I am installing a new computer and I am thinking of changing some of the ways I do computing

I have been using Internet Explorer and Outlook express as my browser and mail client for almost ten years.

I am looking to make some changes.


The questions for debate are

what browser do you use and how do you like it?

what mail client or program do you use? What do you like about it? What don't you like about it?

Undoubtably I'll come off as biased given my sig, but Firefox I think is the next generation of web browser. Its lean, fast, and I'm a serious junkie for tab based web browsing (vs. a ton of windows open). The only real downside is that because microsoft dominates the browser market, there are a handful of websites that may not perform well in Firefox. I'd say these sites take up less than 5% of my overall internet activity and I just use IE when needed.

As for email. I really like Outlook 2003. Its pretty rich feature-wise but has some annoying things like protecting me from myself on attachments with extension like .bat and .exe. I understand having it as the default, but let me turn it off!

A good free alternate would be Thunderbird, Mozilla's new email client. Its pretty robust, feature-wise and fairly user friendly, though arguably not as much as outlook.

Is there a difference between Mozilla and Firefox? I thought they were the same (don't ask me why) I guess I thought they had merged.

Mozilla contains an entire "Internet Suite" of applications, like a web browser, email program, HTML editor, IRC client, etc.

Firefox started from the Mozilla code base, broke off the web browser piece of it, and then improved upon it. Same thing for Thunderbird except it took the email code from Mozilla.

Basically all it boils down to is if you'd like to have one suite of Internet programs or if you want separate components for more flexibility. I'd recommend going with Firefox unless you really need all the extras that are in Mozilla.

Firefox also allows you to download extensions to give more functionality to your browser. My favorite one is Adblock, which blocks ads from loading on pages. It's great because it can actually decrease the amount of time the page takes to load (because you aren't downloading ads). You will be using it blindly though unless you are familiar with "regular expressions".

I use Mozilla for Linux

I also use the Mozilla mail program too.

All works fine. Would not change a thing..and the thing I like best about it is it is not Microsoft.

I use FireFox as my browser and I'd never consider switching back to IE unless that made some very significant improvements. Of course right now, Microsoft is laughing off FireFox so I don't expect that to happen any time soon. A few non-standards friendly websites that I visit often cause me to switch back to IE just to view them, mostly because their functionality is authored in non-standards compliant javascript. It is annoying but I deal with it.

As far as email goes, I am trying out Thunderbird right now, which is the Mozilla equivalent of Outlook Express. I mostly use Yahoo for everything since I have 2GB of storage, a good calendar and address book and disposable email addresses. So far I like it, but I'm not sure I'll stick with it because I prefer the flexibility of web based email right now.

The previous posters are all obviously very gifted persons of above average intelligence.
Mozilla Firefox is the best thing to happen to the web since Americas Debate.
Once you go Firefox you never go back it is so very much far beyond IE.

Plus no browser hijackings, no pop ups--way kewl.

the tab set up allows very clean surfing without the clutter.


i would go Linux completely but I am a very serious Photoshop and Macromedia user and need the windows set up (C'mon industry guys give me the option--Pleeeaaasse)

Otherwise I would dump Windows completely---cause i love the fact its free and works so very well.

I also have Thunderbird for e-mail and am very satisfied.

There ya go Eeyore


ps if ya want to see if linux is for you WITHOUT reloading your entire system try using Knoppix

It can be placed on a cd and loaded on top of your system. When your done shut it off and your system returns to normal.
Its a great way to give Linux a test run with out any hassle.

There is also Corel Linux and it is completely painless to install--as in YOU do almost NOTHING. It is by a company called Xandros and definetly worth a look if you don't want to tinker with your system like many of the current Linux users seem to.

Debate? About flavors of ice cream?

I use Firefox for most things, IE (or MSN, same thing) only for those sites that simpy must have ActiveX to work right. I do it that way mainly for secruity; there aren't as many exploits that target Firefox. And tabbed browsing is sometimes nice too.

For email I use msn.com with the MSN browser as the client (same as IE, just prettied up a little). I started doing that when I got MSN Premium as a freebie perk with Verizon DSL. I tried the MSN email and liked it better than anything else. The interface is simple and easy to use, the spam filters work pretty well, and I don't have to worry about email viruses at all, because the email was never on my computer, I'm just reading it online.

I've tried Linux, the RH 9 flavor, and while I liked it, I couldn't use it on my main PC because my major applications are games, mainly MMORPGs which are nearly all DX 9 based. EQ, AC, DAoC, E&B, SWG and now WoW.

I gotta tell ya, what everyone has said in praise of Mozilla and Firefox is true. Been using it for 4 or 5 months now and it's been wonderfull.

Go back to IE?

NEVER!!!!!!

Let me add to the rousing chorus. I've been using Mozilla for 3 years now and avoid Microsoft Virus™ software at all costs. Thus, I neither use Outlook nor IE. I've never in all my years using a computer (> 20 years) had the pleasure of acquiring a virus or worm. I'll probably roll into Firefox/Thunderbird eventually if Mozilla doesn't maintain feature parity. The things I like the most are: popup blocking, tabbed browsing and baysean filtering for spam.

I use Mozilla's Firefox browser 98% of the time. There is the rare occasion that I find a website which does not work with Firefox and I must start up IE. Thankfully, it is very rare (and many websites are making sure their code is standard-compliant). I also use Thunderbird after several attempts with Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, and several other clients. Frankly, Thunderbird's fast, free, and has a slew of nice features (like Junk Mail filters and adaptative learning).

And while I used to dual-boot to Red Hat Linux, I no longer do this. After spending very little time using Linux, I decided it wasn't worth the hard disk space. This is primarily because I'm heavily involved with Adobe Photoshop and Premiere, neither of which work on Linux. It appears I am stuck with Microsoft in this respect (though, truth be told, Windows XP is easily their best OS to date). Oh, and I am a slave to my XBox, another Microsoft behemoth.

By the way, Mozilla Firefox has recently released their official 1.0 version. I've been using it since 0.6, and I haven't looked back. Now that the official release is out, I've been telling everyone about it. Hands down, no argument, best web browser on the planet. Fast, intuitive, skinnable, built-in security features (pop-up blocker), and additional themes and extensions. IE is a dying machine--the faster, the better.

Firefox (with MSIE back-up when essential) and Gmail.

I use Firefox.

Most people who refuse to make the switch are either stubborn, ignorant, or both.

Mail? Web-based, Gmail to be specific. I despise clients such as Outlook Express.

Well that's rather rough.

I doubt I can argue that I am not stubborn and get away with it on AD but I am at least marginally educated.

I have Firefox and Opera on my computer. However, I have yet to make the switch because I have IE heavily customized to me, and I am too Lazy to do the work to make either of the others work the same way.

What's on my hard drive?! : :

. . . . . . . .

... oh, you mean my browser? . .

Open Source Software - OSS - like Firefox and Thunderbird and phpWebSite, they're great. The whole idea is great.

It can be hard to find the help newcomers often need with OSS. The Mozilla products are now an exception - they are easy to use, and there is at least some Help.

The more we choose and support Open software, the more it will be molded to our needs. Big picture, this open thing promises to put us back in the drivers' seat.

Not long ago, there was little OSS for Windows. Some people opposed doing it for MS. Now, though, that is falling behind us fast.

There is a nice page on Sourceforge that lists a whole bunch of OSS for Windows.

The OSSwin project: Open Source for Windows! .

... um, there's nothing on my hard drive!

I used Opera for a while, and it worked pretty well, had some nice features, but it also had some bugs that drove me crazy.

I love Gmail!! I also hate clients like outlook. Plus gmail gives you 2 GB space - which is completely awesome. It also allows you to search your email like you would google - much faster than comparable searches using outlook, which seems to drag when searching your email.

I think I'll try Firefox out. I hadn't heard of it yet (since I kicked out my techno-loving boyfriend, I am woefully behind on tech trends).

One of my jobs is in web design and such boring things. Without exception every web or IT guy I know uses Firefox. Why? Simply because the lack of Active X dependance and cookie handling make it vastly superior in security. The extensions make it superior in customizability and the tweaks make it superior in speed and performance.
I also grabbed Mozilla's email client, Thunderbird and I am very happy with it. Only found a few minor bugs (hey where did that email go??) but since it is still in Beta, I'd have to give it thumbs up!

I use FireFox/Thunderbird for browsing and email.

Firefox is far superior to IE for my needs.

For example, IE has poor Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) support in comparison to FireFox or any Gecko-based browser. DIVs don't float right in IE, and that makes an already-limiting markup language even more limiting.

IE also does not support the optional portion of the PNG Spec. that allows you to use alpha transparencies. Basically, that means that the only way to put transparency in an image with IE is to use GIFs, which are limited to 256 colors. Sure, you can use JavaScript and hack together a fix, but why should lowly web designers have to write code to make up for the shortcomings of a multi-billion dollar corporation?

FireFox, while having a horrible name, does have some good features. Tabbed browsing is the main feature. You can open up as many different websites as your computer can handle, and only have one browser appear down in your task bar.

There are variants of IE that can do this (MyIE2), but they are still based on the same buggy rendering engine and the same insecure platform as IE.

America's Debate is designed for FireFox. That's what I use, and that's what you should use too.

There are some small, barely noticeable "perks" that FireFox users see on the forum. For example, the box at the top (Logged in as: Mike ( Log Out )) has a very slight rounding of the corners that is only displayed when viewing the page in a Mozilla-based browser. Another: The resources section footer has the same curves, but also has the opacity turned down just a tad. These are FireFox-only design elements that are very difficult to reproduce in IE, and the make the experience of visiting AD a bit nicer.


About 2 months ago, I switched from Outlook Express to Thunderbird. I have a catch-all address for America's Debate, so any email sent to an unconfigured AD email address will forward to me. That means that I get hundreds upon hundreds of spam email per day. I tried several different packages to get rid of spam with OE, and none of them were very good.

I tried SpamPal, and it was not good at all. It uses spam blacklists, and is not made for blacklisting/whitelisting specific addresses/domains/IP ranges.

I tried Spamihilator, which is probably the best anti-spam tool I found for OE. It uses a bayesian filter combined with whitelists and blacklists, and works fairly well. It ended up taking too much CPU to run with the volume of email I receive and the size of my learning filter, so I had to scrap it.

So far, though, ThunderBird has been good. There are a few bugs, though. For example, the "Get Mail" button just doesn't work. At all. Ever. Another missing feature that I consider very important is the ability to forward a message to another email address based on message rules. For example, if I wanted all new AD registrations to be sent to some of the staff (I do), I would be out of luck (I am).

But all in all, it's pretty good. I'll probably be upgrading to the latest release fairly soon to see if the bugs are fixed.

If you use Outlook Express, there is a little program that I highly recommend. It's called "HideOE," and it is totally free. It allows you to minimize Outlook Express to the system tray (down by the clock) so it doesn't take up valuable taskbar real estate. You can get it here.

Anyway, got to go!

Mike

firefox here 2. rarely crashes, the tabbed windows are great. as said above, just use IE when u have to.

I have not had the 'Get Mail' issue you speak of. Mine works fine. The only bug I found was occasionally a message alert comes up, but theres no message...sometimes feel like something may have been lost in space.
There is a workaround for the alpha tranparencie problem if you ever want it Email me and I'll send it to you.
If you ever want to see the real difference between Ie and FF, try the following experiment.
Dowload and isntall both Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy and clean out your computer. Use IE everyday for a week...hit a few porn sites in the mean time. Now run Ad Aware and SBS&D again. Probably 25-30 hits for spyware and other nasties. Now run the next week only on Firefox hiting the same sites and just for fun, more porn sites. Run the sweep again...ZERO nasties!
After my comp was compromised byt he about:blank trojan and I had to disassemble the registry to fix it, I switched to FF and never regretted one minute.
All my sites are designed with FF as the default test browser...don't care about IE and its rendering issues at all!

I commented on Mozilla earlier, but I recently took the Thunderbird/Firefox plunge. Love this little browser and email system. Easy install and easy to use. I hav'nt done much with either, but what I have done is great.

Also, I scan twice a week with adaware and spybot S&D. Since using Thunderbird I have had zero adware spyware or malware issues.

I have yet to find a single bug yet, but I have been using it less then a month.