What's new

New browser question (1 Viewer)

Stan

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
5,177
Had a really nice HP laptop that croaked last year.

A friend gave me a Compaq loaded with Vista. I've upgraded it as much as possible, but will only let me go to IE 9.

Getting messages from websites saying they'll soon no longer support my browser.

Any suggestions? And no, financially I can't upgrade at this time.
 

Alf S

BANNED
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2000
Messages
3,475
Real Name
Alfer
Not much other choice unless you do like manyy and download Firefox, Chrome etc.
 

Stan

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
5,177
Thanks for the advice Alf.

Strictly a Microsoft person for at least 25 years, still have my original email account. Did installs and admin clear back when they had Windows for Workgroups. Man I feel ancient.

Downloaded Chrome. It will take a little getting used to, but working great.
 

Stan

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
5,177
I'll give FF a try. Chrome is difficult to navigate through, but at least it works, unlike IE which forces you to upgrade, yet then won't support your OS. Granted, Vista is aging, but I'm really getting tired of MS thinking they own the world.

Never would have used Vista, but it was a gift, so you take what you get and deal with it.

Still had an old PC running Windows 98 I hauled out of retirement, but with web-sites and videos now, it was hopeless.
 

Stan

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
5,177
Alf, going to try out switching to FF. The more I work with it, Chrome really sucks.

It's so much faster than IE (always thought it was my PC being slow), but it's not really user friendly.
 

BobO'Link

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 3, 2008
Messages
11,442
Location
Mid-South
Real Name
Howie
^No... Pale Moon is Firefox without the bloat the devs keep adding but including the flexibility and customization they keep taking out (at least without using lots of addons).
 

Stan

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
5,177
Still experimenting with Chrome or soon switching to FireFox. How do I save "favorite" websites? I can't find a way.

End up typing "H" in the main "browser line", if that's what it's called. Then I can find HTF, or type "F" to find Facebook.


There has got to be a better way.
 

Alf S

BANNED
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 23, 2000
Messages
3,475
Real Name
Alfer
That's why I hated Chrome. So user UN friendly.


FF is nice and simple and to the point . Ya have a simple menu bar up top (Bookmarks..tools..history etc) and then a Bookmarks toolbar under that for saving most used sites via 1 click.


None of that can be done easily or at all with Chrome that I could ever figure.


I say quit fighting Chrome and download FF.
 

Mike Frezon

Moderator
Premium
Senior HTF Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2001
Messages
60,683
Location
Rexford, NY
Stan:


I've been using Firefox for years. It's really good in terms of bookmarks. One of my favorite features is if there's a particular bunch of bookmarks you go to most often (like, for me, the HTF is one)...you just go to the HTF home page, go to the file menu...click on Bookmarks and "Bookmark This Page." You then get a dialogue box. Click on Bookmark Toolbar and it will be right on the top of the browser page whenever you open the software. Click on the HTF Toolbar Button and you'll be there in a second.


You can also create folders of favorite webpages very easily.
 

kathy13xia

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
Dec 19, 2014
Messages
54
Real Name
Kathy Xia
So many web browsers out there, such as fixrefox, google chrome, and more. For me, Firefox would be my first choice, I have used it for almost 3 years on my Windows 7 PC.
 

Greg_S_H

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 9, 2001
Messages
15,846
Location
North Texas
Real Name
Greg
How's Waterfox? I'd like to upgrade since it's 64-bit, but I doubt if it'll support my Firefox plugins like Mouse Gestures Redox that are already supposed to be dead.
 

Stan

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 18, 1999
Messages
5,177
Firefox is the way to go. Still learning it, but very pleased, so much better than IE or Chrome.
 

Tony Bensley

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
7,288
Location
Somewhere in Canada
Real Name
Anthony
I've never been a fan of Firefox, as for the brief time that I did have it, I couldn't use it to play YouTube videos, and my PC wound up being riddled with viruses/infections!


That said, Google Chrome has been a bit of a pain lately. For instance, I discovered this morning that "Save As" is no longer in the GC Drop Down Menu. Thus, if I want to save a webpage, I have to right click within a free space on the webpage, instead! Frankly, I don't understand why this happened, as the Google Chrome Browser itself doesn't appear to have updated, otherwise?


I might reconsider Firefox, since it was 2008 when I had previously tried it out.


CHEERS! :)


P.S. The "Save As" has shifted to the "More tools" arrowed grouping! SHEESH!
 

BobO'Link

Senior HTF Member
Joined
May 3, 2008
Messages
11,442
Location
Mid-South
Real Name
Howie
Tony Bensley said:
I've never been a fan of Firefox, as for the brief time that I did have it, I couldn't use it to play YouTube videos, and my PC wound up being riddled with viruses/infections!
With Firefox?!?! It's one of the "safer" browsers around. Chrome, like IE, allows "drive-by" installs of extensions (with some really bad ones out there) and there are many in the google "store" which are of the variety which offer unrelated popups and privacy invasion tactics as part of the install.


Install Firefox, disable a few things that only add bloat (most of the newer "helpers") and "fix" some of the privacy settings (essentially refuse 3rd party cookies).


Then install these plugins:


"Noscript" And for gosh sakes learn to use it and manage it rather than getting frustrated and enabling everything. It takes time and a bit of research but once you see just how many *unnecessary* 3rd party java craplets are run on many major sites you begin to take security and privacy a bit more seriously. I've seen as many as 8 *different* tracking/data mining applets on a single site!


AdBlockPlus. "Subscribe" to "EasyPrivacy" and "EasyList" lists being sure to uncheck the option "Allow some non-intrusive advertising" - Only disable it on pages/sites that you *truly* need which don't work properly without it or on those sites you truly want to support with ad revenue (for the record I have it totally disabled here on HTF). This one, too, requires some training on some sites as there are a few I've encountered which don't work properly for shopping with this plugin enabled.


If you want to be a bit frightened at just how sites are linked to each other and possibly share data install "Lightbeam" (shows all the interconnects and who shares with whom), let it run a week or so and check the results. For example, since August 31st I've visited 36 sites which have connected with 120 third party sites. And that's with well trained installs of NoScript and AdBlockPlus.


To make life a bit easier "install" Firefox as a "portable" version (just google, or duckduckgo.com if you are attempting to avoid google's intrusive footprint, "Firefox Portable") and you can then take it, and your custom settings, with you without having to "train" another install.


Just for fun... here's a list of what NoScript says is running here on HTF.


First the ones I've not allowed to run as they don't seem to be needed for site functionality:

gstatic.com (Used for loading content for various Google services. Theoretically to speed things up but I've found otherwise. It also uses tracking pixels for tracking page loads on certain sites.)

googleusercontent.com (This domain is used for a variety of purposes, including cached copies of websites visited by the Google search engine, but the general purpose of this domain appears to be to store static content: i.e. content that is not expected to change.)

akamaihd.net (A content-delivery network used by companies to speed up their services. I've experienced frequent slowness from sites using this service.)

googletagservices.com (Tracking)

netshelter.net (a technology-centric ad network/platform)

skimresources.com (a domain used by Skimlinks which is an analytics company that is part of a network of sites, cookies, and other technologies used to track you, what you do and what you click on)

facebook.net (no explanation needed other than just stay away)

facebook.com (no explanation needed other than just stay away)

pagefair.net (Detects use of ad-blocking software and attempts to coerce you into disabling it)

pagefair.com (Detects use of ad-blocking software and attempts to coerce you into disabling it)

google-analytics.com (freemium web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. One I permantly block - aka "untrusted")


Allowed to run (determined to be needed for site functionality):

hometheaterforum.com (of course)

ajax.googleapis.com (off site code for various uses - here it seems to be used for the editor. I've had it crash sites, the browser, or cause sever slowness.)

google.com (probably not needed here but needed for my work email to function - it's gmail based - blech!)


If you truly want to get down and dirty use your hosts file to block junk before the system even sees it. Here's a site with a excellent pre-built hosts file:


http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Forum statistics

Threads
356,712
Messages
5,121,152
Members
144,147
Latest member
cennetkaralowa
Recent bookmarks
0
Top