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Exploring Firefox Extensions
Gary writes "If you haven't made the switch to Mozilla Firefox it may be because you aren't aware of the great benefits Firefox has over IE. Flexbeta has posted a nice HOWTO guide on Firefox extensions; my favorite is the Target Alert extension which displays a small graphic next to links that are not web pages. For example a mailto: link will display a small envelope, a link to a PDF file will display a small Adobe icon, etc."
1: Mozilla Firefox had terrible fonts on Linux. I know there is the possibility of using one compiled with xft. But where is it? Whenever a new release is announced, the version producing those bad fonts is what I find.
2: I find that it is slower than Konqueror on most sites. My only use of Mozilla Firefox is on Gmail. I wonder why Google will not support Konqueror yet.
3: Firefox keeps some important passwords long after I have logged out of my online baking site. It is not the problem of the site but Firefox. I have confirmed this.
Please note that I am no expert in these matters. I just download stuff and use it as such.
Cb..
I am quite interested in how the Mozilla team decide what goes into the browser, and what should be left as an extension. Many built-in features of Firefox can actually made made as an extension instead, which could make the browser more lightweight and start up faster. Yes it would require the user to download more extensions, and I think it could be solved by providing extension packs with several useful extensions put into one easy-to-install package.
Just because something moves to v1.0 does it magically become stable, feature rich, simple and user friendly?
:)
Anyway, I must be confused.
Internet explorer is dire, so thousands of geeks start running wildly in the Firefox direction, shouting from the rooftops about this alternative, only to discover now that Threni says we shouldn't use it.
On the mozilla site itself, they say it can be used as a primary browser, but don't rely on it for mission critical stuff.
No software is ever complete.
Every piece of software has problems, bugs and niggles, I asked a group of people who were likely to know the answer
liqbase
>I just don't think a novice user could handle changing that.
I just don't think it would occur to a novice user that its something they could change. heck, most novice users dont even know how to change their homepage unless a website pops up and asks to do it for them
TIAEAE!
> Just because something moves to v1.0 does it magically become stable, feature
> rich, simple and user friendly?
No - rather, it won't be released at v1.0 or above until it IS stable and more user friendly.
Uninstalling user-installed software? That's unforgivable. Too bad. I used to think Flash was annoying. I guess it's not just flash that sucks, but all of Macromedia.
Here's a rule of thumb: How much can you afford to annoy your customers? That's exactly how much flash you want to inflict on visitors to your site.
What proportion of people sit through a flash movie, versus the number who click "skip intro?" I've asked that question a lot, and never gotten an answer. Web developers aren't tracking it. They aren't about to point out that an expensive feature only drives customers away. Nobody is actually looking at those statistics. These irritating time wasters are just put up without any concern for whether they are an asset or a liability.
Only a few people are so dumb that they are impressed with an online movie that they didn't choose to watch. "Ooh! Looky! Stuff on the screen is MOVING!" Maybe those people are the ideal targets for marketing.
Assembly is the reverse of disassembly.
I think we're all gettin our knickers in a twist. I read all the comments here, and your right in a way about beta software, but firefox is essentially feature rich and practically complete.
Us geeks have been heralding Firefox as the second coming and telling everyone we can to download and use it. Your the first person I have seen that has actually put into words that maybe we shouldn't be saying this.
To me, the version number is irrelivent, I will use any software and gladly recommend the stuff that does the required job.
Firefox fulfills its job with flying colors, but such is life that nothing is absolutely perfect (my original config niggle).
I would rather a novice used this almost finished piece of software than carry on polluting the web with an insecure browser.
liqbase
Getting way off topic here but...
You never, ever use a racial slur, even just to repeat the words of others.
You may never, but the rest of the world is generally aware of something called "context". If the poster was using it as an insult, it would be bad. They weren't though.
Tell me, do you get offended when one black person calls another "nigger" not as an insult? Or even themselves? Or if someone repeated such a conversation to you? It is quite common for minority groups to take insulting terms and reclaim them.
The poster could have used asterisks or put N-word, but it was horrible to use the word itself!
Surely it is the concept of slavery and discrimination that is horrible, not the word in a context of a non-insult? If someone wrote "n****r", from context your brain is just going to subsitiute "nigger" anyway. Asteriks and euphamisms are pointless, either you completely obscure what you are trying to say, so why say it, or everyone know what you are saying, so why hide it?
If you are really that easily offended (and not just trolling as I suspect) then I suggest you avoid Slashdot, and webforums in general, and definately stay clear of usenet.