Firefox Version?
Perhaps it is a glitch in the tracking software, but my logs show that 90% of the Firefox browsers that come to this site are version 1.x rather than 2.x. Is there a reason for this? I have been on 2.x for quite a while and have a beta running of 3.x.
If you are still on version 1, Firefox automatic updater will not take you to version 2 automatically. You need to do it yourself here.
(Of course, the logs show 0.2% of you still using Windows ME. God help you.)
Gorgasal:
Of course, all the tech-savvy users may be reading you through a reader (my Firefox 2.0.0.13 points at Google Reader)...
April 17, 2008, 1:17 amMFH0:
Ahh, Windows ME. The last truly 9x/DOS-based OS from Microsoft. It's also the one where they closed off a lot of tricks driver and application developers used to speed up applications - things like using pointer arithmetic to access memory outside their naturally allocated bounds.
Most of the issues people complained about when ME came out was due to this kind of thing - fixes by Microsoft to prevent people from doing shit they shouldn't have been doing. After things cleared up, the only problem - and I mean the ONLY - I have had with ME was that "win.ini" would get corrupted from time to time. Delete it, problem solved.
Compare this to XP, where Microsoft has stated on record that they hard-coded special handling for popular applications that did things they shouldn't be doing, just to make sure they still worked in XP. Sometimes it was as simple as a hard-coded enabling of compatibility mode - usually it was something a little more complex (like giving an application special memory handling).
XP is now one of the more stable operating systems I've used. All BSOD's I get are still caused by drivers - which, I add, are not written by Microsoft.
April 17, 2008, 5:35 ambill-tb:
I avoid the whole Windows problem by using Ubuntu exclusively. Been doing that for years. With proper security management and lockdown, no viruses, no hacks.
Firefox with add-on scrapbook is great for research work.
April 17, 2008, 6:37 amErik The Red:
For those of you who aren't trying it, the current Firefox 3 beta is probably more stable than the current version 2 release, is much faster, and doesn't leak massive amounts of memory.
April 17, 2008, 9:05 amTom G:
I'm in agreement with Erik the Red. On my system at home, Firefox 2 used to crash every so often (in Linux, but not Windows). Firefox 3 has been no problem at all. I'm betting it had to do with the memory leak issue.
April 17, 2008, 10:43 amBrad Warbiany:
Erik,
How is the current extension support in FF 3 beta? I tend to modify things just the way I like them, and if I can't get Tab Mix Plus, Mouse Gestures, etc working, I'll hold off on the switch. If they're updated, though, it might be time to switch.
Coyote,
I would doubt that you have that many FF 1 users. If you check logs against the time of this comment, I'm on FF 2.0.0.14, so you may be able to determine whether or not it's reporting at least *MY* visit correctly.
April 17, 2008, 11:00 amStingray:
I'm still on 1.x because of the leaks and crashes. When you hear "GOD DAMNIT FIREFOX!" come across the room a couple times a day from the half of the house that did upgrade to 2.x, it sort of puts a damper on the enthusiasm of upgrading. I'll switch to 3 once the beta is a little further along, but the hell with 2.
April 17, 2008, 11:05 amBruce Hall:
Only around 10% of visitors to my site that use Firefox use the 1.xx version. Most use 2.xx.
But overall, a majority use IE
April 17, 2008, 2:54 pmAdirian:
I'd still be using ME if there was still popular driver support - most particularly because when I killed a process, it got killed. (XP asks it to kill itself, and doesn't pursue it if the process doesn't.)
There were precisely two issues you had to watch out for - and both of them were startup files which needed to be periodically deleted because applications would add themselves to be started up. (Bob help you if you uninstalled said programs and rebooted without fixing your startup file. Startup would hang perpetually on the startup screen.)
April 17, 2008, 3:35 pmFirefox2:
Coyote: Just wondering.what percentage of the people that log into your site use IE?
April 19, 2008, 11:13 amBrandybuck:
What does it matter what browser people use? My local gas station doesn't care how recent my car is, and my grocery store doesn't care how recent my hemp shopping bag is. So why should bloggers care how recent my browser is.
But none of that matters. I am using Konqueror, so I guess I'm pariah either way.
April 19, 2008, 8:01 pmSuperMike:
I personally dislike the "improvements" to tabbed browsing between 1 and 2. (In 1, the tabs would shrink all the way down to icons, in 2 not nearly as much)
April 21, 2008, 9:29 am