OK, I heard enough folks talking about alternative browsers, and I had some problems to solve, so I downloaded Firefox. I've used it for a few hours, nd I have some reactions.
First of all, it seems rock solid. It's faster than IE. I've gone to a variety of sites, and all seem to display very much as they do in IE, with a couple of minor exceptions that aren't really important, such as a graphics line appearing in a slightly different place. It solved my problems with a compromised version of IE that was running very slowly.
It has some differences that are going to take some getting used to. It's pretty bland looking, except for the orange icon, which is almost glaring against the pastel icons in the rest of the display. I don't like the toolbars -- they need work -- they are not as flexible as IE. For example, the bookmarks toolbar (the links toolbar in IE) takes up an entire row -- in IE, I could move it around so it only took a little space at the end of a row. The Google toolbar also takes up an entire row. In IE, I combined the bookmarks toolbar and the Google toolbar on the same row, leaving a little more screen real estate for the sites I view. And, I can't get used to the positions of the Google entry text window and the URL address text window being reversed. I suppose there are some means in the guts of the thing to customize some of these appearances, but I want to use the browser, not play with it, and the customizations are not as apparent or intuitive as IE.
Bottom line? It's solving my problems, so I'll continue to use it until it burns me or I get used to it, but if I (or MicroSoft) get the problems in IE resolved, I'll be back to it in a heartbeat.
First of all, it seems rock solid. It's faster than IE. I've gone to a variety of sites, and all seem to display very much as they do in IE, with a couple of minor exceptions that aren't really important, such as a graphics line appearing in a slightly different place. It solved my problems with a compromised version of IE that was running very slowly.
It has some differences that are going to take some getting used to. It's pretty bland looking, except for the orange icon, which is almost glaring against the pastel icons in the rest of the display. I don't like the toolbars -- they need work -- they are not as flexible as IE. For example, the bookmarks toolbar (the links toolbar in IE) takes up an entire row -- in IE, I could move it around so it only took a little space at the end of a row. The Google toolbar also takes up an entire row. In IE, I combined the bookmarks toolbar and the Google toolbar on the same row, leaving a little more screen real estate for the sites I view. And, I can't get used to the positions of the Google entry text window and the URL address text window being reversed. I suppose there are some means in the guts of the thing to customize some of these appearances, but I want to use the browser, not play with it, and the customizations are not as apparent or intuitive as IE.
Bottom line? It's solving my problems, so I'll continue to use it until it burns me or I get used to it, but if I (or MicroSoft) get the problems in IE resolved, I'll be back to it in a heartbeat.