Now I can't open a new Firefox window????

[Fez]

i don't know how much better it is NOW, but previously, it was far better than IE, had less problems, and was not as susceptible to viruses and trojans which were typically written to target microsoft products. plus it is highly customizable.

for developers, it's far better than google's chrome, and has more options and add-ons than chrome has.

i think it uses a lot less bandwidth than IE does, but that may also be just previous versions and not the most recent one.

Advice from someone who is about to beat Firefox to death with a brick Wonder if I should try it, especially if it is less susceptible to Trojans.

[Guest LadyC]

LOL i kinda doubt it's still less susceptible, at least by much. firefox has become so popular that i'm sure people who write trojans and viruses are including mozilla software in their target list!

[other one]

i don't know how much better it is NOW, but previously, it was far better than IE, had less problems, and was not as susceptible to viruses and trojans which were typically written to target microsoft products. plus it is highly customizable.

for developers, it's far better than google's chrome, and has more options and add-ons than chrome has.

i think it uses a lot less bandwidth than IE does, but that may also be just previous versions and not the most recent one.

LacyC, nothing is safe without a good firewall and virus/spam protection software. Personally I use Norton 360. it's worth the expense so you don't have to worry or deal with the problems. I have had a couple of things get through and had to spend some time getting rid of them, but it was because I thought an email I got was from a friend and I basically told Norton it was ok to open it.

But always keep your data backed up no matter what. Sooner or later your hard drives "will" fail.

[Guest LadyC]

i use mcaffee. it does pretty good most of the time. my husband sometimes visits unsavory websites though (on IE, not on FF, he thinks i never look at the browsing history on IE) and has been known at times to get some undesirable bugs from them.

and boy, do i know about hard drive failure! we've had it happen a couple of times. in fact, one of them was the result of a virus... the blaster virus i think? does that sound right? oh my gosh, we couldn't get that off our system. couldn't even install updates from mcaffee. we'd try to run our virus scanner and the computer would crash. i keep most important things backed up now, but i'm not real good at doing it on a regular basis.

[Drawn]

i use mcaffee. it does pretty good most of the time. my husband sometimes visits unsavory websites though (on IE, not on FF, he thinks i never look at the browsing history on IE) and has been known at times to get some undesirable bugs from them.

and boy, do i know about hard drive failure! we've had it happen a couple of times. in fact, one of them was the result of a virus... the blaster virus i think? does that sound right? oh my gosh, we couldn't get that off our system. couldn't even install updates from mcaffee. we'd try to run our virus scanner and the computer would crash. i keep most important things backed up now, but i'm not real good at doing it on a regular basis.

Off-site backup is worth the cost. Look into Carbonite. Google it. I use it and LOVE IT! If anything ever happens to my hard drives (and I run two servers at home), all of my stuff is backed up off-site and I can always retrieve it!

[Guest]

I have always used Google, with no problems, I have a good AV (avast), which is updated daily, and download the microsoft security updates for vista as they arrive.

But tell me, why does everyone say Firefox is better? Is it urban ledgend, or is there a real reason?

Firefox is better than IE in that it does not have the security problems that IE has. It also had more features, and is the reason IE now offers tabbed browsing, among other features. It tends to be faster at rendering web pages, and isn't made by Micro$oft. I say that because both my systems here are Micro$oft free, so I don't have IE and I won't get in trouble with the "License Police".

The main thing for me that makes it better is all the extensions that are available -- especially AdBlockPlus & NoScript. Makes browsing much nicer in the case of ad blocking, and more secure with NoScript. (Scripts are what can cause malware infestations from some web sites.)

[other one]

I have always used Google, with no problems, I have a good AV (avast), which is updated daily, and download the microsoft security updates for vista as they arrive.

But tell me, why does everyone say Firefox is better? Is it urban ledgend, or is there a real reason?

Firefox is better than IE in that it does not have the security problems that IE has. It also had more features, and is the reason IE now offers tabbed browsing, among other features. It tends to be faster at rendering web pages, and isn't made by Micro$oft. I say that because both my systems here are Micro$oft free, so I don't have IE and I won't get in trouble with the "License Police".

The main thing for me that makes it better is all the extensions that are available -- especially AdBlockPlus & NoScript. Makes browsing much nicer in the case of ad blocking, and more secure with NoScript. (Scripts are what can cause malware infestations from some web sites.)

I've been using IE since it was launched. I have never picked up a virus or worse from using IE. That's because I also have used Norton since it was launched and the two together has produced years and years of no problems. Windows itself builds up streaming files it saves that you need to delete once or twice a year, or just reload your software to get rid of them. I might add that I don't do porn sites; I'm told that a lot of bad stuff can come from those places. I would hope that none of us here would have that kind of problem.

Tracking programs are almost always cookies and can be cleared out every day or weekly and the longest by deleting them all in IE.

The only problem I have ever had with viruses came from email. Free spam snooping softeare needs to be used no matter what browser you use. Norton 360 is about as good as any.

I do have a program that will delete all streaming files in windows. Because of that, I only load my operating software once in the life of my hard drive. If you can't do that, you should format your hard drive and reload windows at least once a year for your computer to run fast and smooth. Especially if you are running XP and only have 528 meg of ram or Vista and 1 gig.

If you are not into extensive third party software, unix is the best way to go. Most internet servers run on unix and they themselves keep the viruses out of the system mostly by the way the software archatecture is writtn. But I'd not like to try and find the sound and graphics programs that I use for windows. Especially to have to buy them all again.

I hear firefox is better than IE, but I've tried them both and several others and personally prefer IE. I think it has a lot to do with what you're using it for.

If you prefer Firefox, that's cool with me. But without a "good" antivirus program, it's very little safer than IE;

[nebula]

Just so you guys know, everything is fixed now. I can open the Firefox Window again.

[OneLight]

Just so you guys know, everything is fixed now. I can open the Firefox Window again.

Great! What did you end up doing??

[nebula]

Disabled the add-on. I think it may not have worked right because I have XP, and the program was for Windows 6, 7, and 8 only.

Then I did the MSCONFIG thing.

Restarting the computer was a risk, because I didn't know if I could get the Firefox to re-open, but it did.

But it opened!

And then I deleted the cookies (I couldn't before because when I clicked on tools, I'd only get a shadow of a box appear (don't know how else to explain it).

So, that's that.