Browser; but not IE

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike Ring
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M

Mike Ring

I'm getting a new computer very soon, and sticking with W98SE as I don't
want to go to XP yet, if at all, but I would like to try a new suite for
surfing etc;

I've been a bit windy of moving away from IE as it's apparently deeply
embedded, but I ditched OE some time ago, only on the grounds of it crashed
me computer, functionally, I liked it (but not for news)

So what about a different browser, adn can I safely get rid of IE without
something else breaking?

And while we're at it, what IS Mozilla? a plane, a twister? wossoi mean?

And any reccomendations for another browser, given that I'm not deeply
against IE, it's just the Gates thing.

Mike R
 
I'm getting a new computer very soon, and sticking with W98SE as I
don't want to go to XP yet, if at all, but I would like to try a
new suite for surfing etc;
Click to expand...

I'd recommend trying Mozilla 1.4, the "internet application suite"
at mozilla.org.
So what about a different browser,
Click to expand...

If it's a different browser you want, I'd recommend Mozilla
Firebird 0.6.1, the browser-only project of mozilla.org.

adn can I safely get rid of IE without something else breaking?
Click to expand...

I think you can, and maybe somebody else can help you with it.
Fwiw, I keep IE on hand only for visits to windowsupdate.com.
Imnsho, keeping a Windows OS patched is an incredible PiTA without
IE, which is the only interface to their automatic updating thingy.
And while we're at it, what IS Mozilla? a plane, a twister? wossoi
mean?
Click to expand...

The history of Mozilla makes it impossible to give a quick answer.
Best I can do is give a link to the excellent Wikipedia answer.

<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla>

If it's just the name "Mozilla" you mean to ask about, see
<http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla#Origins_and_prophecies:_the_Mozilla_name>
 
I'd recommend trying Mozilla 1.4, the "internet application suite"
at mozilla.org.


If it's a different browser you want, I'd recommend Mozilla
Firebird 0.6.1, the browser-only project of mozilla.org.

<http://www.mozilla.org/>
Click to expand...

I was thinking of that I already quite like thunderbird, except I prefer
mailwasher type filtering
Fwiw, I keep IE on hand only for visits to windowsupdate.com.
Imnsho, keeping a Windows OS patched is an incredible PiTA without
IE, which is the only interface to their automatic updating thingy.
Click to expand...

That's true, but I don't expect 98 will get much more serious patching, and
they're getting on my nerves nagging me to update mediaplayer 9 or so, and
I stopped at mediaplayer 2!Thanks for the answer, it seemed very like a japanese manga character.

mike r
 
It was a dark and stormy night when Mike Ring
I'm getting a new computer very soon, and sticking with W98SE as I
don't want to go to XP yet, if at all, but I would like to try a
new suite for surfing etc;
[Snip]
And any reccomendations for another browser, given that I'm not
deeply against IE, it's just the Gates thing.
Click to expand...
Besides Mozilla Firebird another option is K-Meleon:
<http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/>

Regards
 
Hi,

I don't know what your reasons are for moving away from IE, but if it is
because of the limited functionality of IE, I'd say give MyIE2 a try. It
is a program that fits like a shell over IE and gives you everything
you'd might want in a browser (tabbed browsing, mouse gestures, opening
of a group of webpages at once, drag and drop feature to open words you
highlight in google, or links in a new tab). Basically this program
shows you what IE is really capable of if the moguls at MS really would
try to make something out of IE, because let's face it, there's been
practically no added functionaliity to IE in the last 5 years or so.
MyIE2 can be found at http://www.myie2.com/html_en/home.htm
 
What features does Slimbrowser have that My IE2 doesn't? Always open to a better shell.
 
Dunno about getting rid of it. There are supposed to be ways, but I
never tried them.

As for a different browser, since you don't appear to need it to have
mail/news strap-ons, I'd go with the mail/news strap-on-free version of
Mozilla -- Phoenix, I believe it's called. Firebird. Something like
that, I think. Wouldn't be my first choice, but would be my first
choice for freeware.
Click to expand...


I've been using Mozilla Firebird .6 and I love it. I haven't found a thing
it can't do that IE can. And, built in popup blocker!

I completely removed IE from my Windows ME install, and along with it, a
lot of problems. Video freezeups are history now.

Many people don't realize that IE loads into memory at boot in Win98 and
ME.

Be aware that there are certain programs that use IE as a backbone
(Microsoft Works, for one) so removing it might cause problems if you use
one of those. MusicMatch Jukebox won't install without IE (but runs just
fine after install without it.)
 
donut said:
I've been using Mozilla Firebird .6 and I love it. I haven't found a thing
it can't do that IE can. And, built in popup blocker!

I completely removed IE from my Windows ME install, and along with it, a
lot of problems. Video freezeups are history now.

Many people don't realize that IE loads into memory at boot in Win98 and
ME.

Be aware that there are certain programs that use IE as a backbone
(Microsoft Works, for one) so removing it might cause problems if you use
one of those. MusicMatch Jukebox won't install without IE (but runs just
fine after install without it.)
Click to expand...
I finally took the plunge, so to speak, and started running Firebird as
well. I have found many web sites that will not work with this browser. Most
of these are our suppliers sites, and as poorly as they may be designed, I
still need access to these sites. Many are just links that will not work,
they end up being inaccuratly interpreted by the browser. Even the email
admin web page for our company email won't work properly, this is of course
the hosts problem, but still, I need access. I can't yet ditch IE and
switch, as much as I liked Moz Firebird, so it appears IE does know a few
tricks Moz does not yet know.
HK
 
On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 14:35:41 -0600, H-Man

[snip]
I finally took the plunge, so to speak, and started running Firebird as
well. I have found many web sites that will not work with this browser. Most
of these are our suppliers sites, and as poorly as they may be designed, I
still need access to these sites. Many are just links that will not work,
they end up being inaccuratly interpreted by the browser. Even the email
admin web page for our company email won't work properly, this is of course
the hosts problem, but still, I need access. I can't yet ditch IE and
switch, as much as I liked Moz Firebird, so it appears IE does know a few
tricks Moz does not yet know.
Click to expand...

Can you list some of these *many* sites to which you refer? Perhaps a
second opinion could indicate some other problem that with Moz/Firebird.
 
I finally took the plunge, so to speak, and started running Firebird
as well. I have found many web sites that will not work with this
browser. Most of these are our suppliers sites, and as poorly as they
may be designed, I still need access to these sites. Many are just
links that will not work, they end up being inaccuratly interpreted by
the browser. Even the email admin web page for our company email won't
work properly, this is of course the hosts problem, but still, I need
access. I can't yet ditch IE and switch, as much as I liked Moz
Firebird, so it appears IE does know a few tricks Moz does not yet
know. HK
Click to expand...

The trick that IE "knows" is that it can work around bad HTML. However, I
haven't had a single site not work using Firebird.

Firebird wouldn't be the only browser that has this problem - all Mozilla
builds, and Netscape would as well. Not sure about Opera, but I would
suspect so.

Could you possibly post a few of those URLs? I'd like to try them.
 
H-Man said:
I finally took the plunge, so to speak, and started running Firebird as
well. I have found many web sites that will not work with this browser. Most
of these are our suppliers sites, and as poorly as they may be designed, I
still need access to these sites. Many are just links that will not work,
they end up being inaccuratly interpreted by the browser. Even the email
admin web page for our company email won't work properly, this is of course
the hosts problem, but still, I need access. I can't yet ditch IE and
switch, as much as I liked Moz Firebird, so it appears IE does know a few
tricks Moz does not yet know.
Click to expand...

What are some of these URLs you say you can't reach without IE?
 
DC said:
On Tue, 12 Aug 2003 14:35:41 -0600, H-Man

[snip]
I finally took the plunge, so to speak, and started running Firebird as
well. I have found many web sites that will not work with this browser. Most
of these are our suppliers sites, and as poorly as they may be designed, I
still need access to these sites. Many are just links that will not work,
they end up being inaccuratly interpreted by the browser. Even the email
admin web page for our company email won't work properly, this is of course
the hosts problem, but still, I need access. I can't yet ditch IE and
switch, as much as I liked Moz Firebird, so it appears IE does know a few
tricks Moz does not yet know.
Click to expand...

Can you list some of these *many* sites to which you refer? Perhaps a
second opinion could indicate some other problem that with Moz/Firebird.
Click to expand...

Go to http://www.hubbell-icd.com/icIndex.asp
and select any of the items, a pushbutton station for example. The image on
the resulting page will not be available, and the PDF info files will not be
found. This does all work in IE however. This is just an example. A lot of
the sites that don't work are unfortunately "secured sites" so I can't point
to them, but this is the sort of thing I am talking about. I wish not to be
misunderstood, I am in no way dissing Mozilla, in any way. I understand all
about poorly written pages and such, but I need access to these sites. I
completely prefer Moz over IE, I just can't completely jump ship yet.
HK
 
H-Man said:
know
Could also send you screenshots of the different browsers on your page if
you like.
HK
Click to expand...

Well, I've tested on IE 5, so I know it works there. If you don't see the
toolbar, you must have a feature turned off or your security too high. I've
seen it on Netscape as well, and it works there AFAIK. It's just Firebird
that gives me heartburn on this issue.

-D
 
Go to http://www.hubbell-icd.com/icIndex.asp
and select any of the items, a pushbutton station for example. The
image on the resulting page will not be available, and the PDF
info files will not be found. This does all work in IE however.
Click to expand...

I just tried with Mozilla Firebird 0.6. All images load ok. PDF files
are not found, but neither are they with my IE browser.
 
I don't get my image
displays at all, and the buttons in the toolbar do nothing at all that
I can see.
Click to expand...

Works fine for me. The sidebar buttons took me everywhere they were
supposed to.
 
The problem is likely in the page design. Clicking "Show Image" leads
to a "page not found."
Click to expand...


I took this URL to W3C and got this error warning:


Fatal Error: No DOCTYPE specified!

I could not parse this document, because it does not include a DOCTYPE
Declaration. A DOCTYPE Declaration is mandatory for most current markup
languages and without such a declaration it is impossible to validate this
document.


So, the Hubbell site's HTML is bad starting with the very first line.

It's too bad that you can't use Firebird in this instance, but it seems the
pages you need to view are the problem. Because IE is so entrenched, sites
get away with bad HTML. Another instance of Microsoft not running a taut
ship (but their entire history is littered with such things.)
 
I suspect this is true (the lack of a doctype declaration) of the
majority of sites. Try the beloved www.google.com for example, dozens of
major sites too.

I don't think this is the problem here though..
Click to expand...


Pretty hard to find out, since W3C won't even analyze the HTML without it.

It would be nice if they would adapt the analyzer to skip over this, since
it is so prevalent on the Web.
 
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