Browser corner - Firefox / Opera / or possibly......

[Mountain Goat]

Need some tech. advice here.

I've used IE for years, then Opera, with occasional flirtations and one-nighters with more obscure browsers.

Opera is great, but incompatibility with many sites (or is that vice-versa?), missing images, weird effects etc. got a bit painful. Good forum - just don't even try to hint there's something wrong with it.

This week started to use Firefox and really impressed - very fast. Imported all my Favourites/Bookmarks etc. from IE and apart from only a few images not appearing on the more obscure sites, I've just got one niggle so far:

It's useful to store passwords/usernames as an option in IE; the username/password fields can be blank until one enters a leading character, and then it fills in. IE also remembers several users trying to enter the same site, and chucks up the relevant passwords for each user. OK, lousy security, but it saves time on a private set-up.

Firefox just prefills the username and password, which is fractionally quicker, but doesn't help other users trying to get in on the same site. Can I tick some option to tweak this?

Goat

[vrooje]

I have a few sites where I have several usernames/passwords, such as Gmail.

If there's only one saved username and password, Firefox pre-fills it. If there are more than one, the same thing happens as with IE -- you start filling it in (or just click twice in the text field) and a drop-down list appears. So the first time you fill in a new login, you'll have to delete the pre-filled stuff and enter the new stuff, but the next time, it should work fine.

That has been my experience, anyway. I should mention that I only let Firefox save usernames, never passwords (my personal security preference). I believe it will auto-fill the correct password as well, but I can't be completely sure.

[Mountain Goat]

Brooke, thanks, yes, I can see now. Firefox has also got the option to not display any pre-inserted user-name / password on a session until one enters a master password. That seems quite a good idea.

I've found a few problems with Firefox, and the main one is the self-editing CMS systems on some of the listing sites just don't work with Firefox, and seem to be optimised for IE. i.e. can't enter text - the page is just locked. Java script prob.?

And then I saw this:

http://tinyurl.com/gyydl

Anyone using Google browser?

Goat

[AndyLucia]

My only real niggle with Firefox is that I don't seem to be able to paste a weblink into a forum post, which is irritating if you are trying to direct somebody to a useful site and have to sit and type the whole url in manually!!

I know our sites have a couple of display problems in Firefox, mainly the pullquotes. That's obviously a CSS issue, I just haven't managed to get my head around it yet.

[Hells Bells]

I can paste weblinks into this forum,and I use Firefox. I just right click the link then copy and paste. O is that not what you were wanting to do?

[Mountain Goat]

Of course, we could all join a Firefox-user forum.

Yawn.

Goat

[Hells Bells]

I have enough forums to post on thanks!!!

[AndyLucia]

I can paste weblinks into this forum,and I use Firefox. I just right click the link then copy and paste. O is that not what you were wanting to do?

That is exactly what I want to do! Hmm, maybe it's the particular forums that are causing the problem then.

[Hells Bells]

Andylucia, can you do it on LMH?

[AndyLucia]

Andylucia, can you do it on LMH?

Well, I'm at work and slumming it on IE at present. I'll give it a try when I get home!

[AndyLucia]

Mystery solved! The forums in question were using software to stop pasting of hyperlinks directly into the message, but you can insert a link by selecting the "Insert a Link" icon!

[Mountain Goat]

A couple of weeks on, I'm a confirmed Firefox fan, with only one ongoing problem:

We use web-based mail, and often have our mail page open for long sessions.

Firefox doesn't seem to like that, and seems to auto-log us out after anything from 2 - 5 mins. It's OK if we're using the mail page, but if I go off onto something else on the web (i.e. LMH) and come back to the mail page - it's zapped itself.

Anyone else had this? Not the end of the world, but irritating.

MountainG

[vrooje]

Are you sure that's Firefox and not your e-mail site?

In my experience I can stay on Gmail or Yahoo! Mail for extended periods, without actually having the page up, as long as I haven't totally closed the browser. But my department e-mail will log me out after 15 minutes, because of their settings, not Firefox's.

Then again, it could also be something to do with the way your cookie rules are set up... though if this is happening within the span of a few minutes, it seems unlikely.

[Hells Bells]

Goat, I agree with Brooke that it may be your email site, and not Firefox. I have had my Gmail page open at work all day today, and it continually auto-refreshes, and never logs me out. My old email was Wanadoo, and I always had to keep logging back in.
Helen

[AndyLucia]

Just to add a little more confusion here in Browser's Corner! Are people here aware that nice Mr Gates at Microsoft is about to release a new version of Internet Explorer later this month, IE7?

I downloaded it yesterday, to test the compatibility of my current sites, and it is a very different beast! If you 'do' your own website I would advise you to check it out, if you have somebody doing it for you then it's worth a mention to them. My pullquotes, which worked in IE but had some issues in Firefox, no longer work properly; a bit of CSS work coming up methinks!