This post about browsers has no particular purpose

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Bill H
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This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by Bill H »

(Except, perhaps, to illustrate something vaguely uncomplimentary about me.) I've been using Firefox for a long time and sort of sneering at my wife for continuing to use IE. I have found, however that upgrading FF is seriously annoying, with some lengthy process that I have never been able to accomplish successfully, and every time I have done it I've wound up effectively with a new browser that took a couple of weeks to get running the way I want it to. So I just quit upgrading.

Maybe I should be a little less contemptuous of my wife's devotion to IE, you think?

Anyway, FF is annoying the crap out of me, jumping around quite a bit and, after I installed the latest version of Avast, freezing quite frequently. So I asked on another forum if there might be a compatibility issue and it was suggested to me that since the latest version of Firefox is 11, my using version 3 was perhaps less than ideal. Yikes.

I still don't really want to mess with the upgrade, so I decide to see what Chrome will do, and if it will "import" settings from my current FF successfully. It did, and the more I use Chrome the better I like it, so that is becoming my default browser. I guess I really should measure it against FF 11, but...

The whole thing is a little bit embarrassing, but, are there many Chrome users here?
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Celauran
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by Celauran »

I use both Chrome and Firefox. For the most part I prefer Chrome, but since it lacks support for bookmark tagging, it won't be replacing Firefox any time soon. That's an absolute deal breaker.
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social_experiment
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by social_experiment »

Bill H wrote:after I installed the latest version of Avast, freezing quite frequently.
Interesting point this; i've also recently seen my FF giving issues (freezing up, telling me it's already open when i click on the icon), coincidently after updating my avast program;

Of the three browsers I use (IE9, FF 7.0.1 and Chrome 8.something) FF is only for local testing. Between Chrome and IE9 it is a 60 / 40 split in favor of IE9. What sets Chrome apart from Firefox for me is the built-in developer tools, i'm not sure if newer Firefox version also follow this method where something like Firebug is a default option.
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Celauran
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by Celauran »

social_experiment wrote:What sets Chrome apart from Firefox for me is the built-in developer tools, i'm not sure if newer Firefox version also follow this method where something like Firebug is a default option.
Newer versions do, but it's not nearly as good as Firebug.
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califdon
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by califdon »

I use IE8, FF12, Chrome18, Opera11, and Safari5 to check pages locally. My default browser for regular use is FF, although I'm having some misgivings, too, especially since about 2 updates ago it became incompatible with Firebug, which I used to use a LOT. Chrome is zippier in general, "cleaner" and has some pretty good developer tools, but I got addicted to Firebug and the error console on FF. I think I'll spend more time on Chrome for awhile and see whether or not I'm too old to learn--I have some doubt about that.
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Bill H
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by Bill H »

it lacks support for bookmark tagging
:?: :crazy:
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social_experiment
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

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califdon wrote:since about 2 updates ago it became incompatible with Firebug
This happens to me each time i update firefox, i have to re-install firebug; Something else i like about Chrome is the option to turn image display on/off for different sites, i haven't spotted this in the other browsers (and their specific versions) that i use.
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by matthijs »

Weird. I don't have any problems with Firefox upgrades (running version 11 on OS X). It just notifies me now and then that there's an update. I click install or restart and 4 seconds later it runs the latest version.

I do use Chrome for using Google reader, since reader is much faster on Chrome then on Firefox (probably because it's written specifically for chrome)
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social_experiment
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by social_experiment »

I don't use the update function of Firefox, i look for a install package and then remove my 'old' Firefox installation; how does updating affect firebug?
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Celauran
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by Celauran »

Generally, it doesn't. It hasn't for me, at any rate. Firefox's updater has improved significantly since they changed their release model. Worst case, Firebug may not be supported by the latest version of Firefox (hasn't happened in a while), so the addon gets temporarily disabled. Firefox checks for updates to your installed addons as well, and updates and re-enables them seamlessly.
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Bill H
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by Bill H »

"it lacks support for bookmark tagging"
What is this "bookmark tagging" that it lacks? If I right click on the bookmark bar, one of the selections is "add page." That selections allows you to select where the page will be added in your bookmarks menu. There is also a star in the URL window which does the same thing, using a different but equally effective method for placing the bookmark.

Is "bookmark tagging" a different function that I don't know about?

And I must say that the more I use Chrome the better I like it.
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Celauran
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

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Chrome organizes bookmarks into folders. Firefox can, but also allows you to add multiple tags to a bookmark. Say I find a particularly good PHP tutorial; do I want that in my PHP folder or my Tutorials folder? The answer, of course, is both. Seems a bit silly to bookmark the same site twice, so I tag it as PHP and tag is as tutorial. If I type tutorial into the address bar, Firefox spits out a list of all the sites I've tagged tutorial; if I type PHP, it gives me a list of everything I've tagged PHP. Now, if I type PHP Tutorial, it gives me a list of all bookmarks containing both tags. That's a pretty simple example, granted. Still, I find it makes sorting your bookmarks so much easier.
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by social_experiment »

that's a pretty nifty feature; never used it but i will certainly look into it
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Bill H
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by Bill H »

Well, Celauran, you are a lot more of a power user than I am. I don't have anywhere near than many bookmarks, so that feature would serve no purpose for me. I can see the value of it for someone who does a lot of work on the 'net, though, so I see your point. Thanks for the explanation, which was very clearly made.
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califdon
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Re: This post about browsers has no particular purpose

Post by califdon »

Wow! Are we all talking about the same Firefox??? First of all, many thanks to Celauran for the tip about bookmark tagging. Wish I had known about that a long time ago! I do use bookmarks a lot, and have built up a very messy swarm of folders, many with overlapping purposes. But the only place I see that it is mentioned is in the pop-up when you bookmark a page (the logical place, of course, but does that mean I can't add a tag to an existing bookmark? I don't see how to do that--no right-click context menu or anything that I can see). And typing the tagname in the browser address bar?!! Brilliant!

I like to use the latest update of any browser I use, for several reasons: first, they often correct security exploits, and second, I often want to check whether the latest update might break one of my web pages. Whenever FF updates, it nearly always says that xxxx Add-On will not work with the update (it says this AFTER I have committed to install it!) and offers to search for compatible versions of the Add-On, but in the case of Firebug, it never finds a compatible version. For example, I have been using FF 12 for weeks or months now, but I just tried to restore Firebug, and the download site immediately informed me that Firebug is incompatible with FF 12. As far as I know, there is no mechanism for notifying me when Firebug releases a compatible version, and I don't want to spend time every few days checking to see if it's available yet. I'm a little disappointed that Mozilla hasn't addressed this issue, one way or another.

[Edit:
@Celauran: With the tagging feature, is there any reason at all for using bookmark folders, then? Maybe so you won't have to remember all your tags, I guess. I don't suppose you can easily bring up a list of tags??
]
Last edited by califdon on Thu Apr 05, 2012 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Added questions for Celauran.
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