Firefox or Internet Explorer

June 23, 2009

XP and Chrome but Firefox if I want to see the OS Maps on the geocache page!

2.5k · June 23, 2009

Greasemonkey keep away, I've just amended a GM script which harvested my logon details and then emailed me the details, this was just a standard one used on GC.com but the code I could add to any site. I have deleted this as if it ever reached the outside world it could be used for anything, and how many of you actually look at what a script is actually doing?

Or understand, if its deliberately badly written. ?

Can Open. Worms? Everywhere...

With all due respect , if its as easy to do as you say, then your experiment will already have been done by someone else and already is 'in the wild'

On the other hand, GM scripts can't install by themselves, so there has to be some user complicity. Much like installing any other program. For example, it'd be easy for you to write a program to harvest exactly the same details and email them to you. And probably easier for you to get it onto someone's PC. With greasemonkey scripts, I suspect most users have an above-average IT knowledge and word would VERY soon get round to avoid such & such a script.

I currently only use the Geocaching Greasemonkey scripts. Would I be right in thinking these are all benign? I think the GCVote script uses my Geocaching NAME (not password) to link to their database.

OK I did not really make it as clear as I could have; the script was one used commonly on GC.com, but I directed it to harvest to an alternative site; my ntl account, I then forwarded the harvested info to my gmail account. Quite scary really as an email account can be used for say requesting a password etc. The script worked like it should on GC.com, it just had a hidden bite when I when to my email. Yes it's probably is in the wild, but I personally don't want to go there. So shredding was the only option after I had tested it.

I guess all it takes is for someone to publish a GM script that appeals to a sector such as GC.co users and it could cause havoc. I'm certain I could have harvested banking details etc it would just depend on where the script is enabled to run.

June 23, 2009

Thanks for the response Moote.

So for the slightly less computer literate amongst us, is there an simple way to tell if a GM script is benign or not?

I would guess with the Geocaching scripts, the obvious thing is to check it ONLY operates on the pages you expect it to? Other than that, its a case of opening the script in a text editor and looking through the code to work out what is does.

As you say, I think we all probably need to be careful!

Whilst the current crop of scripts seem to be OK, there's nothing to stop one of the creators adding a couple of lines to an 'update'. Not that I'm suggesting for a minute that they will, it is possible. Mind you this is WAAAYYYY off-topic.

June 23, 2009

The double-post fairies are at it again...

Edited June 24, 2009 by Guanajuato

June 23, 2009

IE as my Browser

Thunderbird as my POP mail clint to get my Yahoo and Gmail messages...

I'm still using IE, not because I'm lazy or not elite enough to use FF; its just that IE has never given me any issues to make me want to drop it... I have no loyalty to MS, trust me, if IE was not doing something I needed it to and something else did, I'd drop it as soon as I finished downloading its replacment...

Now using Outlook and all the other M.S. Mail clients I've ran into one issue (perfomance wise or bugs) or another and I switched to Thunderbird...

I'm pretty happy with it excepet the slow (time it takes) to save files that have been sent to me...

June 23, 2009

Why do you find it scary that folks use IE. The alternative appears to be FF which is slow to load and has a tendency to hang your broadband connection.

Why do the FF junkies keep on bringing this absurd discussion up, is it really so hard for them to accept that others have made a different choice ;(

If nothing else, standards adoption. People who still use IE are the ones dragging everyone else down. Beyond that, security holes. Granted, if you want to put yourself at risk, then that's your own business. Like I said before, anything can be vulnerable, but there are so many reasons to use Firefox or Chrome over IE. If Firefox hangs your connection, you may want to run Malwarebytes or Ad-Aware.

IE8 IS slower than every other browser worth mentioning. In fact its the slowest in every factor of a browser performance you can think of. Whether its Cold Startup, Warm Startup, JavaScript performance or page load performance in general. Apparently IE8 teams thinks page load time is not important. Their definition of browser speed, in the form of accelerometer, is more important than the performance of actually loading the website. Accelerometer is a “feature” that is available on Firefox, Opera long before IE8 implemented it. This is nothing to do with browser performance. They want to define whats important for users and design accordingly, instead of designing based on whats important to the users. No wonder they are so out of loop.

6.1k · June 25, 2009

Update: Not that anyone cares but... I'v so far avoided Chrome but all the punters in here using it made me go and have a look, first impressions are I don't like the look of it, but that's probably down to a certain resistance to change, so I'll give it a fair chance and see how I get on.

June 25, 2009

I use Firefox. This enables you to use lovely geocaching Greasemonkey scripts like GC tour.

See also http://searchjaunt.idizaai.be/greased-monkey/

June 25, 2009

If nothing else, standards adoption. People who still use IE are the ones dragging everyone else down. Beyond that, security holes. Granted, if you want to put yourself at risk, then that's your own business. Like I said before, anything can be vulnerable, but there are so many reasons to use Firefox or Chrome over IE. If Firefox hangs your connection, you may want to run Malwarebytes or

I keep on top of security thank you very much, the issue lies with FF. When FF can perform at a satisfactory level I may move until then no amount of geeks wittering on about security holes or standards adoption will persuade me to accept it's sub-standard performance. If FF want to lead the standards war they need to make their software work better

I just don't understand the attitude of the FF evangelists, I can accept that you may like it but do you really need to convince everyone else that they're at risk to promote your chosen browser. I've used IE extensively for over 10 years with no problems, maybe it's not as full of security holes as you allege or maybe we all need to use some common sense regardless of our browser choice?

June 25, 2009

I use both but I find if I leave FF running, after a few days, the PC slows down, the page file size goes up to 2 gigs and task manager says FF is using 450K of memory! If I end the process in TM, it's fine again for a few days. This apparent memory leak happens on both my home and work PC's. I suppose the answer it to shut it down between sessions. Has anyone else experienced this?

June 25, 2009

I just don't understand the attitude of the FF evangelists, I can accept that you may like it but do you really need to convince everyone else that they're at risk to promote your chosen browser. I've used IE extensively for over 10 years with no problems, maybe it's not as full of security holes as you allege or maybe we all need to use some common sense regardless of our browser choice?

This is one of those cases where you need to read a book. The common sense here is that Firefox and Chrome are faster than IE, have fewer security holes, and accept newer standards. I had said earlier, at the very least you are a burden on web developers.

It doesn't run satisfactory? That definitely sounds like your problem because Mozilla has been running fine on my machines for 10 years before switching to Firebird/Firefox (when it was renamed). It's not evangelism, it's just funny that there's even a debate. IE is old and terrible. Does it really need to be said?

June 27, 2009

I guess all it takes is for someone to publish a GM script that appeals to a sector such as GC.co users and it could cause havoc. I'm certain I could have harvested banking details etc it would just depend on where the script is enabled to run.

Which is the reason why the sites a script runs on are listed when it's installed. If you install a Geocaching script, and see a-bank.com listed in the sites it runs on, then do not install it, and go and shame the author/promoter on the forums.

Its all about trusting the source of your script.

June 27, 2009

XP and firefox here. Our IT guy puts both on our computers the minute they are bought.

June 29, 2009

Which is the reason why the sites a script runs on are listed when it's installed. If you install a Geocaching script, and see a-bank.com listed in the sites it runs on, then do not install it, and go and shame the author/promoter on the forums.

Exactly what I was getting at with suggesting it'd soon get round on the forums if a script writer decided they'd had enough and added a little malicious code.

We know Edgemaster wouldn't do it. Don't we?

June 30, 2009

On that note, you've reminded me that I need to fix up the maps script, since there's a possibility we can get 1:25k online now...

1.5k · June 30, 2009

I use both but I find if I leave FF running, after a few days, the PC slows down, the page file size goes up to 2 gigs and task manager says FF is using 450K of memory! If I end the process in TM, it's fine again for a few days. This apparent memory leak happens on both my home and work PC's. I suppose the answer it to shut it down between sessions. Has anyone else experienced this?

I had this problem and did a Google search for Firefox Memory leak and came up with loads of hits, of which these were the most useful:

http://blog.skdev.net/2009/02/12/how-to-fi...y-leak-problem/

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.ph...38&t=681245 (Cylogs August 29th post)

http://www.freshmango.com/support/kb/offic...-load-solution/

They all did what they said, and the memory leak is much smaller on my pC.

Have fun.

6.1k · July 2, 2009

Just installed Firefox 3.5 on XP at work and Linux at home, it's much faster than the previous versions, and seems marginally faster than Chrome too.

I think they've also fixed the memory leak probs.

July 2, 2009

Hi all

I have used internet explorer almost all my pc years, in the early days i tried several other browsers and even operating systems.

now this may seem nigh eve, but i have found that the easy life comes from following the crowd and staying mainstream.

In the early days the only browser that would display all web pages properly was and probably still is IE, however the only pages that dont seem to work properly are these ones here!

So i am currently using Chrome to do this, and IE virtually everything else.why ?

It seems that because everyone wants something different and with the bigger diversity of browsers, and people making web pages in different software for different browsers, No one browser seems to be able to cope with all of them.

Sample

IE wont display this forum correctly but will allow me to read my emails via my provider on line.

Chrome will allow me to see all the details on this forum and spell check me as i type, but wont let me scroll through my emails or return me to the correct place when i go back on ebay.

I tried fire fox years ago and found it awful, but not tried since.

Although i do not really like the Microsoft monopoly i have to say that their market share cant all be wrong.

I cant get my head round an apple, but that may just be me.

I also think that most non techie users probably agree with me, if its not too broken let it be.

4.6k · July 2, 2009

In the early days the only browser that would display all web pages properly was and probably still is IE,

In the early days there was no IE. I started with Netscape 0.96 beta on win 3.1. IE was non-existent then.

It seems that because everyone wants something different and with the bigger diversity of browsers, and people making web pages in different software for different browsers, No one browser seems to be able to cope with all of them.

Nothing to do with different browsers. There is a standard for webbrowsers (see www.w3.org) but MS choose not to follow standards and create some stuff on their own. The result being that pages designed with Frontpage give unexpected results in browsers that follow standards. Since IE is installed on Windows machines by default and windows is installed on most PCs by default it became Microsoft's way of "creating" a standard.

IE wont display this forum correctly but will allow me to read my emails via my provider on line.
Chrome will allow me to see all the details on this forum and spell check me as i type, but wont let me scroll through my emails or return me to the correct place when i go back on ebay.

I tried fire fox years ago and found it awful, but not tried since.

You should try it again. Invest some time in adding add-ons and enjoy a better and safer internet

I have no problem whatsoever with any website using FF 3.5. I do have to allow cookies or allow scripts for some sites (only trusted sites). By default all cookies and scripts are blocked as is all advertising.

Although i do not really like the Microsoft monopoly i have to say that their market share cant all be wrong.

Millions of "Scatophaga stercoraria" eat something I wouldn't touch with a stick so their marketshare IS wrong

I also think that most non techie users probably agree with me, if its not too broken let it be.

Unfortunatelly IE IS broken. At least when FF has a problem it's fixed very soon.

July 8, 2009

If nothing else, standards adoption. People who still use IE are the ones dragging everyone else down. Beyond that, security holes. Granted, if you want to put yourself at risk, then that's your own business. Like I said before, anything can be vulnerable, but there are so many reasons to use Firefox or Chrome over IE. If Firefox hangs your connection, you may want to run Malwarebytes or

I keep on top of security thank you very much, the issue lies with FF. When FF can perform at a satisfactory level I may move until then no amount of geeks wittering on about security holes or standards adoption will persuade me to accept it's sub-standard performance. If FF want to lead the standards war they need to make their software work better

I just don't understand the attitude of the FF evangelists, I can accept that you may like it but do you really need to convince everyone else that they're at risk to promote your chosen browser. I've used IE extensively for over 10 years with no problems, maybe it's not as full of security holes as you allege or maybe we all need to use some common sense regardless of our browser choice?

Not that I don't believe you, but it makes me suspect that you may not know what an actual browser problem looks like - like malformed webpages (it's the site-designers fault), browser-hacks (someone reading and watching your web browsing without you knowing), trojans and viruses (operating behind the scenes doing all sorts to computer but hey, browser works fine!).

Absence of symptoms does not mean all clear. Viruses and malware don't always announce themselves or their activity. Even hard-core techies get computer problems (it could be argued they spot a lot more problems than the ordinary user - as they know what to look for).

And I will say that Firefox is not immune, neither is Safari, Chrome, Opera or any other browser. It's just that you will find, due to their open-source nature and speed of updates that Firefox and Chrome at least, will get security holes plugged faster.

You may be interested in this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7784908.stm

Oh, and if you think IE is rendering pages for you now just fine, wait till you are forced to update to IE8 where Microsoft have finally adopted web standards - get ready for lots of broken websites designed for IE6! <_<

3.9k · July 8, 2009

Oh, and if you think IE is rendering pages for you now just fine, wait till you are forced to update to IE8 where Microsoft have finally adopted web standards - get ready for lots of broken websites designed for IE6!

Public web sites are less of a problem, because many home users have had IE7 either through Vista or a download for XP for a long time now, and there are no huge issues when moving from IE7 to IE8; and also because a lot of Firefox (etc) users will have been pressuring them to make these sites standards-compliant.

However, corporate internal sites and Web applications are a different matter. We plan to finally get our last in-house application upgraded for IE7 compatibility in a week or so, after 18 months of work. I read a survey of US companies that said that 65% are still standardised on IE6 because they have lots of other proprietary stuff (including a lot of ActiveX, ie, stuff from Microsoft) which breaks with IE7. That means that 65% of companies have a showstopping reason not to upgrade to Vista, even without all the other reasons.

Windows 7 comes (provided you have the right processor and enough memory) with a "virtual XP" feature which will let you run applications in a separate window, which will think they are running on Windows XP. It's very clear that 95% of the reason why this has been provided, is to get over the IE6 issues. Microsoft has had to face up to the fact that now that they're in the "data center", they have to accept that customers will want at least a degree of mainframe-style version control, rather than the new-PC-every-18-months model which they got away with from 1997 to 2005 or so.

Edited July 8, 2009 by sTeamTraen

3.7k · July 9, 2009

Not that I don't believe you, but it makes me suspect that you may not know what an actual browser problem looks like - like malformed webpages (it's the site-designers fault), browser-hacks (someone reading and watching your web browsing without you knowing), trojans and viruses (operating behind the scenes doing all sorts to computer but hey, browser works fine!).

Absence of symptoms does not mean all clear. Viruses and malware don't always announce themselves or their activity. Even hard-core techies get computer problems (it could be argued they spot a lot more problems than the ordinary user - as they know what to look for).

And I will say that Firefox is not immune, neither is Safari, Chrome, Opera or any other browser. It's just that you will find, due to their open-source nature and speed of updates that Firefox and Chrome at least, will get security holes plugged faster.

You may be interested in this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7784908.stm

Oh, and if you think IE is rendering pages for you now just fine, wait till you are forced to update to IE8 where Microsoft have finally adopted web standards - get ready for lots of broken websites designed for IE6!

No idea about all this. I've been using IE8 regularly for some weeks now, with no problems at all. Regular anti-malware scans and virus scans show up nothing. No web pages cause problems. It's as fast as anything else I've seen. It never crashes. What more do I need?

July 9, 2009

Not that I don't believe you, but it makes me suspect that you may not know what an actual browser problem looks like - like malformed webpages (it's the site-designers fault), browser-hacks (someone reading and watching your web browsing without you knowing), trojans and viruses (operating behind the scenes doing all sorts to computer but hey, browser works fine!).

Absence of symptoms does not mean all clear. Viruses and malware don't always announce themselves or their activity. Even hard-core techies get computer problems (it could be argued they spot a lot more problems than the ordinary user - as they know what to look for).

And I will say that Firefox is not immune, neither is Safari, Chrome, Opera or any other browser. It's just that you will find, due to their open-source nature and speed of updates that Firefox and Chrome at least, will get security holes plugged faster.

You may be interested in this article: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7784908.stm

Oh, and if you think IE is rendering pages for you now just fine, wait till you are forced to update to IE8 where Microsoft have finally adopted web standards - get ready for lots of broken websites designed for IE6!

No idea about all this. I've been using IE8 regularly for some weeks now, with no problems at all. Regular anti-malware scans and virus scans show up nothing. No web pages cause problems. It's as fast as anything else I've seen. It never crashes. What more do I need?

Are you using it with the compatibility mode switched on? I suppose it depends on browsing habbits too. If you mainly visit a number of regular web sites.

3.7k · July 9, 2009

Are you using it with the compatibility mode switched on? I suppose it depends on browsing habbits too. If you mainly visit a number of regular web sites.

No, I don't seem to need compatibilty mode. I visit a fairly wide variety of web sites, on 4 PC's (work, home, laptop, netbook), and I would say that I'm a daily Internet user. I do keep add-ons to a minimum, however. Although I daresay that you could find a site which doesn't work properly on my browser, in the end I just haven't had any trouble and as far as I'm concerned that's what counts.

September 19, 2009

September 19, 2009

I use Firefox on my laptop (Acer Aspire ONE) and home PC (Both XP). On work PC's we have XP. I use FF (with IE emulator for stuff that doesn't like FF). Everyone else uses IE but I installed FF on all units and try to get them to use it...

September 19, 2009

Firefox, and Thunderbird for email.

September 19, 2009

Chrome on the windows desktop and Firefox on the linux laptop. IE is just far to bulky and starts hoggins resources if it's open for more than five minutes. I've even resorted to using Firefox in work (but don't tell the IT dept :laughing: )

Edited September 19, 2009 by raverdave

September 21, 2009

In the early days there was no IE. I started with Netscape 0.96 beta on win 3.1. IE was non-existent then.

I started with Mosaic. <_<

But now Firefox & Thunderbird do the trick for me. Though I have noticed Firefox seems to be getting a little bloated? Maybe time to try Chrome...

September 22, 2009

FireFox is bugged. on GC.com I cannot get the mouse to click on the left side of the pages. F'risntance, if I want to hilite and copy the coordinates from a cache to plug them into google earth, it will not let me. It will hilite the whole page if I clickndrag from the left and if I try from the right, I can get to the first character after the "N" and it will hilite the whole page.

on the build pocket queries page, I CANNOT click the boxes in the left column to delete the queries. It simply won't click there.

IE - works fine, but I'd rather use FF.

Anyone else have this?

4.6k · September 22, 2009

FireFox is bugged. on GC.com I cannot get the mouse to click on the left side of the pages. F'risntance, if I want to hilite and copy the coordinates from a cache to plug them into google earth, it will not let me. It will hilite the whole page if I clickndrag from the left and if I try from the right, I can get to the first character after the "N" and it will hilite the whole page.

on the build pocket queries page, I CANNOT click the boxes in the left column to delete the queries. It simply won't click there.

IE - works fine, but I'd rather use FF.

Anyone else have this?

It's not FF that's bugged. Seems your installation is. No issues on GC here ith FF 3.5.3 on 3 different OS (W2Kpro, XPpro English and XPhome dutch).

6.1k · September 22, 2009

FireFox is bugged. on GC.com I cannot get the mouse to click on the left side of the pages. F'risntance, if I want to hilite and copy the coordinates from a cache to plug them into google earth, it will not let me. It will hilite the whole page if I clickndrag from the left and if I try from the right, I can get to the first character after the "N" and it will hilite the whole page.

on the build pocket queries page, I CANNOT click the boxes in the left column to delete the queries. It simply won't click there.

IE - works fine, but I'd rather use FF.

Anyone else have this?

It sounds like it's not handling the frames properly, doesn't help you much though. What version of FF is it?

2.5k · September 22, 2009

I guess all it takes is for someone to publish a GM script that appeals to a sector such as GC.co users and it could cause havoc. I'm certain I could have harvested banking details etc it would just depend on where the script is enabled to run.

Which is the reason why the sites a script runs on are listed when it's installed. If you install a Geocaching script, and see a-bank.com listed in the sites it runs on, then do not install it, and go and shame the author/promoter on the forums.

Its all about trusting the source of your script.

Edgemaster, sorry the reply is late, only just noticed your post, I agree with you here, but how many people still get caught out by phishing emails, websites, and even the good old fashioned paper letter in the post, to name a few scams. We know what to look for; but many just get suckered in by what looks like a genuine offer.

September 22, 2009

Its fun to 'diss' IE - almost the politically correct thing to do.

IE is my default browser, and IE8 is very good, stable and well integrated. Its is certainly more stable than the latest FF. But it is still slower to load than FF, and for most browsing I dont need the full garnished IE, so for geo-browsing etc its FF. FF crashes drive me nuts (the way early IE used to so do).

On the Linux - its FF all the way.

Wont touch Chrome and Opera .... well its cute I suppose.

September 25, 2009

Have both Linux with Firefox for me, and windows XP with IE for the wife and chrome for me

although I am still waiting on a print preview option from chrome, and cant understand why it wasnt there from the beginning...

8.6k · September 25, 2009

Interesting, in the 3 months since I started this thread the stats have changed:

Internet Explorer 50.4% to 53.9 %

Firefox 42.2% to 36.2 %

Safari 4.9% to 8.7%

Opera 1.2% to 0.6%

I wonder if this is because people have upgraded to IE8 -without wanting to thanks to MS pushing it with the updates! Would the Safari increase be due to mobile phone users accessing the site or is Safari becoming a popular browser?

Chris (MrB)

Firefox or Internet Explorer

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