I'll Fire Your Fox

I'm a fan of firefox, but come on...no mro viruses, etc? I think you know better.

I use firefox as well, but I'm concerned. I thought one of the reasons that firefox is less susceptible to pop ups and spyware, etc. is that it is less popular and therefore less of a target for those nasties than IE. The rationale being: why spend the time to come up with pop-ups & viruses for a browser that .1% of the market is using?

So, is the dramatic increase in firefox users likely to result in more problems?

It probably will. But because FireFox gets patched every night, upgrading won't be nearly as much a problem, especially if they set new versions to auto-update.

No more viruses... That's not "no" in the strict sense... it's like if you put your phone number on the national "do not call" registry, you'll get "no" more telemarketing calls... or if you use birth control you'll have "no" more kids....

I'm not one to "stick it to the man" as part of some techno revolution, but will confess to being a Microsoft traitor in this regard. I use FireFox almost exclusively now (past six months or so) but it's got a buggy attitude - crashing at least once a day. The streamlined browser and subtle UI improvements keeps me hooked though, and I'm patiently waiting for future (less buggy) versions. ---- Not too sure about your utopian epilogue...

Firefox is on the cover of Wired this month.

Reading in the john again, Holton?

Firefox is a little bit better designed fundamentally, a little bit, because the specifically did not integrate it with windows the way the IE is. IE was built for features, features, features, with stuff like the ability to scan your system and install OS patches (windows update).

Firefox is better in that it's more careful, and generally treats stuff on the internet like the plague, which it is, half the time.

However, it's not _that_ much better. It's still one integrated app, with too much stuff linked together, and not enough sandboxing. I've never built a browser before, but I'd bet you $50 I'd do it way differently and end up with the same feature set.

Someday, someone will skin this cat correctly, but now you can choose between horrible and sketchy. I use sketchy.

::sit's down::

OK mR mArTiN: Tell us how you really feel about internet browsers :)

I'll buy your browser when you build it.

I'll give you a dollar.

Lang's going to make people buy his browser? I'll donate $5 if you give it away!