Firefox Myths

Every single point has been refuted over and over. That page is full of conjecture, rhetoric, excuses and opinions but no facts and no sources.

Ah you didn't even read the page. OS intergration relating to security is a Myth. You walked into that one. Drive by downloads are due to security expliots that are unpatched to even further harden this SP2 added even more protection with an enhanced download warning system. These simply do not happen on a fully patched SP2 system. As for the memory argument you may want to do some research on Firefox's memory leak problems.

Not fully and IE does follow some of the standards as well.

To stop the spread of Myths, it is not bashing but informing.

 

That is because it is about MYTHS!!! It is not comparing pros and cons. Why is this so hard for people to comprehend?

 

Hello,
Mastertech - I assume you're the author of the article ...
This is like a debate about religion - no winner.
Let's do something instead.
A comparison test.
You check all the points you state vs. IE and Opera.
Run actual tests and show results online.
For instance:
Fastest browser
Setup several machines - win98, xp and let's say suse with emulator - try them all.
Rendering
Ask people at wilders here for 10 pages randomly and test them, plus some official standard pages.
Security
Ask people here for 10 pages checking vulnerabilities, including drive-by-downloads, various javascript exploits etc, and test them.
Write down all exploits discovered in FF last year, their severity and how quickly they were patched.
Write down all exploits discovered in IE / Oper last year, their severity and how quickly they were patched.
And so forth.
One on one analysis.
Cheers,
Mrk

 

Not really. I'm just giving another point of view. But it seems whenever you give another point of view that doesn't suit theirs (or yours), people can't handle it. I'm just giving points I believe the hype around Firefox isn't really just.

Am I huge Opera fan? Do I have wild fantasies about it? No, I actually use Firefox more than Opera. Shock horror. I prefer its interface, but I also used to like the Mozilla Suite, so perhaps I'm crazy. But that doesn't mean the hype over FF isn't wearing thin on me. It's an okay browser. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not doing anything amazingly new.

If someone asks me about an alternative to the IE browser, I'll recommend both Firefox and Opera. Choice is good. People don't have to share my views. But I'm not sure how people can think that all the hype Firefox has received is fair. It really hasn't taken back the web for me, and it really hasn't been the fasted browser ever.

 

This is already done. Anyone can reproduce the test results here, they are fully documented.

 

Hi,
That's only one point out of 10 or so.
Anyhow, for anyone interested, this is a part of the conclusion of the comparison test mentioned in the above link:

I will bold out parts I find interesting:

Firefox and Mozilla are clearly optimised for Linux, and Opera is clearly optimised for Windows. These optimisations are mostly obvious with the loading times, although there is also a little difference in the cache handling on the different operating systems. However, Opera seems to perform admirably well on most tasks, on any platform. When it comes to page rendering (tables, CSS or images), most of the major browsers perform very fast, with very little to distinguish between them. When it comes to scripts, Opera clearly holds its head above the others, nearly twice as fast as the others. The only one that comes close is Safari 2.0, but that is tied to the Tiger release of Mac OS (currently in preview).

Opera also is a clear winner using history. In fact, on Linux it is faster than Mozilla and Firefox for all except starting time. On Mac and Windows, Opera is faster than Mozilla and Firefox for all tasks. Surprisingly, Mozilla is now faster at most tasks than Firefox (please don't send me any more emails about this line, I am well aware of why it is faster). Internet Explorer on Windows was either as fast as - or faster than Mozilla and Firefox for most tasks, with the exception of scripts, where it took over twice as long. Of course, its poor standards and security clearly make it a much less attractive prospect. The Moox Firefox install is actually slower than the standard Firefox versions distributed from Mozilla.org, even though it is supposedly optimised for my particular processor. The Mac optimised version is a bit better, but trades performance in one area for performance in another, making little or no difference overall. The performance of K-Meleon and Epiphany was similar to the performance of Mozilla and Firefox on the same platform. The new Netscape Browser preview (based on Firefox) was clearly suffering from bloat caused by the AOL add-ons.

Mrk

 

I don't do in MYTHS. What have myths to do with software (browsers in this case) anyway, these are just computer programs, nothing more than that and every homepage praises its software into heaven as being the very best software on earth.
I prefer the objective approach based on knowledge, scientific proof, tests, experiences, ... but no myths, no hype, no religion, no feelings.
Every software has advantages and disadvantages and if can live with the disadvantages, than you found a software, that can be used by YOU and the rest of the world doesn't matter.

They call even software sometimes intelligent and/or intuitive, which is also BIG NONSENSE.
Only people are intelligent and intuitive and that's why people can see the difference between a false positive and a real threat, because a scanner is too stupid.
Each software has an I.Q. of a rock and does only what has been told by programmers and nothing more.
Only computers in SF-movies are intelligent and intuitive, but that's NOT real.

 

Which you will notice doesn't coincide with the results.

Really? That is why Opera is faster than FF in everything but CSS here? It doesn't matter though the Myths page is not discussing Linux. This is made quite clear at the top and I could care less about Linux.

Actually it was faster in everything but script speed. Which is why it is stated IE is faster than Firefox OVERALL because it is. Thanks for proving my point.

As for the other "points" they have nothing to do with the page. This is NOT a comparison guide but a page debunking Firefox Myths - Period. Firefox supporters always seem to miss this.

 

I think this thread needs a dose of Firefox Fables:

http://nanobox.chipx86.com/FirefoxFables/images/firefox_fables.gif

 

Hey its my #1 Fan = Freewheelin Frank! Don't hate the truth.

 

"Half a truth is often a great lie," as one of your countrymen once said.

 

Too bad it is the WHOLE truth. Did you see v1.1.1 Frank? Good Stuff.

 

And that`s the whole truth.

 

Amen to that.

 

Partially. But I'm concerned with people not spreading Myths.

 

Hi,
Like Ronjor said, it opened up the market.
It does not matter if firefox is the ...est ...est or ...est (fill in whatever you want), it is a solid, mature alternative, and it comes with 3,000,000 extensions that allow just about anything - except maybe eternal life.
Mrk

 

Strawman bashing is a fun game, I play it too sometimes. But the ones most jealous about FF's popularity and visit these threads are Opera fans. You could have easily made the same points without mentioning Opera several times in a thread about FF.

Well let's see if you are a big opera fan shall we.

Opera, Opera, Opera, Opera.....

Indeed, you must be crazy or lying given the ringing endorsement you gave about how Opera always get your vote.

Yes , nothing new because Opera existed a long time ago right? Please come out and say it. LOL

The thing you opera people don't get is, until fairly recently, Firefox was the only alternative to IE because it was free and the masses expect browsers to be free. The adversion of Opera was unacceptable.

Even now, as good as opera is, it's still not positioned as an alternative to firefox because it's too complicated to use for the masses. The transition from IE to FF is still easier for most people.

So would I. But that doesn't stop me from recognising that a lot of threads about FF are joined in by big Opera fans, who are jealous about FF's success.

Because of Opera.. Sigh... Opera, Opera, Opera, Opera..

 

Hi,
Here's a link to another thread.
This links to a new study report on spyware.
Please read through especially about drive-by-downloads and security in general, ff versus ie.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=119515

Mrk

 

Well... On a mac laptop (i have this problem on iBook and PowerBook) after 15-20 min surfing the fan is running. However, this is one of the reasons why i do not use Opera. Blowing Battery Time just in the fresh air

 

Hi Devil's Advocate,

First when FF (ver 1.0) came out, I downloaded it and added quite a lot of extensions to it. The sad thing is when ver 1.1 came out most of the extensions (nearly all) were not functioning. I have to go and search and install the extensions i wanted again. To me its a bit troublesome. Since that incident, I've stick with Opera till now. Please be informed, this is only my experience. (Pardon my poor English) Thanks.

Regards,
Liw

 

I can't really say I understand the need to debunk myths surrounding Firefox. Fact is that these claims have shown true on my machine.. although I certainly recognize that it's not going to work the same way on everyone else's. I like Opera, too.. I use it for work so that I can keep my million extensions installed with Firefox, but without the extensions Firefox performs just as fast, if not faster, on my system.

IMO, just because it doesn't live up to your percieved expectations doesn't mean that it didn't for anyone else.

Just FYI, ErikAlbert, "Intuitive" in this context means that the program is organized in a way that the user can easily learn how to use the program with intuition alone.. not that the program itself mimics any intuition. It's opposed to software that is counter-intuitive, that doesn't make any sense without studying the manual. I agree with the rest of your post

 

Well I used to support Firefox in Opera threads, but my point of view changed over time. Sorry that's too much to understand

So did Netscape, so did the Mozilla browser. I'm pretty sure I remember them having tabbed browsing features and such too, security was better but people made less of a big deal about it then. Not as early, but eventually (back 2002).

Wrong, I do get it. I firmly remember IE vs Netscape wars. Unfortunately IE won, but once upon a time it used to be 50/50. I get it pretty well, believe me. Surely you forget the history of how the net built up if you don't remember Netscape was one such a popular free alternative, along with the Mozilla browser. Firefox isn't the first alternative to IE, not by a long way.

I'm even happy to agree with that point. Opera could benefit from improving the interface.

No, I'm not jealous of Firefox, which is the second time you've tried to claim this point. Incidently, I'm aware that Netscape was based on the Mozilla browser but I don't remember it needing the same overhype claiming things like "Faster browser", etc, to get popularity. Maybe I just remember incorrectly?

 

Hi,
In the days of early Netscape, Internet was wholly dial-up, so talking about speed was irrelevant.
Mrk

 

A fair point. But if FF has been proven not to be fastest via independant tests, I don't really believe it's a fair thing to be claiming. Doesn't that go under 'false advertisement'?