[sudz: Pidder discovered why I couldn't post. At work we have a “shade tree” computer expert that we call on whenever we have a problem with computer programming. He holds the very strong opinion that Internet Explorer is the bad boy of all times because it lets viruses, worms, popups and all manner of evil into people's computers. He downloaded Mozilla and we were told to never use Internet Explorer again. I had noticed that my home computer got infected like 52 times in a week and three times in 6 months I've had to scrub and reload my hard drive (have it done). Today, while experimenting, Pidder went in thru Internet Explorer and low and behold I'm able to post. Now I have to worry about getting infected and/or suffering all manner of take over type popups. Is there a way of downloading something in Mozilla that will duplicate whatever I have in IE that allows proper access to the forum.]
A little about Mozilla versus IE. But before I step upon the soap box, let me add my disclaimer.. We are treading on the dangerous ground of unwon arguments such as:
Who's better - Auburn or Alabama
Which car is better - Ford or Chevy
Which is better - Linux or Windows
Now, I will step onto my Microsoft sponsored soapbox.
Mozilla is netscape. The web browsing engine for netscape, called Mozilla is licensed to external vendors for other, hybrid web browsers (just like IE is often licensed to AOL (AOL used mozilla too, at one point, - then came to their senses)
Mozilla interprets, or “reads“ web page HTML differently than Microsoft's HTML parser. (The parser is the thing that turns the html tags like <html><title>my webpage</title></html> of a web page into the webpages we see and enjoy)
The Mozilla interpreter looks at webpages, much like your grade school math teacher. Sit up straight, don't slouch, do your homework, don't smack your gum, dot your I's and cross your T's. The mozilla web page interpreter isn't very forgiving.
Internet Explorer, on the other hand - in a un-Software Giant-ISH move, is actually much much more forgiving and offers many display tricks that the other people haven't caught up with yet. Imagine the grade-school math teacher saying it was cool not to do your homework so long as you did alright on the tests.
An interesting fact, most people use IE...
http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/September/browser.php
there are dozens of different statistics - but the number is usual 80% or higher.
Many web developers realise this and we spend our time catering to the majority and not worrying with obscure browsers. Obscure browsers lack the support of the software giants, are slow to change or sometimes die out altogether. Often times it's difficult to write a cool site and it work for 100% everything.
I use Internet Explorer. It's built into Windows and has been for many years. It doesn't require a seperate install that installs pesky crap that I don't want like RealOne or AOL crap and has arguably better performance. Most off, I use it because I'm somewhat a software minimalist and typically feel that a Microsoft web browser makes sense on a Microsoft machine. (not that I don't like macs, they're cool - just can't afford one.)
As for the spyware/popups etc, I think I can best akin that to blaming Honda for a car wreck because someone put in a brick wall in the interstate over a blind hill.
In this, I think most people hear something and go try netscape, opera or some other web browser to get away from the mainstream, support the little guy and hopefully get away from issues like spyware/popups - etc. The fact is, doing so you will run into compatibility problems with webpages -often.
The text editor on this site is a free one. it's open source and available as part of many portal toolkits. I used it to try to keep from spending 120 hours developing one so that I could focus that development time on other aspects of the site. of course, as I've noticed with most of the free crap I used on the sites - browser compatibility issues and bugs arise. My Bad!
You can definitely overcome annoying spyware/popups and worms by:
1) Always use a popup blocker. There are lots - I like google toolbar (http://toolbar.google.com) but everyone has their own fav.
2) Use and update your antivirus frequently
3) Use a spyware removal tool or combination. I use Adaware (http://www.lavasoftusa.com) but I'm told AdAware and Spybot work very well together.
4) Keep your Windows/Mac/Linux box up to date with the latest hotifxes and program updates.
Most of all, I'm glad you can get on, now! Thanks pidder for getting sudz back in action!!
If there's anything else I can be of absolutely no help at all with, just let me know!
-Anomaly