(This discussion may not be relevant to Apple
bretheren -- their default browser Safari has many
Firefox capabilities, and if they want an alternate,
many choose Camino over Firefox because of issues
with the latter this discussion won't address.)
If after reading this you're unsure of why switching
browsers will improve your life, see
these
rules -- the last part points out the security
flaws with IE, which may bite you. Some web-surfers
are hesitant to switch because they're afraid specific
sites won't work with an alternate browser -- I
haven't encountered that difficulty for some time now,
at commercial sites, but for anything Corporate you
may still need IE -- company-related stuff is all I
use that browser for, now, unless I'm stuck with no
other option somewhere, like at an Internet Café.
|
 |
So, why switch? So many reasons, but the main benefits to me are as follows.
- Blocked popups (yes, they can be inhibited -- Firefox
is your friend! If it wasn't set by default, choose
Tools->Options->Content and select "Block Pop-up
Windows").
- Blocking animated-GIF banner ads.
These were once ubiquitous; they're still around, and still
annoying. Even if they're not animated, with Firefox you can
right-click on any advertisement-image and the menu offers you
a choice of "Block images from this server." Block, refresh the
page, and you're usually rewarded with a pleasanty blank void
containing one small word: "advertisement." Evil sites then
refresh the space with an ad from a different server, so you
must block again. Continue until your page is ad-free. Truly
evil sites host the ads on the same server as their own; when
the images you want to see disappear, you must go back,
right-click and select "Unblock images from this server."
Since so many commercial sites are hip to this, they've
taken to creating ads that are just text -- or Flash (see
below).
- Tabbed Browsing.
Until you start using tabs, their utility may not seem
obvious. Here's how I use them. Say you're reading
a wep-page, and you notice an interesting link. Before tabbed
browsing, you'd click the link, and thence on to another,
possibly losing the trail leading back to where you started.
With tabbbed browsing you hold down the "Ctrl" key as you click,
and the new page opens in your same browser, but in its own tab,
behind the current window, so you can move on to the new site
at your leisure. Better yet, if it's a slow-loader, no need
to wait -- just go back (or move on) to another tab, letting
the slow loading page finish in the background. (I also use
this feature to avoid viewing certain sites' non-member
commercials which must be displayed completely before the real
site appears, like Salon). Note that a tabbed browser
is hard to understand until you see it demonstrated. From
the mozilla.org page about tabs:
Use tabbed browsing to open multiple Web pages in a single
browser window, and quickly flip back and forth. Drag and drop
open tabs to keep related pages together.
Some Internauts do something similar by holding down the Shift
key when clicking a link, opening it in a whole new browser-window;
but I find things much easier to manage while dealing with just
one browser. But if you prefer the multi- window method, Firefox
will accomodate you -- see Tools-> Options->Tabbed Browsing.
Another useful option can be checked there, "Force links that
open a new window to open in a new tab.") Sometimes when I'm
surfing furiously, I may have a couple dozen tabs on my browser.
- Another right-click choice, when viewing a page employing
frames, is "This Frame->Show Only This Frame." Kind of esoteric
but useful if you frequent a site where you're only interested
in that one part (and the rest is static or annoying in some
fashion).
- Now things get technical. Firefox can be customized with
utilities called Extensions. (One of these,
GreaseMonkey,
allows for the execution of Scripts, but that's a whole 'nother
ball of wax I won't get into here -- but if you're curious,
the one I use most often is the Goggle Image Relinker.) The
main extension everybody needs for pleasant browsing is
Flashblock. So, what is Flash? Remember in 2) when I mentioned
animated GIFs, and how to block them? They was an early method
used to make moving pictures on web pages. But now things are
more sophisticated, and Flash has become the standard, since
Microsoft bundled a Flash Viewer into the IE browser. (YouTube
videos are Flash.) What's terribly annoying is if you're still
squeezing through a dial-up -- this streaming download can't
be aborted unless you disconnect. If you already have Firefox
you may have tried to right-click certain annoying animations,
and noticed the menu didn't contain a "Block images from this
server" option -- somehow, Flash inhibits this. Instead, you
must install the Flashblock extension. Since you first need
Firefox, however, let's get that onto your machine right now.
Go
here and
download FIrefox. It'll put an executable where you
say to save it. Then, locate the file in your
Window Explorer and double-click to install. As noted
previously, if you're at work and are leary of
downloading, don't stress -- this won't require
SysAdmin permission. As the install completes,
it'll ask if you want an icon on your desktop; of course
you do. That's it!
Oh yeah -- the Flash ads... now go
here
and click "Install Now." When you restart your browser
or computer, any Flash will be replaced with a little
black lower-case "f" in a white circle. (The first frame
of the animation may appear, momentarily, just before the
"f" appears.) If you want to see the animation, click the
"f" -- ONLY THEN will the Flash file begin streaming. When
there's enough information to begin the video, the "f" is
replaced with an ">" arrow, which is clicked to begin
the animation.
|