Topic awaiting preservation: Use a Better Browser

The use a better browser campaign:
http://giantfightingrobots.com/betterbrowser.html

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

this is just great, thx a lot for this link, emps
i will support this campagn as much as possible

PORTFOLIO0

I'd also like an 'Upgrade Opera' campaign as it Op7 is so much better than previous versions that you are hurting yourself by not upgrading

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

should be in my sig now....

PORTFOLIO0

can we start a "make a better button for the 'use a better browser campaign' campaign"?

^^^^^good idea

Bah, Internet Explorer RULES!

One of the statements from that web site that I don't agree with is that other browsers "run better and faster" than IE. That's not true. Mozilla was extremely slow in the beginning, and although there were a lot of speed improvements during the development, it's still slow. Another thing worth mentioning is that Opera isn't free (it's an ad supported program), so their statement that you'll have to pay for the next version of IE (since it will come together with the "new" Windows), should also go for Opera. And last but not least, Safari is based on KHTML rendering engine, which had to be patched by Mac people, in order to improve its JavaScript and DHTML support, so you can't really compare it to IE and say that "browsing experience will be better". Oh, and KHTML engine was actually used by KDE Konqueror in the first place, so it's more or less the same thing as Safari (although patches from Safari are still waiting to be implemented)...

I have had *so* fewer problems on my computer since I stopped using IE, it's ridiculous.

Microsoft must die! (as soon as I can afford to buy my Mac )

I hate using IE. however, for some reason, all other browsers seem to crawl when I run them. If i'm using Mozilla, i have to close it down every 10-15 minutes, because it stops rendering the interface when I minimize it a few times, and it is soo slow I think my computer is trying to have a heart attack everytime I go to a new page. I have never really liked Opera at all. So for me, I don't think that using another browser is "faster and better".

Has anyone used AVANT BROWSER before ? I have been using it for the past week and i have to say, it works a treat for me. I would recommend anyone at least give it a try.

IE is fast... and thats all I care about right now.

I feel like I have been assimilated. But every other browser I have used takes to dang long to start up, and they render pages slower.

axleclarkeuk, Avant Browser uses IE to render pages, so Avant Browser = IE. Besides Avant Browser, there's also MyIE2, which is more or less the same thing.

BTW This "Use a better browser" campaign looks to me just like a shameless way to increase number of visits to an unknown blog site. And I wouldn't link to it if I were you.

BTW2 "Viewable with Any Browser" campaign is the real deal...




[This message has been edited by mr.maX (edited 08-27-2003).]

Eyezaer - they take longer to start up because IE 'starts up' and runs in the background when Windows starts. You can set Mozilla to do the same.

I can't even fathom an actual speed difference between the major browsers...I've never had any lag at all with Mozilla.

I used to be a diehard NNer. I said all the same things I see people saying here. "It makes my computer slower." "It crashes too much." "__X__ browser runs better/faster." Blah, blah, blah, ad nauseam.

I don't remember why I decided to switch over and start using IE but I'd be hard pressed to give it up now. I've tried almost all the other browsers that are out there and IMO I find them lacking in sheer speed when I put them against IE.

I don't really care about all the extras like tabbed browsing, etc. I've tried the tabbed browsing and found that I like having multiple windows anyway.

As for all the crashing complaints. My system hardly ever crashes. IE hardly ever crashes. It makes me wonder how many of these complaints are related to the user instead of the system.


:::11oh1:::

I used NN all the time before. I don't any longer because I got lazy. I don't need to Download IE. I really should go get NN and see how it works now. On my old machine it was slow, but that was a slow machine. Far under the reqspecs. Now I imagine it would work quite well.

^ haha!

NN is a bloated hog. A dead bloated hog.

No offence meant if you actually like the program but...

I want a browser that supports web standards.


Btw: http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird/why/

ok, time to try out mozilla !! Read the article and will give it a go few a few days.

My only complain with IE is the lack of full png support. I've got accostumed with it, and i only have other browsers installed to check cros--compatability.

This thread reminds me of this one. not sure why.

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Alevice's Media Library

Internet Explorer (for Windows)'s support for standards is an absolute joke.

The only reason I still use it is because other browser makers won't make anything that's not skinned.

Thanks for that link, Emp.


Hiroki Kozai

...is in awe of some of the sigs over there...

I'd switch to Mozilla/Firebird if it supported the middle-mouse-button scroll thingy. It's one feature I've grown to love and well, I just can't live without it. I know Opera has this but IMHO opera 7 is still quite buggy, I lothe the adds, and it's middle-mouse-button scroll thingy always re-positions the mouse to the center of the screen, which is almost as annoying as that "accessability feature" you can switch on in whindows that will reposition the mouse cursor over pop-up buttons... yukky poo!

Quite frankly, all I want is a better IE. And since no other browser is just like IE but better, I see no good reason to switch on the usability front. As for the web standards issue.... eh, so over it already. I am really tired of trying to "make a statment" to the man upstairs.

Let's see if it's working in my sig block.

what UBB code should I use to put it with linking?

[This message has been edited by Yannah (edited 08-28-2003).]

Alevice: Unlikely that will ever happen, considering how Micro$oft gets things done. If you're the optimistic type though, sign the petition.

Dracusis: Autoscroll Plugin for Firebird. This will become a standard feature in future versions of FB. Apparently, the development team has already merged this plugin with the app.

Also, I highly recommend the SmoothWheel extension for Mozilla/Firebird/Netscape. This is just the standard scroll wheel functionality, but it is infinitely better than IE's. I mean way better. The developer claims to use some really complex algorithm to determine scrolling speed, but all I know is that it works incredibly well. Forget IE's so-called "smooth scrolling." Just try this out.

Everyone else: Yes, IE is fast, but that's because it's so much integrated with the OS. It's basically always running in the background, whether you know it or not. As any Mac user would tell you, Safari is way faster than Mac IE, because it's built for the OS. Heck, Mac IE uses a splash screen, the same way Mozilla does.

And now, if you're still complaining, use Mozilla Firebird. I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned at the campaign site. Even though they don't wanna admit it, Firebird is specifically targeted at the IE crowd. I switched a few months ago, and I have to say that it is, by far, the most IE-user-friendly browser out there. It's much faster than Mozilla, and only (very) slightly slower than IE. And if you actually take the time to dig through the interface code (yes, I need a life), you'll see little bits and pieces thrown in for the sole purpose of easing the transition from IE. For example, most of IE's hotkeys have been incorporated into FB. I was surprised to see that Ctrl-Enter worked like a charm.


Get Firebird.



[This message has been edited by ozphactor (edited 08-28-2003).]

Oz: for what i know, its a bit pointless, since it seems that ie6 wont be updated anymore (source: http://www.evolt.org/article/Browser_Wars_II_The_Saga_Continues/25/60181/index.html ), and i dont feel like getting anythin over win98 for this ol' comp.

I can live with it anyways. Btw, i will try firebird. i saw a couple of screenshots and it looks ddaaaamn simple (a good signal for me) =)

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Alevice's Media Library

quote:

---

As for the web standards issue.... eh, so over it already. I am really tired of trying to "make a statment" to the man upstairs.

---

making a statement?

how about, pushing for things to be done the way they should be?

You know, the kind o fthing that has resulted in overwhelming improvement for web standards support so far...?

IE is best now, no doubt

I think where commerce is involved, standards are a bit of a pipe dream

Jason

[This message has been edited by JKMabry (edited 08-28-2003).]

I do want a browser that supports web standards and that run fast. Alas none of the browsers I've used so far meet those 2 requirements.

I mainly use IE by habit, but when it's up to have many windows or to see CSS and other standardized things I immediatly launch Firebird. Alas I must say that Mozilla and the like can't face IE on the speed execution of Javascript. For instance, one of my latest project in javascript runs ~4x times slower with Firebird than with IE. But another strong point of Mozilla is that it really is cross platform which far from being the case for IE.

That was my 2cents.

Mathieu "POÏ" HENRI

oz: I don't think we're talking about speed at which IE launches, well, I'm not. I'm talking about browsing speed. Nothing I've tried (and I've tried almost all of them) has satisfied me with its speed. That's my biggest want so I'll stick with IE until something faster comes along.

:::11oh1:::

I've been using Mozilla for a year or so now I haven't noticed any speed differences between that and IE on pages that don't use javascript. But on anything using javascript IE is still the fastest... Opera and Mozilla seem to have about the same speed when I've tested them.

Does anyone one what the difference between Firebird and Mozilla is? I've been trying to figure that out, but all I've come up with is that Firebird is a light a version of Mozilla.



_________________________
"There are 10 kinds of people; those who know binary, those who don't and those who start counting at zero"

krets: In my experience, Firebird runs just as fast as IE, in both execution and browsing speed.

Venificuz: Yes, that's about right. Firebird is an extremely stripped-down version of Mozilla, and it lacks all the extra bloatware that comes with Moz (the sidebar apps, the profile manager, the mail app), leaving behind only the core browser. Extra features can be added through the plethora of Firebird extensions (another word for plugins) available. In this way, FB is a highly customizable browser, allowing you to add only the features you need, and none that you don't.

Not only that, but Firebird's entire user interface is coded in a mix of XUL and CSS. Even if you know only some basic CSS, you can already modify the way sites will render (like disabling those blink and marquee tags), and how the browser itself looks. It's a customizer's dream.

It really depends on the platform you are using too. I'm running Mac OS9 on my laptop and I've got lots and lots of browsers installed so I can do browser compatability testing on sites when I do development. What I've found is that, on OS9, IE is the best, easiest to use browser out there. It's also not a Microsoft product perse.. (then again, neither is the one on windows). They are based on the mosaic software (predecessor to mozilla if you've been around long enough to remember). It really freaks people out the first time I tell them to take a look at their "about" screen and it says "NSCA Mosaic".

On OSX, safari and Omniweb are about tied for browsers. They made sure that IE would run like shit on that system. It's slow and it takes about 7 hours to start up.

On Windows, it really depends. Since IE is basically using the same API engine that the rest of the OS is using, it is much quicker to start each instance and begin browsing. Being that it is a standard and widley available, many many websites are programmed to take advantage of the IE only features available and you will miss out on things if you aren't using it. Opera is pretty slick, but I don't like the lack of customization of toolbars (I haven't tried v.7, any better?). Mozilla is okay, but it's been very slow to load for me on most systems. Lots of nice features, but since it mainly uses it's own screen draw API, it is constantly fighting with the system for resources which makes it slower in general.

My experience over the years is that damned near all browsers display pages the same speed. The render speed on websites is really only for graphics and text, stuff like flash and whatever use their own plugins and therefore are basically implemented the same no matter what. The engines for viewing graphics and text are pretty much equal from what I've seen though, never seen any one browser that was just light years ahead of the others. The specific issue of PNGs is a windows IE 6 issue. It USED to be available and implemented correctly and they took it out. Thanks Microsoft. Since the dev teams for mac and win are different, we never lost the functionality on mac. In fact, I've tested most of the major browsers on mac classic and X and they ALL supported PNG with alpha implemented correctly. To date, I don't know of ANY browser that correctly implements PNG gamma rendering correctly, but it's really not that big a deal IMO since we're generally not doing press work off websites.

$0.02


It's only after we've lost everything...
That we're free to do anything...

I'll have to agree with max this time. IE has been so strong for a reason. And not just because it came with windows. axleclarkeuk - I've recently download AVANT myself and I absolutely love it. In fact, avant is really internet explorer but is kind of an extension to it. My computer crashed because of a thunderstorm last night and I had to reboot. The browser actually recovered all the pages I had open! It makes IE skinnable and tabbable. I'm converted.

ya know... that's about the 5th person to say that Moz isn't faster than IE..

you think?

I was always under the impression that it *does* load/render the pages faster. Even now... this page- Moz -> IE -> close IE -> open in Moz..... I dunno... it seems faster to me.... and it flies on Linux, but then again, Linux flies on all things internet... *shrug* I dunno... 20 inmates can't be wrong....I must be crazy, nevemind me...

*steps out for a cig*

After reading this thread I just switched to Firebird. In all honesty it is a tad slower than IE on my PC but not enough to make me wanna switch back. The Tabbed browsing is nice, especially since it works in tandum with the old way of opening new windows. The extensions are very cool (I've already got 3 installed and working perfectly). Favicons finally stay put I thought I'd miss the google toolbar but Firebird comes with an amazing search utility that can be extended to nearly any online search engine. I've downloaded the extensions for the ones I use the most. (allmusic.com download.com and a few more) and I'm writting one as we speak that'll access my universitys engine. Hopefully the Gurus and the Wiki will be next.

I think the features and stability of firebird make up for the marginal speed decrease. Thanks for pointing it out to me guys!

Glad to hear it, Schitzo. And if you miss the other advanced functions of the Google bar, you can always download the port for FB.

Just out of curiosity, how many here have actually tried Firebird (not Mozilla, not Netscape, but Firebird), yet didn't like it, and still use IE?

If so, explain. I'm very interested in hearing your complaints about it.

ozphactor: As I already said I use Fb when I want to surf across a lots of pages or pages related to CSS and other standardized things. But I don't likeFb's speed with javascript and DOM intensive things ( like my raycaster ) so I keep IE for that purpose and also by habit when I just want to check few pages.

I think I'll let IE as my default browser until the Gecko engine gains in speed or until the use of web standards gains the mass. Obviously I check my current projects in Fb.

Mathieu "POÏ" HENRI

Glad to see this has sparked a lot of debate

Using a different browser is personal choice - designing web sites is about trying to make things work in as many devcies as possible (depending on your brief) although I think it is important to aim for web standards too.

I have downloaded Firebird but it just keeps crashing. I'll try redownloading it later and fiddling with my firewall settings.

Anyway SB and ozphactor have been dsicssing Mycroft over at the GN if anyone is interested:
http://development.gurusnetwork.com/discussion/thread/2217/

I'd certinaly be interested to hear about people's investigations into Mycroft and XUL based things.

Anyway we have a section in the FAQ for browsers:

:FAQ: The Browsers

and I added a Firebird one:

:FAQ: Firebird

if people want to throw ideas and resource in there for future reference

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

I have just downloaded and installed Firebird 0.6.0 and am using it now for the first time. I am impressed so far. I will report my thoughts back later, after giving it a good run.
Tao

I have cleared out other Moz variants (NS and Seamonkey) and Firebird actually loads the Moz page now but then it stopped responding after I click no I wouldn't want it as my homepage. Ahhh well I'll try again tomorrow.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

I've used FB before, actually I've been using it since it was called Pheonix (sp?) and was beta 0.4. I did like it a lot, but it's still in beta, parts of it aren't yet finished and I've had some issues with it -- probably because it's still in beta development.

But lets face it, do you really think the general web browsing public will be comfy going to a website like www.mozilla.org to download web browsing software when they already have a browser that works with 98% of all websites?

I don't think so.

And what difference is a bunch of tech savvy designers going to make if they switch? I mean, the push to code with standards makes sense, seeing as the message reaches the people that actually write the code, but the browser software?

Who honestly gives a shit, as long as you follow the standards when writing your pages it shouldn't really matter?

This entire topic seems like a rather pointless debate IMHO and it could be about any piece of software be it FTP programs, Email clients, Operating systems etc etc...

I'll use whatever software I'm most comfy with, and right now that's IE. I have NN-6.2 Moz-1.0 Moz-1.3 FB-0.6 OP-6 OP-7 and IE installed on my computer as I use them for testing, but I still use IE for general browsing because it's simple, it works, I couldn't be arsed changing, and I see no stand-out reason why I should change.

Besides, I thought the fundamental idea of web standards was so that it didn't matter what you were using to view a webpage with?

WASP realised that, thus the reason why they scraped the browser upgrade project.

[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 09-01-2003).]

Drac: Well for the most part this thread is about our individual choice of web browser - no campaign will make people switch. The only real campaign worth following is the anybrowser one - design to standards and make sure it works in other browsers not too tricky

Also about the WaSP BUC - they closed it beause they had by and large suceeded and most modern browser supported standards to some degree:
http://webstandards.org/act/campaign/buc/

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

I don't know what your idea of "the general web browsing public" is Dracusis, but I would include myself in that list, and that is just exactly what I have done (gone to mozilla.org to download).
I am glad I read this post and tried it, I have only been using Firebird today so it's too early to make a call, but I am impressed with the "Tab" feature so far.
Tao

You confuse me Drac.

As Emperor said, WaSP stopped their BUC becasue it had served its purpose...not becasue they realized it wouldn't work. It *did* work.

I never said you should switch, I bascially said you were looking at the web standards issue the wrong way.... =)

Edit:
I normally wouldn't get so verbose about this, but a lot of the comments in this thread suggest that upgrading your browser will help web standards, which is complete BS, thus my little rant -- I apologise in for this going off tpoic, but I think it's worth saying non the less.

DL, My first comment about standards was in regards to switching browsers. I'm all for standards but when it comes to the point where you're telling people to upgrade their web browser for the sake of web standards then I think we've missed the boat.

quote:

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WaSP stopped their BUC because it had served its purpose...not because they realized it wouldn't work. It *did* work

---

If you ask me, WaSP is deluding themselves into thinking they actually made a difference. In reality I'd be willing to bet that the migration of Operating Systems is the primary cause of CSS1, XHTML and DOM capable browsers in use today. IE 5+ comes pre-installed with Win98 SE, 2000 and XP, that and numerous security scares that caused people to update windows and in turn updating their web browser is what really made that change and there is more than enough statistical evidence to prove that hands down.

The primary problem for Web developers back in the late 90's and early 00's was NN4 and IE4, all of which died with the switch to OS-X and NT 5 OS's.

Don't get me wrong, WaSP have great intentions, but I think trying to change what software people use in their day to day lives is folly unless you're proposing an alternative to a life threatening situation or you have a very deep back pocket to fund your marketing campaign.

Quite simply, from a standards point of view, trying to force change through the use of client software is a complete wast of time IMHO epically in an age where PC's with high resolution computer monitors with gigahertz processors are declining in their percentage as web surfing machines.

But that's just my opinion. I just wanted to express that using a non-M$ browser isn't going to help the web standards fight. At the end of the day, noble as it may be, people will go with what's simple. For the Windows crowd that's going to be IE weather you like it or not. Again, that's no to say IE will be stuck with us forever, but IE's deployment is tight, slick and it works bang out of the box -- no batteries required. Dislodging that from the every day users OS will take a shit load more than the current state of affairs and I'm pretty sure M$ know that, thus them not really caring about upgrading IE until their next OS release.

But that's just my opinion, and we all know I have a rather demure view of what the people are capable of, maybe I'll be proven wrong, maybe a handful of designers and tech savvy surfers switching their web browsing software will make a difference, but I won?t be holding my breath.

[This message has been edited by Dracusis (edited 09-01-2003).]

Drac:

quote:

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If you ask me, WaSP is deluding themselves into thinking they actually made a difference.

---

I don't think any of us can be sure of the specifics but I suspect that it had more influence that you'd imagine. I suspect the redirecting to their BUC was a step to far and I doubt the actual 'oops' page ever made much of a difference but got the issue of web standards uppermost in the mind of a lot of important web people and, thanks largely to the W3C (and conferences and stuff, these people do have a lot of contact with the browser manufacturers and they were able to push the idea. It might be a problem that a small number of influential people have a disproportional influence on such matters but to a large part they were expressing the concerns of a larger body of web people out there so I think it was important that we all played out part.

Clearly it is difficult to pin down where the forces originated which pushed development along these lines but I'm reasonably confident that the BUC raised awareness of this issue enough to help speed up developments and keep things focused on one target across a range of different companies.

My posting of the link in this thread was never designed to encourage people to follow this campaign (as I most certainly have no intention of joining in) but it was an interesting concept worthy of discussion and a tool to provoke discussion of browser issues and where things currently stand - which it has done and lots of interesting stuff has emerged.

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Emps

FAQs: Emperor

Good points, but I still don't think the BUC wasn't worth the server space it was stored on. A lot of the other work that WaSP have done has undoubtly helped, but the BUC?

I'm still not sure. That particular project always annoyed me because I came across a lot of websites using it to justify not designing for NN4/IE4 when those pages wouldn't even validate. You might be right about it having more of an impact that I realise, but I think Zeldman, ALA, DigitalWeb, WaSP and many others helped the standards push most by promoting good and clean coding practices as opposed to dictating what browsers we should be using. On the other hand, IE did make some rather dramatic shifts towards supporting standards from version 5.0 -> 5.5 -> 6.0.

Hmmm, I think I just talked my way into a corner. I hate it when that happens. =)

quote:

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That particular project always annoyed me because I came across a lot of websites using it to justify not designing for NN4/IE4 when those pages wouldn't even validate.

---

Yes, the BUC was used and abused, as a cheap way for lazy designers who couldn't care less about standards to have an excuse to exclude older browsers. This, along with the "BUC spamming," were most likely other factors that caused the campaign to be discontinued.

For the most part, however, I think the BUC succeeded in what it originally set out to do: promote awareness of web standards to the general public. It may not have been the only force at work, but the percentage of NN4 users today is still far less than before the campaign began.

And no, this discussion is not about "upgrade your browser for the sake of web standards." It's "upgrade your browser so you can have a better browsing experience." If you believe the better browsing experience is with IE6, so be it. Just remember that IE6 hasn't changed in the last 3 years, and won't change for at least another 3 years, and if it ever does, you'll have to pay (literally).

In my opinion, alternative browsers have already come far enough, that they surpass IE not just in standards-compliance, but in the general user experience, as well. So Gecko and other rendering engines aren't as fast as IE's. And I can't say that they ever will be.

But from what I can see, IE6 is quickly becoming the NN4 of the our generation. Why did Netscape's developers scrap the old architecture, and work tirelessly for 4 years on a built-from-the-ground-up Gecko engine, all while sacrificing huge market share to the ever-advancing IE? Because NN4 was just too old to keep up. No amount of upgrading and updating could save it. They had to start over.

What does this have to do with IE? Take a look at the "About Internet Explorer" dialog in the Help menu. It's built on NCSA Mosaic for heaven's sake. Microsoft has already conceded that any future upgrade to IE will require changing the underlying OS. In other words, "buy Longhorn." On the other hand, alternative browsers are in a state of active development. So why not do yourself a favor, and make the switch now?