Firefox as an IE replacement?

[oogabooga]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
I am one of those 1-in-a-million people who put firefox on my system and got hijacked within an hour.

I know we are a rarity. But I am one of them.

congratulations! ... i think?

I've been using firefox as an IE replacement steadily for some time now, and i love it. I'm not sure why i waited so long.
After some odd 6-8 months of use, i've noticed reduced spyware, and i am loving the interface : PLUS I've found Text quite helpful for accelerating firefox and actually making it faster (somewhat).

 

[djdrastic]

I love the text resizing in FF , IE'S text resizer never works correctly

 

[KarenMarie]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

I am one of those 1-in-a-million people who put firefox on my system and got hijacked within an hour.

How?

I have no idea how. I downloaded it from the FireFox website, installed it and came to Anandtech for a while and started getting popups, error messages and then computer freezes. My browser home page was hijacked, too. I had to uninstall FireFox and do deep cleaning on my system.

I am sad about it... cause it looked pretty cool and I have always heard such good things about it.

I am kinda afraid to try it again.



edit: for sucky spelling.

 

[drag]

What was probably happening is that your computer was already comprimised from before you installed Firefox. Lots of spyware will install background proccesses that actually cause pop-ups completely independant from your browser (just using your default browser to display them most of the of the time, though).

For instance if your getting pop-ups when you visit anandtech that's not your browser screwing up, that's something else. Firefox can't help you if a program on you machine is what is causing the f-ups.

Also people like to send pop-ups thru msn messenger that is installed and activated by default on every WinXP desktop.

 

[badguy106]

http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: badguy106
http://www.moox.ws/tech/mozilla/

His website states:

Rather, they are builds that have had modifications made to the source code to optimize the executables for speed, increase stability, and add in extra features.

I see no source code or patches on his site. Isn't that a violation of the GPL (and NPL/MPL)? mmoy does provide patches, but as I understand it, moox still needs to provide the changes (or a link to mmoys list, if he uses only those).

 

[KarenMarie]

Originally posted by: drag
What was probably happening is that your computer was already comprimised from before you installed Firefox. Lots of spyware will install background proccesses that actually cause pop-ups completely independant from your browser (just using your default browser to display them most of the of the time, though).

For instance if your getting pop-ups when you visit anandtech that's not your browser screwing up, that's something else. Firefox can't help you if a program on you machine is what is causing the f-ups.

Also people like to send pop-ups thru msn messenger that is installed and activated by default on every WinXP desktop.

Hmmm... I have SpySweeper always running in the background. I run Lavasoft and Spybot all the time. I have Panda Internet Security. I might be wrong, but I think the chances of my being infected were slim. Possible, but unlikely. It might be a case of by failure to rtfm and not having the security settings high enough. Dunno.. I did not have it long enough to know what went wrong.

 

[Nothinman]

Hmmm... I have SpySweeper always running in the background. I run Lavasoft and Spybot all the time. I have Panda Internet Security. I might be wrong, but I think the chances of my being infected were slim.

But you said yourself that you got infected, whether IE, Firefox or something else was the entrance is the only thing up for debate.

If all you did was install Firefox and browse to Anandtech the chances of Firefox being the entrance point is almost 0. To get infected by something via Firefox you would have had to visit a site designed to do the infection, which I highly doubt Anand is one of them.

 

[KarenMarie]

Nothinman...

I agree 100%. I have no idea how it happened, or why it happened. It is logical that the security apps should have prevented any bad stuff, no matter the browser. I mentioned them, cause I figured that if I had something malicious that slipped by all three of them, I should have noticed a problem earlier. I am far from an expert on such things... I admit... but after using IE for almost 12yrs, I installed FireFox and after about an hour, my system was fvcked up.

Don't know why, can't explain it. Not blaming FireFox, and am sure is was a Luser error... but after uninstalling FireFox, cleaning up the system and going back to IE I haven't had a problem again.


Again, I would love to give it another go... as I quite liked it... but I am kinda scared.

 

[Nothinman]

Whats to be scared of? You just admitted that you know it wasn't FF that caused the problem, right?

 

[KarenMarie]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
Whats to be scared of? You just admitted that you know it wasn't FF that caused the problem, right?

Ok ok ok...

Your logic had talked me into trying again!! But before I do... I wanna ask...

What are the MUST HAVE plug ins?

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: drag
Firefox is very stable and very safe. It's very rare nowadays that you find a website that doesn't work with it, however many intranets are based on stuff like activeX and such and those will not work with firefox.

Things to watch out for is getting complacent with it. Once people use it the rate of infection from spyware and stuff will drop dramaticly. But you need to keep it up to date none-the-less.

The best thing to do is install firefox, educate the users and let them choose. Show them some extensions and stuff that they can change and write up a basic usage paper outlining how to use it and find the preferences and such so they don't have a period of confusion in the transition and aviod it altogether. Sometimes safe software is more dangerous then unsafe software because of this tendancy for complatency.

It will never be a full replacement for IE in a Windows enviroment because IE is a important part of what makes windows windows. (why also security flaws are so horrible). They can use Firefox, when they get to the odd site that won't work in Firefox they can then open it up in IE.

(the more users that switch the better. Firefox is standards complient and Internet Explorer is not. The widespread usage of IE is realy holding www development back by years.)

I do keep IE just in case - I've yet to find a match to the Google Toolbar's one-click Autofill feature that'll work on just about any site. That, and some pages like this one don't seem to work quite right - &nbsp appears all over the place, and in the right side, the Choose A State drop-down menu is blank. In IE, it all works fine. And there's a few other errata. NASA's Mars Rover site.

Single-click on one of the Sol's there. Now, double-clicking on it will open the link. However, instead, double-click in the light gray area of the scrollbar. It still opens the link - quite annoying if you are trying to scroll down quickly instead of open a link.
And there's no window cloning (maybe v1.0 has this, I've not tried it yet, for worry that some extensions might stop working).

But overall, I use Firefox as my standard browser. If I know I'm going to a site that I'll be using Autofill at, I open it with IE. Or if a page just plain doesn't work, like Liteon's firmware download website, I'll also use IE.

 

[KarenMarie]

Ok... now this is the weirdest thing ever...

I went to the FireFox website, and clicked on download... Went to pour coffee... came back and the dialogue box said "download complete"... and the system was frozen. I had to reboot.

I have no explaination for this... I have no idea why this would happen. I am sure it is a fluke, but it stymies me, none-the-less.

My system is in my sig, if more info is needed.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie

Originally posted by: drag
What was probably happening is that your computer was already comprimised from before you installed Firefox. Lots of spyware will install background proccesses that actually cause pop-ups completely independant from your browser (just using your default browser to display them most of the of the time, though).

For instance if your getting pop-ups when you visit anandtech that's not your browser screwing up, that's something else. Firefox can't help you if a program on you machine is what is causing the f-ups.

Also people like to send pop-ups thru msn messenger that is installed and activated by default on every WinXP desktop.

Hmmm... I have SpySweeper always running in the background. I run Lavasoft and Spybot all the time. I have Panda Internet Security. I might be wrong, but I think the chances of my being infected were slim. Possible, but unlikely. It might be a case of by failure to rtfm and not having the security settings high enough. Dunno.. I did not have it long enough to know what went wrong.

There are some nasty variants of CoolWebSearch, may its authors burn in hell, that are made to get by most spyware detectors. I had a CWS infection once where AdAware and Spybot saw nothing, but my homepage (IE) kept coming up About:blank. That variant used a hidden registry entry that instructed Windows Explorer not to show a file (with a randomly generated name) that was in the Windows folder, directing the mayhem. I had to use RegLite, a 3rd party registry editor, since regedit.exe was instructed by CWS not to show the hidden entry, to delete that entry. The file was then visible. I then used a program called Killbox to forcibly delete the CWS file. Damn nasty ah heck.

My reason for looking into it was as a means of reducing spyware on peoples machines who manage to get their systems highly infested. Firefox is known to be more resistant to these threats.

A bit more resistant, but it's like the reason that there's few viruses for Linux - there's a small "market" for the spyware or viruses. There aren't many home Linux users, so the writers target Windows. There aren't many Firefox users, so the ethically-challenged spyware writers target IE. IE just makes their jobs easier.

 

[KarenMarie]

Jeff7...

Everything you posted makes perfect sense. But please read my last post. I just downloaded it and my system froze. I did not even open the downloaded file. This has not happened to me before, and I just ran all my protection software and did a scandisk, and defrag last night.

I am perplexed about it.

P.S. I am a pretty heavy computer user, so if there was a problem within the last few days, I am confident I would have seen it before today.

 

[Philippine Mango]

It seems like firefox is IE with tabbed browsing and active X scripts disabled... I'm interpreting that we should disable active x scripts for safer browsing but wouldn't that mean we would loose web browsing functionality? Does anything use active X anymore besides spyware/malware etc? For me, I have set my internet settings so that it prompts about running everything so that it doesn't do things automatically. And to prevent constant bugging from sites like yahoo, I just add them to my trusted sites list. Anandtech is also in my trusted site's list aswell!

 

[Bryant]

Am I the only person who doesnt like Firefox and prefers IE over Firefox?

 

[KarenMarie]

Bryant,

No, you are not. If you read my posts, you will see the trouble I have had with it. I am currently using FireFox right now, as I said I would give it another go... but my previous experiences with it are not stellar. All seems well for the moment...

 

[Nothinman]

It seems like firefox is IE with tabbed browsing and active X scripts disabled

Maybe, in the same way that a ferrari seems like an escort with a different frame an engine.

I'm interpreting that we should disable active x scripts for safer browsing but wouldn't that mean we would loose web browsing functionality?

Active Scripting and ActiveX are different things, luckily very few if any sites use ActiveX controls.

Am I the only person who doesnt like Firefox and prefers IE over Firefox?

Not right now, but FF is definately picking up momentum so hopefully you will be in the minority soon.