Firefox 1.0.5 has been released. It fixes a number of security holes and apparently introduces “improvements to stability” (at the moment it seems to slow down after a period of heavy use, to the point where I end up having to restart it), so if you’re running Firefox you might want to update it if you haven’t already. If you’re still using that Browser From Redmond with poor support for web standards, now’s the time to switch and Browse Happy. You will also be making my life as a webmaster much easier in the process. 🙂
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6 thoughts on “Firefox update”
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As a webmaster surely the only way to make it easier for us is to get everyone to switch.. we’d not do anything differently unless nobody used IE, since its kinda the argument we make for websites which dont work well in firefox. Shouldn’t exclude the minority.
That didn’t come out very well, just ignore me 🙂
No no no! Use Opera! 😀
Well said Dan, I did wonder why Paul was undermining his own beliefs.
If enough people switched we could ignore IE on Windows just like most people now ignore it on the Mac (which is a shame, because it had quite a few features that didn’t make it into the Windows version until later). Also, seeing as I run fairly technical sites for the most part, pretty much all my visitors use Mozilla, Firefox or some other standards compliant browser like Safari or Opera.
The compliant about sites not working in Firefox was usually because they hadn’t been written properly in the first place, whereas at the moment I can create a design that is valid XHTML and CSS, yet IE6 won’t necessarily render it properly so I have to start looking for other methods or ugly hacks to make it work. If Microsoft makes IE7 work the way it should then I’ll be more than happy for people to use it (obviously I’ll still prefer them to use Firefox, but from a point of view other than that of “it’s more standards compliant).
In other words I don’t care what browser people use, so long as it renders XHTML and CSS the way it should. It’s only when a lot of people are still using a browser that doesn’t do this that I get fed up.
Opera has got a lot better recently. They seem to be good with standards most of the time and although it took them a while to get round to including XMLHTTP and stuff like that they did seem to manage just in time before it became important (when Google Maps came out).
The mouse gesture plugins that are out for Firefox are no where near as good as the built-in support in Opera. I was also impressed with the screen reader but I’m still sticking with Firefox just because it is free (without adverts) and the inferface is less cluttered.
I think Opera is a nice browser and its support for standards is generally as good as Firefox, although as you say the interface is a bit cluttered (I find myself deselecting about 30 odd things just to get it down to something I can use) and I don’t like the idea of adverts either. To be honest I don’t know what Opera offers over other browsers that is worth the $39 price tag.
UMIST student eh? Nice to see some local people reading this. 🙂