Newbie needs info about Mozilla et al.
 

Hello again all you wonderful people who know so much more than I!

After my last bout with IE and my script error, "zapped" dll, spyware, fake virus, and everything else I have to contend with, I am seriously considering switching to Firefox. Courtesy of Deepblue, I read the link regarding Firefox, and it sounds like it would be just what I want.

Now, in plain terms that even I could understand, how difficult would it be to switch?

Would my Limewire Pro still work on it? Would I have to reinstall it?

What about my favorites I have saved in IE and all the files I have saved in Windows 98SE?

Would I have to reinstall any software, printer, CD burner, or anything like that?

Do I keep my OE through my ISP and can I save my address book? Would it just be easier to import my address book from OE to Thunderbird? Hotmail?

I know these may sound like stupid questions, but as one of my professors once said, "The only stupid question is the one not asked." Like I said, I went to their site but could not understand some of the computerese.

Also, should I get the entire Mozilla suite, or start with Firefox and get the rest as I get comfortable with it? What's different between the two?

This is a lot and it sounds like I'm asking for a manual!! But, really, I need some input from you as you've all helped me before.

Thanks so much.

P.S. Billabong - I like your graphics, wanna do one for me?!
PPS: Guess you can tell I'm as aspiring writer LOL!

I tried Firefox er no it was Camino actually, but I think very similar but hated it. It crashed regularly, but that is totally irellevant as was a specialy made for Mac afair. so

Your LW is not going to be affected atall. Your favourites should transfer easily enough, although you may have to rearange them a little. All the browsers seem to be pretty well set up to take over from M$ or anything else (Except for Opera which has a mind of it's own) If you change your browser you will need to chose one as the default eg which opens when you try to access the LW site from Limewire, and you must make sure you do this before getting rid of your old browser as you may have to change the default from there.

I would however not get rid of IE altogether. You will find one day that you need it as some idiot web designer has designed somethng that will only work with IE

Your address book should transfer to Thunderbird with no problem Thunderbird is the Mail client I seem to remember. I think I had some difficulty with the rules for multiple accounts.but it was probably a couple of versions back. Your isp mail will come to whatever mail client you ask to get you mail, you just have to configure your new client to do what the old one did. Hot mail will be reachable through whatever browser you chose to use

Personally I gave up and went to Opera which combines Browser Newsgroups and Mail in a most unorthodox way and is not greatly compatible with MS as far as transfering Things over as I recall.

I dont think you should have any problems, but don't ditch your old applications until you are sure you don't want them.

Hope that helps a bit. :)

As for the poll which I just saw I would say Safari ... this omission smacks of anti Mac discrimination otherwise I'll go for Opera

Personally on mac my favorites are Safari then Camino, Firefox and Mozilla in that order.

On PC: Firefox, Opera, Mozilla, then IE and its derivatives.

Of course to a newbie, your best bet is Firefox for security and usability. IE is to avoid except when really required IMO.

The mozilla app actually is pretty much outdated Firefox, NVU, and Thunderbird combined. Mozilla can do everything, it is just that good at everything ;) I also recommend Thunderbird over OE, as Thunderbird is as capable and much less prone to virus attacks that target OE.

Ciao

Sorry, my mistake
 

I am certainly not anit-Mac. I used Mac Classic years ago, only for word processing though, and I really liked it. It really is easy to use, I just wasn't aware of the different browser for it. Again, humbly sorry.

Again, sorry!
 

:( I'm sorry if I broke any of the rules. I did a search and I just couldn't come across any answers, but more than that I Just Didn't Know which forum to put this in, so I thought that Windows General Support would be the best. Maybe I should have posted in the Lounge.

Forgive me, but my brain is a little fried from four days of trying to get rid of a scripts error and restoring a "zapped" (quote by UK Bob) dll.

Once again, sorry.

I guess this was a bit off topic I hope you are not in trouble. As for my post I thought I had inserted a smillie but it was late and I forgot.. Only a gentle tease ...no apology necessary and as the post was in a windows forum, why should a Mac application be mentioned bye for now...

So far I really like Firefox
 

Just to let you know, in case I need to come back here for help with this, at 3:30 a.m. today I installed the Firefox browser. So far, I would never go back to IE. They have well-written instructions even a newbie (moi) can read. As I go along, I'll be adding extensions and all that, but I am really satisfied.

I don't think I'll have too much of a problem, and if the security is everything good I've heard about it, I can't lose. Have to work with the toolbars a little though - I only have a 15" monitor right now.

OAH, apology accepted, but really, I do like the Mac. I didn't want to make you feel bad or anything. If you can give me any pointers with the Firefox right now, or if anyone can, I would love to hear.

Oh, and since the security is supposed to be so good, do I really need to run anything else but Adaware, Peer Guardian, and AVG? I've ordered "Ghost Surf 2005," another spur of moment decision, but does anyone know about this software. I got it from World Start.

Bye for now - got to get back to my new child!;)

Re: So far I really like Firefox
 

No :D

Thanks!
 

Thanks for the advice Et Voila. My poor little computer can't handle anymore!

I'm going to have to buy the manual for Firefox, I'm getting a little confused about the security settings. Trying to get into Yahoo was like trying to break into Fort Knox LOL.

Buy a manual for an open source project with great online community and documentation? Nah... Look here http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/ and go to their forums if you have specific questions!

Bonne chance :)

http://www.yahoo.com/ ???

btw, i recommend www.google.com for searching ;)


:cool:

I agree!
 

:)
Don't know what you meant by the yahoo.com link. That's just one of my e-mail accounts.

Anyway, I'm a confirmed googler. When I was having that damned scripts error, that was the only place I could find a page that had out-dated, unwanted, or whatever else dll's.

I'm trying to order the manual, but every time I do that the timer runs out on the connection and I get a message saying the url could not be found. Any clues?

I'm really kind of wandering around in the dark with this, although I really like the browser I don't know how to set it up the right way. Does Firefox come with a built-in firewall? :confused:

The only thing that installing FireFox will change is your default browser. Upon installing the software you will be given the choice to import your information (favorites, cookies, what-not) from IE. Once you have FireFox installed go here to customize the browser (I reccomend checking out the Pimpzilla theme, its hella-cool!). I think that FireFox's market share is going to greatly increace after IE7 is released. Micro$oft, in hopes of turning more people on to upgrade to XP SP2, has decided to only have IE7 work with windoze XP with SP2. I think that is going to lose the browser war for Internet Explorer. If any of you are interested in promoting Mozilla/Firefox you should check out www.spreadfirefox.com. If you are using PG2 you need to allow HTTP (port 80) to get some websites to load. Good luck.

deepblue

Happy with Mozilla Firefox
 

Hello there,

I switched to Firefox and just love it! I am in the process of reading up on Thunderbird, and it looks like I'm going to download it, too.

Now, my question is do I have to uninstall the Mozilla Firefox first, or can I download the Mozilla Suite over it? Will the bookmarks, preferences, themes.master password, security preferences be saved?
I searched the Mozilla Firefox forum, but I guess I just got tired of looking at the hundreds of threads so I came here.

I honestly think their security settings are absolutely the best. Hopefully, by the time Windows 98SE runs out of support, I'll have a different computer with Windows XP. For now, I don't think my computer can handle it.

Thank you deepblue for your button at your sig. I was curious and now I'm so much better about switching.

Happy with Mozilla Firefox
 

Hello there,

I switched to Firefox and just love it! I am in the process of reading up on Thunderbird, and it looks like I'm going to download it, too.

Now, my question is do I have to uninstall the Mozilla Firefox first, or can I download the Mozilla Suite over it? Will the bookmarks, preferences, themes.master password, security preferences be saved?
I searched the Mozilla Firefox forum, but I guess I just got tired of looking at the hundreds of threads so I came here.

I honestly think their security settings are absolutely the best. Hopefully, by the time Windows 98SE runs out of support, I'll have a different computer with Windows XP. For now, I don't think my computer can handle it.

Thank you deepblue for your button at your sig. I was curious and now I'm so much better about switching.

i wonder who in the hell voted for IE?

Give you 1 guess

Ghost Surf
 

Hi u2btrfly

I read in this thread that you have ordered/purchased Ghost Surf, an application that, supposedly, hides your IP address.

Well, I have done a little reading on this and, from what I remember, it hides your IP address by routing your internet connection through their own proxy servers. Whether this is still the case, i.e. using their own servers or someone else’s, I can’t say but I hope that once you have evaluated this software you will be able to tell us.

By the way, I’ve got colleagues who have set up their own “home-made” hardware proxy server using an old Pentium PC running linux O/S and a freebie application called Smoothwall. However, to go to this length you need time and dedication, but once set up it is smooth sailing.

Just remember that there is no real way to hide your IP address on the internet, so don’t get taken in by claims of anonymous surfing.




UK Bob

Gee UK,

I guess I'm really going to have to look over Ghost Surf real good because I don't want to get mixed up with proxies until I have this a little more down pat.

I did get some kind of proxy error. I don't know why, but Firefox wanted to download
Adobe 6 into my computer. I already have it. Anyway, when I rebooted and tried to get an automatic ISP connection, got a Proxy error. Seems to have fixed itself for now, but I hope this doesn't happen again. The error told me check proxy settings and I didn't have any, at least according to "Internet Options."

I was also having a problem with my printer again - cyclic redundancy error. I remembered that I bought an Optimize program from PCPitstop. I ran it and behold, the printing issue was resolved. The programs looks for redundant registry errors, so I figured it may work and it did. I received a reply from HP prior to fixing it myself and once again they gave me a big list of stuff to do.

Also, any suggestions for the Mozilla question I posted?

Salut u2btrfly,

Acrobat reader only installs for available browsers at that time. If you installed it while firefox wasn't there, well you probably will have to reinstall acrobat.

Don't know what you mean bout the proxy thing, do you use proxies because you never specified it in this thread.

Ciao

et voilà

U2btrfly could be getting proxy errors because Ghost Surf redirects internet connections to their own specified proxy servers, or so they say.


UK Bob

Error resolved
 

:)
Hi there,

Et voila, I had Acrobat in my computer before Firefox. Do I have to uninstall and then reinstall from FF's sight?

UK Bob, I haven't started using Ghost Surf yet, so I haven't a clue how that got there, but it seems to have corrected itself. I never set up a proxy, so I was surprised that IE would give me that message. After all that you've said about proxies, Ghost Surf and all that, I'm going to have to be walking on thin ice with this one. Can I back up my system with Nero or something to restore in case I mess it up with Ghost Surf?

I must say again that the Optimize really worked with the registry. Maybe any kind of registry cleaner would have done the same, but to this newbie it was a life-saver in that situation with the printer.

Got a letter back from HP about the printer problem. They received my e-mail telling them that the problem was solved. In that letter Iwrote to them, however, I mentioned the fact that my "firewall" blocked their address. They most assuredly told me that they are not spyware. Hrmmmph.

Anyway, what about the Mozilla question? Any advice? I'm considering opening Thunderbird today and I was wondering should I just download the entire Mozilla Suite, or leave things like they are, with Firefox as the stand-alone browser with added Thunderbird?

Listen to me, I'm not talking so much like a newbie anymore LOL. I almost sound like I might be starting to actually learn and know things about all this computerese!

Gotta Laugh
 

:p Gotta laugh at myself, bragging about getting smarter about computer stuff, and then asking if there's anyway I could get my computer to the way it was if I messed up with the Ghost Surf!!

Wouldn't that have an uninstall feature.

Hmmmmm

I love Firefox.....That is all that I will use....Since I got my new computer, I have used it, and one day someone was fooling around on my computer and deleted it, so I had to use explorer to download it again, and the second I got explorer up, there were about 25 windows that opened up, and each one had like 5 words on it, and the more I tried to close them the more of them popped up. When I finally did get them to close, I ran a virus scan, and there were 15 viruses on there from explorer, so I NEVER EVER use explorer....mozilla firefox also has some cool stuff on it, like where you can open up to like 20 different tabs in the same window, and that way you can just go back and forth between tabs instead of having to try to find where your window went in the taskbar...I love that part. All in all, I would definately have to say that Firefox is better in my opinion. Hope this helps....I know it's kinda late!!
edit***
Oh yeah, it is really easy to download too. Go to your search box and just type in "free mozilla firefox download" and it will take you right to the page, and it just takes a minute....and then you just don't use explorer anymore.......:)

Happy Firefox Customer
 

:)
Oh yes, I signed up for Firefox and love it. I'd rather stick needles in my eyes than have to go back to IE. I, so far, at least have had next to no adware to spyware on my computer. I love the security - I can choose who can set a cookie on my computer. I have my cache emptied every two days. It is just so much better.

This is one happy customer. Now I'm thinking real hard about Linux. I have the PCLinuxOS disk and I've been conversing with helios at Lobby4Linux. I don't think my computer can handle two OS's though, so I may need either a computer with no OS installed, or an external hard drive. That's another topic though, so I'll drop that one and go the the Linux part.

You can see by my sigs that I'm one happy camper. Thanks to all again!