Firefox vs. SP2's IE?

Anonymous Coward asks: "I was at my grandpa's house today, and I came across a somewhat unsettling issue. He is a user of Internet Explorer. I was talking about Firefox with him, and it turns out that he has had no trouble with popups since SP2 came out, he doesn't multitask enough to benefit from tabbed browsing, and he doesn't care about safety/privacy concerns. On top of that, I ran a test and found no difference in load/download speeds between the two browsers on his computer. This brought me to an interesting point. For someone like him, is there any benefit to be gained from using Firefox? On top of that, are there any people who are actually better off sticking with IE?"

Comments

Security/Privacy issues

[rogueuk]

The way I see it, if you don't care about security or privacy issues, then I don't think that there is a real reason for you to switch if you aren't going to benefit from any of the other enhancements that Firefox brings

However, once you get nailed with some bug/virus that exploits an IE security hole, then you will probably care enough to switch

Re:Security/Privacy issues

[LordEd]

I used to use IE with SP2 up until a few weeks ago. I went to the wrong website and wound up spending a day trying to remove a persistent spyware app off of my system. I had to drop down to a repair CD and physically erase specific DLLs that kept recreating themselves.

You may not have privacy/security concerns, but you start noticing it when your CPU is running 99% on spyware.

I haven't had any problems since switching to firefox.

Re:Security/Privacy issues

[walt-sjc]

then you will probably care enough to switch

I doub't it. Some people never learn. Frankly, who gives a rip? If someone wants to run IE, let em. Some people still smoke too despite all the evidence of health problems, huge cost, etc. You can't cure stupidity.

Re:Security/Privacy issues

[Dan Ost]

The number of sites using ActiveX seems to be on the decline. I'd like to
think that polite emails sent to webmasters is raising the overall awareness
of what technologies are acceptable to use in a web page, but I suspect that
it's happening because webmasters are starting to use non-MS web authoring
tools.

Either way, I like the trend.

Re:Security/Privacy issues

[itwerx]

If someone wants to run IE, let em. Some people still smoke too despite all the evidence of health problems, huge cost, etc.

This analogy is unfortunately all too accurate. Not only does the rest of the insured/tax-paying population have to shoulder the health-care costs of smokers so too does the rest of the Internet-using population have to shoulder the cost of spams/viruses/wasted bandwidth etc. perpetuated by IE users.

In the big scheme of things...

[erykjj]

I would say it makes no difference which browser you use if you do not keep up with all the security updates for the browser and/or OS.

He's not alone on the net...

[AlexeiMachine]

If he becomes infected with a virus or a trojan that transforms his PC in a spam zombie, he then becomes a threat/nuisance/liability to others.

He might not care if he's infected with a bunch of crapware, but if his PC gets zombified and participates in criminal activities, he might object to that.

At least make sure he doesn't run MSIE as an Administrator on his PC.

Browser Benchmarks

[vasqzr]

Does anyone do these anymore?

I remember back in the days of IE vs Netscape, magazines would often publish page loading/rendering times. I'm not talking loading Yahoo, and hitting REFRESH while watching a stopwatch, but a real benchmark suite like you'd use for Microsft Office or a graphics card.

I'd also like to say that the newest IE is a lot better than the old ones as far as pop ups go. Tabbed browsing keeps me on Firefox even though there are ways to do it in IE. I've noticed Firefox hangs up on pages that IE handles fine, and I'm not really sure Firefox is 'faster', although it seems like it on slower machines.

Most people think Firefox is faster because they've got so much spyware etc infested in Internet Explorer. IE has always been 'fast'. A fresh install, at least.

Doesn't care?

[esme]

...and he doesn't care about safety/privacy concerns

Right.

So you're telling me he's using a computer with no sensitive personal information on it, has a complete trusted offline backup, and he could easily wipe his machine, install from original media and restore his backup?

If he's not concerned about the safety/privacy problems of IE, then he hasn't given it much thought.

-Esme

Three main benefits

[Planesdragon]

For someone like him, is there any benefit to be gained from using Firefox?

Four main benefits, in order, for Firefox over IE6

1. When the web browser crashes, it doesn't kill part of the user environment.
2. Security holes are fewer, farther betwee, and quicker to be patched
3. Type-ahead-find is GREAT
4. The web pages are standards-based, which will make the web run better for everyone.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

For someone like him, is there any benefit to be gained from using Firefox?

Internet Explorer is holding the web back. As long as a lot of people use Internet Explorer, nobody can get the benefits of advanced web development.

CSS 1? Eight years old and still broken in Internet Explorer. PNG 1? Eight years old and still broken in Internet Explorer. HTML 4? Six years old and still broken in Internet Explorer. HTTP 1.1? Five years old and still broken in Internet Explorer. CSS 2? Six years old and still broken in Internet Explorer. Nothing works properly in Internet Explorer.

If he's using Internet Explorer, he's part of the problem. Ask him to stop being part of the problem. Other people might still hold back the web, but at least he won't be.

Of course he doesn't care about security...

[dscho]

... because whenever something bad happens, he'll expect you to fix it!

Re:Of course he doesn't care about security...

[TheCarp]

This is why when the issue comes up with people I know I tell them this:

"You can do what you want, but I recomend you use firefox, if you continue to use IE I will refuse to help you when your computer gets infected with viruses"

That said, everyone that I have had try firefox has loved it and begun using it exclusivly. Normally I just say "here let me do some setup for you", install firefox, take ie off the desktop and the start menu, and then explain the new web browser to them. Often I just tell them "I upgraded your web browser, its called firefox now"

I know to you or I this sounds very deceptive, but I realised something: its just abstraction. Forget the details of code base and who puts it out. I believe firefox is a better browser, these people don't even know what a "web browser" is. Thats why its called "The Internet" on the desktop shortcut and not "IE" - because "IE" or "firefox" is more detail than most people want.

If you try to tell them "I installed firefox, this is what to use now because ie is bad", then you have a few problems.

1. They don't know what you are talking about anyway so they are scared

This means they worry "oh god is this going to be harder to use?" You can try to tell them its not, but they wont believe you because they saw you do all these weird things and so they know your idea of easy and theirs is way different.

2. They may have used ie before and s far as they are concerned it is great. So when you say "its bad" (or however else you want to qualify or expound upon that) it doesn't jive with their experience, so they assume its just stuff they don't need to care about, or you are just being esoteric...they go back to point 1 and figure this is going to make their life harder for benefits that mean nothing to them anyway.

So all in all, you save both your you alot of trouble by abstracting away "firefox" and "ie" and just going to "I upgraded your web browser" and when they sa y "whats that?" you say "Your internet is better and more secure"

And yes I am being a little bit flip here, with my phrases but I also hate doing windows support and using it for anything other than gaming (tho it is fairly usable with a link to the cygwin port of X in the startup and xterm on the launcher menu)

-Steve

-Steve

Re:Of course he doesn't care about security...

[Dr. Spork]

My strategy? Ask people "Hey, do you want me to install a plugin that keeps you from downloading all these stupid ads that show up on web pages?" Believe me, nobody says "no" most are amazed that such a thing could ever work. Then I install Firefox and import my block strings into Adblock, making sure the user figures out that they will not be using IE anymore.

When I get asked about this, I try to look surprised and say "bah, you mean you thought Internet Explorer could do somehting this cool? No way! What you need for this sort of thing is an optimized browser - you know, optimized for speed and useability and all sorts of other cool things. You want me to show you some? Watch this... suppose I want to go back to the previous page [mouse gesture left]. Cool, eh? Wanna see how I did that?"

The lesson is: install some extensions as well as Firefox. It's mind-numbingly easy, and it gets new users really interested in customizing their Firefox further. Once they start with that, they'll never go back.

Re:IE XP SP2 is as safe as Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you can't run Windows Update anymore without ActiveX... :-P

Re:The only downside

[AtariAmarok]

"I hear this a lot from newbie web developers that think that because Internet Explorer does something with broken code, that's the way it's supposed to work" I'm not talking about my own crappy pages. I'm talking about others' sites. Yes, MSIE is indeed better in this respect if it can take broken HTML and display a good page out of it. "Every time I have heard this complaint, upon investigation, I have found that Internet Explorer is getting it wrong and the other browser (in this case Firefox) is getting it right" However, if MSIE is showing a good readable page and Firefox is showing some broken junk on the screen, it is pretty clear which one is getting it right. Obviously, it is the one showing a good page. "Do you have any concrete examples of Firefox getting things wrong and Internet Explorer getting things right?" The difference, as I hope I said, is small. Probably less than 1 out of 100 pages that Firefox can't handle. The last one I found was one that Firefox put about 30 blank lines at the beginning (before the content). MSIE started with the content. Oh, there is also the problem of displaying image files from my own hard disk in IMG tags. MSIE takes the actual image paths with no problem. Firefox displays ugly "bad image" icons. I suspect that this will be fixed soon on the Mozilla side. They've clearly done a lot of work to make Firefox able to display all web pages, but it does not look like it is quite as much as MS did (and, again, I am referring to real basic HTML, not Java, ActiveX, or other esoteric content).

Take it From the User Perspective

[rueger]

The latest IE did in fact add a number of things like pop-up blocking that it had lacked in the past. SP2 also added a software firewall.

I think your grandpa is probably right - IE does everything that he needs and is built right into Windows. If his PC is more of an entertainment than a mission critical business tool there probably is no reason for him to change.

He has every right to to argue that IE works fine for him, is secure enough to suit him, and to not have a new browser foisted on him.

Despite all of the holier than thou talk on slashdot, it's his computer, and his choice of a user experience. Although I may find IE irritating and cumbersome, he is entitled to his own choice.

I know people who *love* popup ads

[digitalgimpus]

No joke...

- fun to try and close them all... like a game
- funny ads sometimes
- interesting products

To the point where they won't update to SP2 because they think even if you disable popup blocker it still stops some of them.

Favorite App: gator.

You'd think this was a joke, but some people actually enjoy it.

I have a friend who collects spam too.

Re:The only downside

[ekuns]

On a Windows system, find a graphic file. Any file, like c:\winnt\pyramid.bmp Next, place this file path as an URL. Check the page. It doesn't break, but you will see a pyramid on your screen in MSIE and an ugly no-image in Firefox.

This is a non-feature in Firefox/Mozilla/Netscape that is very unlikely to change. I opened a Bugzilla entry for this a long time ago (132479) and the decision made then was unyielding. (I'd include an actual link to the bugzilla page, but Mozilla.org rejects links to that page that come from slashdot.)

At issue is that Internet Explorer rewrites URLs containing a backslash into using instead a normal slash. On the other hand, Firefox and all its ancestors issue the URL unmodified to the server. If you take any normal web URL and replace random forward slashes with backslashes, the pages will still work under IE, but Firefox (etc) will no longer be able to find the page.

This is not because IE is better or because Netscape (et al) are missing that feature, but because it is inappropriate to rewrite a URL into your favorite canonical form before issuing the request. The remote system might have a very good reason to be using backslashes, and any such pages will NOT load correctly in IE.

Note, however, that URLs that contain forward slashes for a file:// URL will work using Internet Explorer and Windows. Try the following URLs using various browsers -- on Windows -- and see what works:

file:///c:/windows/Zapotec.bmp

file:///c:\windows\Zapotec.bmp

I'd make the links easy to click on, but slashcode appears to swallow all "/" characters on a file:// URL. Hmm. Anyway, cut and paste the above into your browser and you'll see both work under IE, so you can use the first form in URLs and it'll work everywhere.

Of Course It's Not a Problem

[Stephen Samuel]

For some people, letting their kids play with real guns isn't a problem either -- until somebody ends up with a bullet lodged in their skull.

For another analogy, consider seatbelts. If you wait until there's a really good and obvious reason to use them, it's far too late.

BTW: I don't tell people that IE is bad. I just tell them that it has some severe security problems that make it very possible for nasty greeblies to take over their computer and cause them problems. That usually gets their ears perked. If they don't do an install then, most will do it after their next run-in with virus/spy/add ware.

I then tell them that there are only a very few sites that absolutely require IE, and that they should seriously think about whether it's worth starting up IE to go to those sites (those kinds of sitea are also most likely to get taken over by MS-script kiddies).

Like others have said... Once people start using firefox, very few look back.