Fuck off Firefox
I'm going to stab the next anti-Micro$$$oft rebel who complains relentlessly about IE and mentions how awesome Firefox is in the face.
I don't hate Firefox, and I don't hate IE. What I can't stand is people who preach mercilessly about Firefox. If you like Firefox better, use it and shut up. I don't care what browser anyone else is using and neither should you (except maybe if you're a web developer, in which case nobody wants to hear you whine). Firefox has introduced some good features. These are detailed repeatedly on the blogs of all the Micro$$$oft haters, so I'm not going to cover them. I'd like to tell you what's bad about Firefox instead, since this seem to be as overlooked as showers by the sweaty Linux zealots.
1) Memory leaks
Firefox is praised as being lean and well designed, while IE is described as clunky.
I'm probably going to hurt some feelings here, but it has to be said. Firefox is a memory whore. Some people have had Firefox eating up a gig of RAM. A web browser that uses a gig of RAM is badly designed. Period. Now people say this is because of extensions, which may well be true (although even with no extensions installed it usually uses more RAM than IE or Opera). However, the fact that an extension can cause the browser to use that much RAM indicates the extension system itself is fundamentally flawed, which brings me to my next point.
2) The extension system sucks
Firefox is praised as being secure as hell, while IE is a leaky old steamboat. That's why the extension system sucks. There's no regulation of extensions by the browser at all. I could write an extension that stole usernames and passwords as you logged into websites, and Firefox does nothing to prevent this. In effect, extensions are as trusted as any other program you run on your computer. This is a very significant security risk. Yes, you have to approve the extension for installation but if you've got IE set up right you have to approve ActiveX components as well. Firefox's extension system is no more secure than IE's was pre-SP2.
3) Security
As I mentioned above, Firefox's extension system is insecure. What I'd like to clear up here however is not Firefox's weaknesses but the percieved insecurity of Internet Explorer. Nearly all security vulnerabilities are patched by Microsoft before a real world exploit even exists. If your computer is updated regularly (which can be done automagically), nearly all browser exploits won't affect you. These security vulnerabilities are only a real problem if you're a target of interest for hackers (you've got something on your PC that is extremely valuable). If you do, don't browse the web at all from that computer. Isolate it with a strong firewall and use another PC to look at your hot amatuer cheerleaders. There were some security problems with IE pre-SP2 if you didn't set it up properly, but with SP2 even idiots should be relatively secure. There is no major security risk associated with IE unless you're being an idiot.
4) Standards
Firefox has better standards support than IE. What does this mean for you and me? Well, nothing really.
Web developers will bitch endlessly about how IE doesn't support alpha transparency PNGs so much anyone would think it's a significant problem. It's not, because there's very few cases where people actually need to use them. The fact is most of the compatibility flaws in IE don't actually affect anyone. Give the Firefox fanboys a reason to bitch though and they'll grab that dead horse and hold on for dear life. IE holds a market share of around 90%, so it's effectively a de facto standard. I'm sorry that IE doesn't support the latest quad-pixel-transform render technique in CSS 4.01, but you don't really need it now do you? You're getting paid stupid amounts of money to sit on your ass and code websites, develop for the (vast) majority. If I went and created a fuel pump nozzle that would only work on 10% of cars it would be a shitty product whether or not it was compliant with standards.
Let's take a look at a real world website.
Rendered in Firefox:
Rendered in Opera (it looks the same in IE):
Now this website probably isn't standards compliant but does it really matter to you or me? If people are telling you to switch to Firefox and pages start rendering incorrectly that's going to make you avoid Firefox. Opera and IE manage to render it fine so why can't Firefox?
Now I'm not saying IE is perfect. IE has it's problems, but Firefox sure as hell does as well and these are blatently ignored by the Firefox proponents. I use Opera. It uses less RAM than Firefox, renders pages faster than both Firefox and IE and supports tabbed browsing which is the only feature I want to use that IE doesn't have (until IE7 is released). I don't preach at people to start using Opera and I don't bitch about IE. Let people use whatever the hell they want and everybody is happy. Don't shove Firefox down our throats, and stop complaining about IE. Nobody is forcing you to use it. I'm looking at you Tom O'Connor.
I don't hate Firefox, and I don't hate IE. What I can't stand is people who preach mercilessly about Firefox. If you like Firefox better, use it and shut up. I don't care what browser anyone else is using and neither should you (except maybe if you're a web developer, in which case nobody wants to hear you whine). Firefox has introduced some good features. These are detailed repeatedly on the blogs of all the Micro$$$oft haters, so I'm not going to cover them. I'd like to tell you what's bad about Firefox instead, since this seem to be as overlooked as showers by the sweaty Linux zealots.
1) Memory leaks
Firefox is praised as being lean and well designed, while IE is described as clunky.
I'm probably going to hurt some feelings here, but it has to be said. Firefox is a memory whore. Some people have had Firefox eating up a gig of RAM. A web browser that uses a gig of RAM is badly designed. Period. Now people say this is because of extensions, which may well be true (although even with no extensions installed it usually uses more RAM than IE or Opera). However, the fact that an extension can cause the browser to use that much RAM indicates the extension system itself is fundamentally flawed, which brings me to my next point.
2) The extension system sucks
Firefox is praised as being secure as hell, while IE is a leaky old steamboat. That's why the extension system sucks. There's no regulation of extensions by the browser at all. I could write an extension that stole usernames and passwords as you logged into websites, and Firefox does nothing to prevent this. In effect, extensions are as trusted as any other program you run on your computer. This is a very significant security risk. Yes, you have to approve the extension for installation but if you've got IE set up right you have to approve ActiveX components as well. Firefox's extension system is no more secure than IE's was pre-SP2.
3) Security
As I mentioned above, Firefox's extension system is insecure. What I'd like to clear up here however is not Firefox's weaknesses but the percieved insecurity of Internet Explorer. Nearly all security vulnerabilities are patched by Microsoft before a real world exploit even exists. If your computer is updated regularly (which can be done automagically), nearly all browser exploits won't affect you. These security vulnerabilities are only a real problem if you're a target of interest for hackers (you've got something on your PC that is extremely valuable). If you do, don't browse the web at all from that computer. Isolate it with a strong firewall and use another PC to look at your hot amatuer cheerleaders. There were some security problems with IE pre-SP2 if you didn't set it up properly, but with SP2 even idiots should be relatively secure. There is no major security risk associated with IE unless you're being an idiot.
4) Standards
Firefox has better standards support than IE. What does this mean for you and me? Well, nothing really.
Web developers will bitch endlessly about how IE doesn't support alpha transparency PNGs so much anyone would think it's a significant problem. It's not, because there's very few cases where people actually need to use them. The fact is most of the compatibility flaws in IE don't actually affect anyone. Give the Firefox fanboys a reason to bitch though and they'll grab that dead horse and hold on for dear life. IE holds a market share of around 90%, so it's effectively a de facto standard. I'm sorry that IE doesn't support the latest quad-pixel-transform render technique in CSS 4.01, but you don't really need it now do you? You're getting paid stupid amounts of money to sit on your ass and code websites, develop for the (vast) majority. If I went and created a fuel pump nozzle that would only work on 10% of cars it would be a shitty product whether or not it was compliant with standards.
Let's take a look at a real world website.
Rendered in Firefox:
Rendered in Opera (it looks the same in IE):
Now this website probably isn't standards compliant but does it really matter to you or me? If people are telling you to switch to Firefox and pages start rendering incorrectly that's going to make you avoid Firefox. Opera and IE manage to render it fine so why can't Firefox?
Now I'm not saying IE is perfect. IE has it's problems, but Firefox sure as hell does as well and these are blatently ignored by the Firefox proponents. I use Opera. It uses less RAM than Firefox, renders pages faster than both Firefox and IE and supports tabbed browsing which is the only feature I want to use that IE doesn't have (until IE7 is released). I don't preach at people to start using Opera and I don't bitch about IE. Let people use whatever the hell they want and everybody is happy. Don't shove Firefox down our throats, and stop complaining about IE. Nobody is forcing you to use it. I'm looking at you Tom O'Connor.