all webpages and allows to enable it for trusted ones only, dramtically increases security
- ForecastFox: get detailed weather forecasts right to your statusbar
- SearchPluginHacks: allows uninstalling search plugins (i.e. google-quicksearch, yahoo, ebay and such) if you dont need 'em
- WML-Browser: display wml-pages (wap) in your browser, as if you were using your cellphone
- and of course the already mentioned adblock, ieview and flashblock ;)
- for webdevelopers are cool too: Web Developer and Firebug

have fun :)

Cool! Thanks for the info and add-on tips! Much appreciated.

w3schools is NOT the w3c (w3schools actually provide decent documentation for a start :) )

For web development plugins for firefox I'd highly recommend the web developer toolbar, it's mucho good. Firebug not so much since it finds bugs in itself (from what I can tell).

A general rule at my work (I develop websites) is to develop for firefox and fix for IE.

I'm currently using FF 2.0rc2. IE can't compete with it in any aspect.

IE7 RC2 is pretty good. Almost as good as FF2.0RC2, but I prefer FF

Just don't be one of those people who makes website that turn their nose up at people using IE. I saw one that said:

"I see you are using IE. This site was tested with Firefox browsers. IE does not correctly support W3C standards. If this site shows up incorrectly, you should browse it with Firefox."

That's just bad practice. Firefox also doesn't support all the W3C standards (just more than IE does), and it's utterly ridiculous to tell people what browser they should use for your site. Does he really think I'm going to go and fetch Firefox just for his site? All people like that is strengthen my resolve to avoid Firefox.

@Glenny-boy:
I actually find this website statement quite funny. Why? - IE is doing so for a very long time. -> "Install IE or be gone."

There is a huge difference between not supporting all standards and trying to create your own "pseudo" one. The latter one is done by MS.

No one is forcing you to use FF. But MS is forcing people to use IE by their acts.

Yah really, only Microsoft is allowed to do that.
Also check out the MSN search thing for more features that are only served to IE, but could easily be performed by other browsers. (Perhaps better, considering that those other browsers do transparent PNGs).

I do agree with you, though. I just don't like MSN.

I like Firefox, only thing I don't like is that sometimes it can take ages to start that really enrages me to smash the nearest thing.

And also IE is the only program that will recongize my website still, absolutely no other program on this computer can even connect to the server.

Well, Opera seems to have some limitations, let alone, being far more streamlined than any other web browser around, and it even has the e-mail program as part of the browser, and not its own separate program. Can't complain either way. Just wish that Mozilla would overcome Microsoft once and for all.

What I found interesting is that when microsoft's live.com beta search engine was launched, it's image search was all b0rked in IE (background text drawn on top of pulldown menu's, etc.) but worked flawlessly in Firefox.

Personally I use Avant Browser.

I really want to make sure it works 95% right in both main browsers... I use some js and have fixed width and height but other than that it should survive even odd browsers (safari?)... .png support sucks in IE of course but I found a kludge that seems to work until IE gets proper support for it. CSS and layers might give tiny problems and printing out the site works only in FF and is far from perfect even in it.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/bobosola/index.htm

Hey OJay, you update to the latest Firefox (RC 2.0) yet? It's got the close-button on Tabs built-in.
(although I never use it, I like my middle-click)

I like the new IE7 beta 2 myaself. Seems faster than FF on my system, and supports the occasional page that assumes your using IE.

I use the printing features a lot which are much improved with IE7, and it finaly has support for transparent PNG's too.

Opera (for me) expands on FireFox's usability. I really cannot get along very easily with a browser which does not support mouse gestures.

Having to move my mouse to aim for the 'back' button irritates me. Far nicer to gesture it or even to use the righ-left click combo. Speeds things up hugely.

I bind the thumb button on my mouse to "back". Fixes every browser at once. Heh.

I just use the keyboard shortcuts, I do enough typing to the point where the mouse is mainly used for clicking links and giving focus to text-fields, and that's all.

heh thought all mice had back and forward buttons placed by your thumb these days?

Mleh, that's probably one reason why I just switched to Opera on my Linux partition, because even tho Mozilla Firefox and Evolution were cool, they could possibly be outnumbered by this itty-bitty streamlined browser. I have yet to see how well IE7'll do under Vista to see if Firefox 2.0'll be the way to go. To me, it's a coin toss for the moment.

Most don't, luckily... Personally I absolutely can't stand them. I tend to hold the mouse by my thumb and ringfinger. I keep pressing those 'bonus' buttons by accident all day long if I'm unfortunate enough to run into a mouse that has 'em.

@Grisu

Hardly the same thing, and it's only for MS sites, and not even all of them. Microsoft is a large company trying to leverage their browser as much as possible. It's a lame tactic, but at least they have a reason for being lameasses. Why is the average joe trying to ensure his website only works best under his favourite browser? What if I just don't like his favourite browser? What then, am I still expected to install it for the ten minutes I'll be on his site? Of course not, so why do it? It's shockingly bad practice, and you would never hire someone to do a professional site with that childish attitude.

However, that's not what gets me the most. It's the attitude that people assume I will like Firefox, and I'm not using it because I haven't seen "the light".

Actually, I just don't really like Firefox very much.

He has his reasons too -- trying to chip away at the defacto monopoly that MS has in the market place. Will it make any difference? Hardly, but any bit can help. Merely letting people know that alternatives exist can be a reason. You may think this is kind of a stupid way to do that, but hey... freedom of speech and all that.

I broke mine off.... :)

And they come across like a really annoying friend who constantly keeps trying to get you to watch the Star Wars Trilogy on his big screen TV, even though you have your own perfectly good big-screen TV. That's basically what they achieve in doing that: they come across as annoying and pushy. I don't mind a Firefox button on a site, I've no problem with them basically advertising another browser.

I do mind sites that tell me I shouldn't be using IE because they don't like Microsoft's monopoly. I'm not fond of Microsoft's monopoly either, but I can credit people with the intelligence to decide for themselves. I can also accommodate users who may have no choice but to use IE, if they don't have the permissions to install their browser of choice.

The only downfall really is that you have to make a list of every plugin, and setting for that plugin, if you use multiple computers...

For example, I like to keep my home pc, laptop, and work pc all running the same software, same configs, same everything.

After instaling a ton of FireFox plugins, and configuring them to my taste, now I have to remember everything I did, and do the same at home on homepc and laptop... Much easier with configurable programs such as protean and what not where you merely transfer over the config....

Or is there a way to export your plugins in firefox?

If by plug-in you mean extension (I refer to plug-ins such as things like Flash, Shockwave, WMP embeds, etc)....the settings for them should be stored in your profile folder, which for WinXP is located around C:\Documents and Settings\<User Name>\Application Data\Mozilla .

For my thumb-drive, I usually just copy & paste that folder so I can use Firefox on any PC, with a little batch file telling the browser to load profile from a defined directory, rather then the default location.

Haven't really used IE much, did once for a couple of months and had all sorts of trouble. Now I hardly use windows, only for a couple of games I like. I sometimes come across pages I can't use, even pages I could use but no longer can because they've upgraded to some incompatible stuff. I think web pages should be standard. This "so&so browser compatible" is stupid; it's like building roads that can only be driven by a certain model and make of car.

I don't see any problem with IE. I reckon when it comes to developing web pages it could cause problems. But as i don't do that, i don't see it being much better. The tab thing is nice, but if it ain't broke, don't fix it it i say :o)

(cue the list of broken things in IE, i've never encountered)

So, how do you like your horse and cart?

Blasphemy, All who use alternate browsers must die. To the I.E. branded guillotines!

It's pretty comfortable, could do with some suspension. Seriously though. What am i mising out on?

Tabbed browsing aside,
there's the plethora of extensions that make your surfing like much easier,
the customisable search engine list,
the enhanced bookmarks management including bookmarks toolbar which makes life much easier for location your favourite sites.
The bookmark search for the same reason.
And a warm fuzzy feeling knowing that you're actually assisting the advancement of web standards instead or proprietary nonsense that will help fracture the already unstable collection of standards.
I'm sure there are other things, but this'll do for a start.

Unless of course you mean the horse and cart, in which case, I dunno, a roof over your head, being able to get to the next city the same day you left the current one, having somewhere to hang your pine tree air freshener...

So, basically i don't need it then :P

There's the Search Keywords feature, as well.
Not many people use it, but it is really nice. Just right click on a form field and choose Add Keyword For This Search and an "add bookmark" bookmark window pops up.

Save the bookmark with a keyword, and then you can just type that keyword followed by whatever you want to put in the form field.

For example, I set up a search keyword with this thing which converts US and Canadian currencies. (The search keywords remember every field you've filled out in the form).

Unfortunately the system is hardly user friendly. When I stumbled upon it, I was very confused about the whole bookmark thing and I think that it shouldn't be called a Search Keyword since, as with the above example, it can be used with any html form.