Firefox is Evil!

Posted Saturday, June 21, 2008 7:10 PM by Nathan Zaugg

There are a few things that make me really angry with Internet companies.  The first one was when Verisign took over control of the root domain servers and started serving ad's on any non-existent domain!  The second was recently where a large ISP is selling peoples so-called non-personal information for targeting advertisers in an opt-out type program.  Now this!

I recently upgraded to Firefox 3.  I am an IE 7 guy -- I don't fall for all of the misinformation about why Firefox is superior in ever way!  So what is new in Firefox 3 that has me so angry?  Simple, whether I specified it as my default browser or not (and without asking) ALL EXTERNAL LINKS NOW COME UP UNDER FIREFOX!!!  I double click my GMail notifier and it pops up Firefox 3.  I click on an about link in any application that opens a website and it will open with Firefox 3!  I checked IE 7 and made sure it was my default browser.  I checked Firefox and it claims not to be my default browser.

Not too long ago Microsoft was slapped with an anti-trust law suite over something less significant than this! Besides the huge violation of my computing rights they have committed (and I really think should be held accountable for) It is extremely difficult to fix. You can't just "fix" it by telling IE to be the default.

 

  1. Click on Default Programs
     StartBar
  2. Click on "Set program access and computer details"
     Default Programs
  3. Click "Continue" when asked for Access
  4. Click on your browser of preference under the custom section
    image
  5. Press "OK"

 

Also, the next time someone tells you "IE Sucks" or "Firefox is better", do a little thinking for yourself, man!

-- Nathan Zaugg

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Comments

# re: Firefox is Evil!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 12:55 PM by Jayson

Interesting..I was unable to duplicate this on my box. Are you sure this is not just windows continuing to suck? I can solve this problem for you. www.apple.com/.../ads.

# re: Firefox is Evil!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008 3:25 PM by Nathan Zaugg

I have not tried to repeat but I am sure that any screen that said anything about making Firefox my default browser was quickly unchecked!

# re: Firefox is Evil!

Thursday, July 10, 2008 3:01 PM by Jason Bunting

FireFox *is* better than IE, I know from experience. Developing JavaScript-heavy websites in IE is an exercise in frustration because not only does the rendering engine suck, but the tool support for debugging and such is so laborious to use. Debugging JavaScript in Visual Studio is far more painful than staying *inside* FireFox with FireBug.

Think for *yourself* and stop being a Microsoft fanboy.

:P

# re: Firefox is Evil!

Friday, July 11, 2008 1:50 PM by Nathan Zaugg

I like Microsoft, but I think I stop short at fanboy.  For example, I think Gmail is better than Live Mail. But I can't live without Gmail, Analytics, and especially Google Docs! One of my computers homepage is msn.com and the other is google.com.

I don’t like everything that Microsoft puts out but they are doing some really cool things and I think it's okay to be excited about that.

Stating that IE's rendering engine sucks isn't a very strong argument.  Wither a browser is good or bad is going to be determined by a person’s experience with that browser and people have as many frustrating experiences with Firefox as they do with anything else.  Some people think Safari is the best and I welcome their perspective.  

I actually had a JavaScript bug in Firefox recently that has only been fixed with the upgrade to Firefox 3 (the reason I had to install it).

Stating that something *is* better than something else is the kind of narrow thinking that leads to unenlightened decisions.

# re: Firefox is Evil!

Friday, July 18, 2008 10:09 AM by Jason Bunting

Forgot I had come here and posted a comment. :P

First, in order to something is better than something else, you have to have some metric by which to judge it. For example, if we are talking about standards, IE fails. This isn't subjective, this is objective. It is a fact that IE's rendering engine is flawed based on standards, this isn't open to debate. There is a clear mark.

Second, your metric has nothing to do with my metric - I brought up developing software against IE, you brought up user experience; we can't have a useful conversation about a browser's merits if we are using two different metrics. You can't argue the subjectivity of user experience, but you can argue about how well a browser implements rendering based on standards.

By the way, the word you want to use is "whether" - there is no English word spelled "wither" with the meaning you intend, even though you keep using it in your blog posts that way.

By the way, I agree Microsoft does great things - I wouldn't be a .NET developer and run their OS if I didn't feel that way. That said, their browser continues to suck for standards-based JavaScript-heavy development.