Firefox goodness makes unexpected badness

[weirdami]

I started using Mozilla Firefox on a Pentium (one) windows box with 48 megs RAM and <2GB total HD space (about 150 MB left on each of the two HD's). I've gone and reduced the colors to 256 in hopes of gaining some system resources and the monitor is 640x480 only. Firefox takes like 30 seconds to load, which is bad, but my post is inspired by a good  thing thats kinda bad.

I recently updated a webpage and I made a mistake. I did

Code: [Select]

</b? instead of

Code: [Select]

Firefox saw through the mistake and was debolding like I wanted it too, so I didn't notice the mistake. Someone just told me that the entire rest of the page was now bold. He was using IE. I check and there was the mistake. So, Firefox is good because it corrects for bad coding, but bad because if you use it to test your html, your mistakes might not be apparent, so people using other browsers will get a different experience.

Firefox does take forever to load, but so does everything else on the computer, so really, I bet it loads much faster on the new fancy super GHz machines. IE loads fast, though, but it has the added, cheating advantage of being already technically loaded when you boot windows. I guess I'll go with IE :-(, but only because I'm tired of waiting forever for things to load.... and maybe because I want a stupidprogram so my mistakes can be seen easier. :-D

[spirantho]

Er - why aren't you using Opera? There are loads of browsers better than IE, especially for an old Pentium.... and Opera is the best browser I've used on any platform, ever (using it right now).

[mikeymike]

Did you read the system requirements of Firefox before installing it?

[lorddef]

why aren't you using Opera?

You mean why aren’t you using an oversized bag of human feces?

... actually make that a bag with advertisements on the side.

[hagar]

weirdami wrote:
....
and maybe because I want a stupidprogram so my mistakes can be seen easier. :-D

From my experience IE sees through a lot of mistakes aswell, there are lot of pages that constis of illegal html that explorer handles... (and since all of the browser have to be compliant with the market leader, so does firefox and opera). That suxx. In previous versions Opera did not allow the most stupid things in "opera-mode", however from what I have heard, it does nowadays :-(

[Ilwrath]

I recently updated a webpage and I made a mistake.

Yep...  We all make 'em at sometime or another.  Regardless of how many pages we've generated over the years.  As well as testing with the major browsers, I run the validator at w3c.  It's probably the best way to catch little errors (like unbalanced tags) and ensure that the page looks semi-reasonable to whatever browser may find it.  Only thing is, you have to make sure you have the right "DOCTYPE" header for your page, or else your whole page will be marked as an error.   :lol:

W3C Validator link

[vic20owner]

I've been using firefox exclusively for about a year now.  It's awesome.  It's the fastest most stable browser I've ever used (yes, I've used opera).  The GUI is a good mix between IE and Opera, and it renders faster than both.  The pop-up blocker rules, and I can't get exploited through a web page (thanks for nothing M$). I haven't seen a pop-up in a year with FireFox.  Also, CTRL-T becomes your best friend.

For testing web pages I usually use opera.  It tends to break pretty easily because it doesn't make any assumptions about bad html coding.


-tom

[Floid]

weirdami wrote:
I started using Mozilla Firefox on a Pentium (one) windows box with 48 megs RAM and <2GB total HD space (about 150 MB left on each of the two HD's). I've gone and reduced the colors to 256 in hopes of gaining some system resources and the monitor is 640x480 only. Firefox takes like 30 seconds to load, which is bad, but my post is inspired by a good  thing thats kinda bad.

Only 30 seconds?  *Memories of trying to run Mozilla 0.9 on a DX4-100.*

I'd not be so sure that 256 color setting is saving you anything.  It means 1. a dithering routine has to run somewhere, and 2. PC memory isn't unified like that... I really doubt however Moz/FireFox use libjpeg, for instance, gives any thought to the output requirements, throwing away insignificant bits, etc, though I could always be wrong.

...

Firefox does take forever to load, but so does everything else on the computer, so really, I bet it loads much faster on the new fancy super GHz machines. IE loads fast, though, but it has the added, cheating advantage of being already technically loaded when you boot windows. I guess I'll go with IE :-(, but only because I'm tired of waiting forever for things to load.... and maybe because I want a stupidprogram so my mistakes can be seen easier. :-D

If you want something *really* lightweight to keep around, "Links" is pretty okay.  Goofy interface, but it's standards compliant, and I occasionally use it for some pages with Javascript bugs in my old version of Moz!  (I *thiiink* the graphical build of Links is available for Win32, anyway.)  Dillo's also in the "1MB" browser category, but that might be *NIX-only.  ...  And Opera, for all the whining, is reasonable, but the problem is that it's roughly the heft of "old Netscape," and even "old Netscape" would crawl on vintage hardware.  (My opinion is, for the most part, anything that Opera won't fall down on will also render in something as 'lightweight' as Links if you can live without Flash, so...)

[cecilia]

lorddef wrote:

why aren't you using Opera?

You mean why aren?t you using an oversized bag of human feces?

... actually make that a bag with advertisements on the side.

there is absolutely NO reason for anyone to use IE - which is the only real bag of feces.

I never notice these ads which seem to interupt your life and i've been using Opera for the last year and a half. Opera with Zonealarm on board means I have NEVER gotten a virus/trojan or other problem.

I also use Opera to test all my web pages that I know create in linux (Quanta Pro). But I test my pages in my amiga browsers as well. All the years I have been writting pages I have always tested in as many browsers as I can.
these days I never use IE, not even offline.
it's sloppy and uses illegal code, so what's the point?

I'd rather know my pages are legal. eventually, IE will be gone.
and no one will miss it.

[amigamad]

there is absolutely NO reason for anyone to use IE - which is the only real bag of feces.

some sites only work properly with ie . :-?

[Vincent]

amigamad wrote:
some sites only work properly with ie . :-?

That's not an excuse with Opera 7.23.

We always used to run into a few sites that made Opera complain, but since getting 7.23 there has been absolutely no problems at all.

Much to our surprise it handles Uni's CSA forms nicely :-D

[mikeymike]

I'm fairly sure the only time I come across a site that is either IE only (or virtually so, totally borked in Firefox/other) is when someone posts on mozillazine about it :-)

Like for example recently a website, englishtown.com, blocks everything but IE on win32 (also blocks IE Mac).  Nice.

[Turambar]

The national lottery website only seems to accept IE. It wont accept Firefox anyway :/

[mikeymike]

If it's this site you're talking about, works fine here:

www.national-lottery.co.uk

Firefox, 22nd May build, win32.

(recent Firefox builds are a bit iffy though, I'd wait for the 0.9 stable release line to arrive rather than try a recent build if I were you)

[Lo]

Firefox takes like 30 seconds to load, which is bad...

Ah, but only the initial load is slow.  Load it at boottime while your fixing your coffee?  
(FireBird 0.7) :-)