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One of the biggest reasons that I hear for people to not switch or even try Firefox is that certain banking institutions, company websites, or other sites that a user frequents rely on technology that is only available through Internet Explorer.
Not delving into the debate whether it’s good and ethical to create a need for only one company’s browser to work with sites or whether it’s poor design on the web authors to only support a proprietary piece of software, the fact of the matter is that there are still many of these sites out there. Enter IE Tab.
You see, if you are running Windows you have Internet Explorer installed whether you use the browser or not. It’s the technology behind “My Computer.” It’s the default tool that Windows developers can use if they want to throw a browser engine in a program– so it’s around.
So the great guys at mozdev provided us with a way to switch to the IE rendering engine from right within a Firefox tab! That way, if you come upon a site that will only display correctly in IE, with a click of the button your page works! You can also key in certain pages that will display in IE automatically in case you frequent that page.
And it works great. I have had big help of this function every time a page demanded IE. No fuss, just one tiny click.
There is one drawback with FF, though. It consumes vast amounts of computer memory, especially if one has many tabs opened at the same time.
So everything comes with a cost – as in RL…
Certainly the memory usage is a function of how many tabs, but also what is going on in the tabs. If you have a lot of flash objects on the pages that you are running you are certainly going to consume more memory than if it’s static text/images. And, logically, the more data that you’re storing in any application the more it will consume.
But it is a good observation. I would interested in seeing some data comparing IE 7 with tabs with FF 2.0 as far as memory usage.
Good point, Stephen. I guess that I was just addressing those sites that mandate that you have the ActiveX running. Fortunately, those sites are becoming fewer and fewer. I’ll have to try that announcement trick as I’m sure that’ll get some of it.
Of course, this does not actually insulate you from the security problems of IE, as you are essentially running the IE rendering engine in the tab.
An alternative is just tell your browser to announce itself as IE to sites that demand IE. Most such sites work fine, and if they don’t – complain to the site manager. It is not really acceptable for businesses to turn away customers based on their customer’s choice of superior technology. 🙂
Leticia, you’re the first person I think that I’ve heard on here that actually said that they like IE. Just make sure your anti-spyware and anti-virus is up-to-date!
I really don’t have much to add on this subject. I like Internet Explorer except for the new look. I deleted it and went back to the old tool bar or menu bar.
Well, I am so not-technical that I didn’t even realize that the reason I couldn’t blog for a week was that IE had basically disabled my (stone-age) machine. Having now switched over to Firefox, we can do just about everything we want, as we wait for the new computer(s) that God is providing.
What we haven’t figured out is how to open links from emails. Those automatically open IE, which then locks up the computer. Ideas?
There’s actually multiple different places that Windows uses to figure out which browser to launch when you select a link.
One of them is the Internet Options Dialog Box. Just go to Start > Control Panel > Internet Options, go to the Programs Tab and see if Internet Explorer is still the default web browser. If it is, Go back to Firefox and goto Tools > Options > Main and make sure the check box next to “Check to make sure that Firefox is the Default Browser” is checked and press “Check Now.”
If that doesn’t solve it, then it’s in your e-mail program. What e-mail program do you use?
Thanks.
It appears it must be in our email program, which is Outlook Express. Poking around in the settings and so-forth we were unable to find a way to change it.
We are getting a new computer soon, so there’s light at the end of the tunnel either way.
Merry Christmas!