Sunday, December 25, 2005

Firefox Or Fried Lox?

What is up with Firefox? I've used the incarnations of this browser for years... I once preferred Netscape to IE, did Mozilla, then Phoenix, finally settled in happily with Firefox. Happy through 1.0 that is. I can't even tell you how disappointed I am with 1.5. It took a lot of work to get Firefox to a point where it has consistently been recommended over IE. One kludge like this though and... well, people have short memories and very little patience these days.

It's sad that the extension I use the most now involves clicking the button to "View this page in IE". And I've even used the "Always view this page in IE" choice. I don't know what happened. I don't care. And much as I love the open-source community, I just want to say "C'mon people. Get it right or leave it alone. Yer acting like all the major slop-ware players when you distribute something like this."

My friend installed it and said he regretted it right away. Thought he might have put viruses on his computer. I said "well I put it on one machine and I like that you can move the tabs around". So I went ahead and installed it on my work machine. Should have known better. Movable tabs just ain't enough. I wanted to keep my other version installed (just in case) so I gave FF 1.5 a new directory. Trouble is I didn't create a new profile for it. Nearly all my extensions (those that even worked with the new engine) needed to be updated. So guess what happened when I went back to run the older Fox? Extensions not compatible. I don't feel like running around the ring so for the time I am enduring. But not for long I'm afraid. This is the first time I've been able to use Microsoft software and actually feel like it's running 'clean'.

I've been noticing a certain amount of snobbery among some elements of the Mozilla clan and the CSS exclusivists. "Code written for IE isn't clean. The reason some stuff doesn't render in Mozilla is because it doesn't conform to the pure standards and specs set forth by the Holy Overlord of the Internet." And as badly as I want to write clean code, I've found many things work easily in IE but I have to jump through hoops to make them right for Firefox. I guess pure is also associated with difficult as in "if it's too easy it must not be right".

Well, looks like I'll hafta re-install Java again. I've done it once already since the upgrade and now my web host can't see it again. It works in IE though... every time. Same goes for the post editor in the blogger dashboard—none of the formatting buttons or tabs is showing, but it’s fine in IE. That just about does it. See ya back in 1.0. This stuff needs to ferment for awhile.

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