The web browser is the most used application on your computer, period. Even when you’re not using it, it’s probably minimized to the taskbar/dock/panel.

Unfortunately web browsers still to this day have a fair degree of suck factor. Here are 5 reasons why web browsers suck:

1. Plugins are the browser’s own worst enemy

I call them plugins. Call then "add-ons" or "extensions" or whatever else you want. They’re plugins.

Plugins are a wonderful way to seriously screw up your browser in short order.

In Internet Explorer 8: In Manage Add-ons there is absolutely no way to uninstall anything there. Not possible. This sucks. You can "disable", but not uninstall. This is because add-ons in IE are "tied" directly to external programs. So in order to get rid of it, you must actually go uninstall the program that uses IE – assuming you know which to uninstall.

In Mozilla Firefox: Many plugins create SQL tables internally to the browser in order for them to work. On an uninstall of many different plugins, files are left behind and the SQL tables remain – in several different places. And darned if you know which tables within Firefox you’re supposed to drop. Thought you could kill this stuff with a registry/file cleaner? Wrong. Has to be done manually. This is assuming you actually know where to look.

And, of course, whenever a new version of the browser is released, plugins break.

2. Proprietary crapola

Internet Explorer is the one to blame for this catastrophe. The fact there are still web sites to this day that are "IE only" is simply ridiculous.

And if you put a tag on your site that says, "Best viewed with Firefox", that’s just as bad. You should be ashamed of yourself for doing such a thing.

3. Copy/paste text from a web page is still a nightmare

Sometimes all you want to do is copy a little piece of text rather than type it out. Good luck with that, because you’ll need it.

Some web pages have it so you can copy/paste text easily. But on others when you attempt to highlight anything this huge BLOCK of text is copied. Then when you try to adjust the highlight you made, it gets even worse.

Let’s say for the moment you’re successful in copying some text to the buffer. Okay, we’re good, right? Wrong. On paste into something as simple as Notepad these huge SPACES happen. "Wait, wait.. I didn’t copy any big-ass spaces.." Well, Mr. Browser thinks you did.

Out of frustration you just have to type out whatever you wanted to copy yourself.

4. Printing web pages is still terrible

Some web sites make it easy to print things. For example, many bank web sites smartly offer PDF versions of bank statements for print-out. This is great because PDFs always print exactly the way you see them.

But let’s say you’re not on a bank site and you want to print something out. The text is either too big or too small on the printed page, the graphics (should any exist) look terrible, and what is that font that printed? That’s not what’s on the web page..

5. Slow!

Believe it or not, there was a time when IE was a really fast browser. That was way back at version 3. And it was wonderful.

Believe it or not, there was a time when Firefox was a really fast browser. That was way back at version 1.5. And it was wonderful.

Both are now are memory hogging, plugin-infested lumps of digital slowness.

Want to know why Google Chrome and Safari appear to run faster? It’s not because of less memory consumption or faster scripting. It’s because you’re not using the same plugins as in your IE or FF.

Unfortunately most don’t like Chrome or Safari.

Am I saying to run IE or FF with no plugins at all? Well, if you can browse that way, I’d say go right ahead. Ditch the toolbars and any plugins installed to breathe life back into the browser. It will speed up quite a bit. That is until you open up a few tabs with some Flash, and then.. it.. gets.. slower.. and….. slower…… and, well.. it would be faster for you to go to the kitchen and make a sandwich.

What do you hate about web browsers the most?

Let us know by writing a comment or two.

I don’t think there’s any denying that Firefox 3.5 is late to the party concerning other browsers have had features (like private browsing) FF is only getting now. Regardless, here’s my real-world review on it.

Instead of getting into the super-techy details on this I’m going to concentrate on what most would care about.

Will 3.5 break add-ons?

Unfortunately yes, and a lot of them. This has been widely reported to be true, and it even broke a few of the ones I use so you can count me in as well. When I say "broke" it means "incompatible with 3.5".

Fortunately the 3.5 installer will tell you which will break before actually installing the software. So if from what you see there are add-ons you can’t live without, wait a bit before upgrading. Run the installer again in a week, have it check your plugins, and once everything checks out, then go for the install.

Is the Private Browsing feature any good?

Yes, but unfortunately it’s not very user-friendly. In all other browsers that have this feature you know you’re using it. IE 8 has a blue "InPrivate" notice in the address bar. Chrome has the detective-with-hat graphic. Firefox has nothing other than a notice in the title bar that says (Private Browsing). This is far too easy to dismiss once you leave the initial notice page. There should be something more obvious, such as a different-colored address bar, a graphic.. something.

The way in which it works is not exactly intuitive either.

Here’s the deal:

Let’s say you have three tabs open. This is very typical for Firefox users because they use multiple tabs often. You want to open a Private Browsing session, so you click Tools/Start Private Browsing. You get the notice you’re going Private, so you click OK.

*Poof*, the tabs you had open are gone. Not cool. Did they disappear? No. You can get them back by stopping the Private session via Tools/Stop Private Browsing and ta-da, then they return.

A Private session should always, repeat, always launch a new window so you don’t lose the tabs you currently have open.

If you’re saying, "Couldn’t a private session be opened as, say, a private tab with color indicating it’s a private session?" I wish. That would be a super-cool feature. But it doesn’t exist as it would require two independent sessions operating within the same browser window. This is not outside the realm of possibility as Google Chrome does technically do that sorta/kinda with separate processes for the way it does tabs, but even it launches a separate window at present for the way it does private browsing. Tabs which can be separated as private or public is nothing but pipe dream territory at this point.

Is the TraceMonkey engine any good?

TraceMonkey is the new JavaScript rendering engine in Firefox. If you use any kind of web-based email you will immediately notice a speed increase as all webmail sites use heavy scripting.

I tested this with a few site I know to be script-heavy and yes I did notice it was faster on load. I’m not going to say it was a night-and-day difference, but it was noticeable. As far as I’m concerned, any speed increase is a good one.

Did any web sites I normally use break?

Not a one. Firefox isn’t like IE where on any major version change stuff breaks on certain web sites. In fact I’ve never known FF to be like that. Quite the opposite, actually.

The deal-maker or deal-breaker is add-on compatibility

If you’re a Firefox user, this above all else will determine whether you use it or not. I personally went ahead and did it and switch to IE 8 for the stuff that broke in FF 3.5 (such as the LogMeIn add-on), so it’s not a big deal for me. Developers will also be playing catch-up in short order in the next coming weeks, so the broken add-ons will be fixed in due time.

Firefox, while a great browser, is a bit behind the times at the moment because it’s the only major player that doesn’t have a private-browsing mode. I personally think this is an important feature to have because of the enhanced security. Some jokingly call this feature "porn mode", but where I would use it most is for online banking.

So, you’re a big Firefox fan and want to see what’s in store? Firefox 3.5 beta 4 is available now for download right here.

What’s new in 3.5?

Gecko 1.9.1 rendering platform. It supports new web technologies and has improved performance.

Private browsing mode. This is what the browser needed most to keep up with the competition.

A new JavaScript engine called TraceMonkey. This adds in better performance. Webmail users (Gmail, Hotmail, etc.) in particular should notice a notable speed improvement from this.

And lots of other stuff too.

However..

Be sure to read the Known Issues portion of the link above. It’s important to know things like:

Occasionally Google Mail will fail to respond when creating a new filter, showing advanced search options, or clearing the spam folder. Reloading Google Mail fixes the issue (see bug 477101 and bug 478778)

If you’re a Gmail user, this is a deal-breaker until that’s fixed. Take the time to read over the other known issues as well. If there’s nothing listed that sounds too bad, give FF 3.5 a shot, you might like it.

The best advice I can give for those who want to try out the bleeding-edge version of Firefox is to backup your add-ons first. Either copy the add-on XPIs directly from your associated folder, or alternatively re-download them to a backup folder in case you need to uninstall and go back to FF 3.0.10.

To re-download add-ons manually: Launch Firefox, click Tools then Add-ons, a small window will pop open listing them all. Right-click the add-on you want to re-download and from the small menu that appears click Visit Home Page. This will take you directly to the web site for that add-on where you can download it.

The browser install/uninstall isn’t the bad part, it’s always the add-ons. Having them backed up is mandatory. After all, who uses FF without add-ons anyway?

Since I installed Windows 7 I’ve been loading in a bunch of apps. Some run the same as they did in XP with no noticeable improvement in speed or stability, while others appear to run much better. Here’s a few:

Mozilla Firefox

Since the introduction of version 3, the best way I can describe FF is that it "bottoms out" on XP too often.

Even with something as simple as launching the browser "cold" after system startup, it would pause for seemingly no reason. And bear in mind I use only use three add-ons that don’t tax the browser whatsoever.

And then there’s the FF’s memory-munching tendencies. On XP, the longer the browser is open, the more you see this.

On Windows 7, these issues are gone. It starts fast with the same add-ons and I can keep it open as long as I want.

OpenOffice Writer

This is a a beast-sized app and takes a while to get going on XP. And once running I would periodically see screen drawing issues where things would not land in proper places, forcing me to maximize/restore to reset it.

OO Writer still takes a bit to launch on 7 but is notably faster. And I don’t encounter any of those wonky screen draw issues either.

QuickTime

If you said, "I hate QuickTime", I can totally understand why. On XP this app has never run right. The only time people run and install QuickTime is so they can play MOV files.

Windows Media Player does have native support to play MOV files in 7, so you don’t have to install it now. But I need it because I have a Pro license for additional export abilities to other formats.

QuickTime in Windows 7 runs a whole lot better in every way. It launches better, the menus look more proper and is more stable all around.

Skype

Whenever I used Skype in XP it was a crapshoot as to whether it would work correctly or not. Most of the time it would work without complaint, but other times certain features just wouldn’t work whereas you had to restart the app over and over again.

To note, with this particular app there are only two types of experiences concerning running it on XP. It will either run fine without complaint or it will be problematic routinely. I was of the latter.

Skype in 7 breathed in a whole new life to this app. Now I can say it runs fine without complaint.

Other apps?

Out of the apps I’ve installed so far, there hasn’t been any instance where it ran worse than I did on XP. If there were, I definitely would have mentioned it, no question.

Lastly, I want to note two things:

Windows 7 will not make a bad program suddenly wonderful. If an app was written with haphazardly written code, has memory leaks and so on, 7 obviously won’t magically fix that.

Windows is well known for having strong legacy support. But if your app is ancient and didn’t work on XP, it won’t work in Windows 7 either.

Ordinarily I am very, very against "skinning" a web browser because it usually makes it perform like absolute crap. Usually what will happen is that some internal menus won’t work and sometimes it even interrupts web site loading.

However, when I saw that Personas was actually developed by Mozilla Labs themselves (i.e. the guys and gals who made the browser), I gave it a try.

Said honestly, it works great.

When you first install Personas and restart FF, you get this:

(click for larger)

I like the fact that right as you restart you notice a difference and it looks good. At the bottom left is a small fox icon that it tells you to "click to get started". When you do, a menu pops up where you can instantly change the look without restarting the browser – and that’s very much appreciated because restarting just for a theme/skin change is annoying.

Not all the skins look good obviously, but some are pretty snazzy like the "Firefox Robot" one from Firefox:

 
(click for larger)

Side note: If you want a hidden easter egg for Firefox where you see the robot, type about:robots in the address bar, press enter and watch what happens. Mozilla has a thing about robots.. whatever.

This is a nice fun way to customize Firefox’s look without breaking anything, so I definitely give it the thumbs up, and marks the first time I’ve ever recommended a "skinner" for a browser.

And by the way, yes you can create your own skins – and easily. Go to Persona’s Preferences, check off Show Custom Persona in Menu, click OK, click the fox icon, click Custom Persona then Edit. Start your edits from there and customize however you like.

Of the new stuff with Firefox 3.0.9, I’m happy to see that several really (and I mean really) annoying issues were attended to, such as:

Cookie database getting screwed up

I have a love/hate relationship with browser cookies. But I do appreciate them for the fact they make my web surfing faster due to the fact they make the browser "remember" stuff.

However when you browse a lot of different sites in FF, your cookie db would get corrupted and you’d have to start all over again. For certain sites that FF was supposed to "remember" specific data, it wouldn’t. But this is now fixed. Very happy to see this.

Large forms didn’t work

Some web sites use really big forms, such as when filling out an application for something. FF didn’t have a problem loading the form, but did when submitting the form (it took a long time to send it). This is also fixed.

Some webmail services didn’t work correctly in FF

With inline images on certain webmail services, sometimes the images just wouldn’t show up, period. This is also fixed.

A complete list of all the stuff fixed is here.

If you’re an FF user, this is a no-brainer upgrade.

And to note, none of the add-ons I use broke after upgrading. But I recommend to any FF user to always check your add-ons after whenever an upgrade is released to make sure they still all work.

One would assume that clearing all the favicon.ico files out of Firefox 3 would be a simple task.

It isn’t.

Clearing your cache doesn’t work because the icons aren’t stored there. Rather it’s in a SQLite database called places.sqlite in your Firefox profile directory.

There are three ways to clear all favicons.

First method: Create a new Firefox profile. This is very annoying to do because you have to reset all your preferences for the new profile.

Second method: Delete all bookmarks, clear cache, start over. This is equally as annoying if not more.

Third method: Manually empty moz_favicons table from places.sqlite. With a Firefox plugin, this works and doesn’t require you to reset anything else.

(Fourth method: Use Favicon Picker plugin? Nope. This does not clear the cache for favicons all at once. Individual, yes. All at once, no.)

Here’s how to do the SQLite method:

Step 1.

Download the Firefox add-on SQLite Manager and install it.

Step 2.

Launch SQLite Manager by clicking Tools then SQLite Manager, like this:

Step 3.

From within SQLite Manager, click Database (top left) then Connect Database to bring the open dialog up. In the File Name field, type in %APPDATA%\Mozilla\Firefox, like this:

Press enter once.

Above: Open the Profiles folder.

There should be one profile folder present with an "odd" name like aDPa7219.default. Open that one up. When you do, you should see something similar to this:

Above: If you see this, open up places.sqlite.

Step 4.

Right-click the moz_favicons folder on the left and choose Empty Table, like this. DO NOT use "Drop table" as that will delete it entirely. You DO NOT want to do that. Choose to EMPTY it.

Click Yes when asked if you’re sure you want to delete all the records from moz_favicons, like this:

Step 4.

Close the SQLite Manager.

Close Firefox including any other Firefox windows you have open.

Restart Firefox.

All favicons are now cleared. Every single one of them. It’s a beautiful thing.

Final notes

None of your bookmarks will be touched; they will all still be there.

The places.sqlite file will still be at the same size it was before. So if you were expecting the file to get smaller, it won’t. However the favicon cache is cleared and that’s what matters.

Happy browsing, everyone.

If you use the Mozilla Firefox web browser you may be prompted to update to version 3.0.6. If you haven’t, click Help then Check for Updates and you can download the latest version now.

In the release notes for this version, it’s noted that several security and stability issues were fixed. I have noticed that in 3.0.5 there were a few times the browser crashed on me. It didn’t happen often but it was enough to get my attention (but obviously not enough to stop using it as it is my primary browser).

In addition, 3.0.6 has "improved ability" for scripted commands. This means for any add-on you have that runs a script or two, they should "play nice" with Firefox better than before. So if you had an add-on you stopped used due to scripting screw-ups, it should (keyword there) work in 3.0.6.

For those wondering if the browser burns up less memory than before, my initial impression is no, it doesn’t. Granted, version 3 isn’t half as bad as version 2 did concerning memory use, but it’s still noticeable.

According to the notes, 3.0.6 crashes less, is more secure than before and plays nicer with add-ons. Worth the upgrade? Yes. Go get it.

If you’re a Mozilla Firefox user you will be getting an update shortly (if you haven’t already) to update your browser to v3.0.5.

The release notes for this version state there have been several security and stability issues addressed. So if your Firefox has been a bit on the buggy side and crashes periodically, an update to v3.0.5 should cure that ill in short order.

For Windows users, you can kickstart the update process by clicking Help then Check for Updates.

This series is dedicated to specific e-mail providers on the internet. In this installment, the service provider concentrated on will be Google’s Gmail.

Gmail, launched in March 2004, has grown to be one of the most-used free e-mail services on the internet. While it doesn’t have a large of a userbase as Yahoo! Mail or Hotmail, it’s still a force to be reckoned with.

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The latest trunk build of Mozilla Thunderbird at the time of this writing is version 3.0b1pre, called Shredder (the Mozilla Firefox 3.1b2pre is called "Minefield" just in case you were wondering). I downloaded it and tried it out – more on that later.

Thunderbird at this stage of the game is really, really far behind. It has not followed along in advancement with Firefox as the official release is still at version 2 (version 2.0.0.17 to be exact). This is not to say that t-bird is bad. Rather it’s an awesome e-mail program and served as my mainstay e-mail client for several years before I switched over to using Windows Live Mail (both client and web-based).

There are times when I really miss Thunderbird. Truly I do. The reason is because the way t-bird does mail makes complete sense. Simple things like file attachments are easy. Searching your mail is at its best in this client. Assigning colored tags was in t-bird way before anyone else got it right (and the other guys are still playing catch-up to a fair degree). You can customize just about everything in t-bird and that’s just plain awesome.

However the problem with t-bird that ultimately forced me to give it up is the same even in the latest 3.0b1pre Shredder trunk build – no ability to sync the address book built-in. Local only. This makes t-bird what’s called an "island unto itself", and that’s not where the internet is going.

Yeah, I know, you could use an LDAP directory server for addresses, but that’s not the answer. The vast majority of home users don’t even know what an LDAP directory server is, never mind know how to connect to one.

~ ~ ~

If you happen to be a Gmail user, you would definitely like Shredder. Additional options have been put in the software where you can configure an IMAP Gmail account without any need to manually type in server addresses. It just takes a few clicks and you’re off to the races.

In the new interface, t-bird has tabs, star icons to quickly add people to your address book and a drop-down next to addresses to edit contacts super-easy style.

Other nice little touches are throughout the software making it really nice to use overall. In fact I’d dare to say you could use a trunk build right now and be completely happy with it.

However the problem still remains that Thunderbird is an island. The IMAP-only means of sync with no Address Book communication between local and web makes it a dinosaur even at this stage.

~ ~ ~

Thunderbird needs to have some kind of sync ability with a major e-mail service if it expects to survive. And to be honest, since it has such good support for Gmail, that should be the service it should wholly sync to as an option – or at least mail + address book at bare minimum. Mozilla is largely on Google’s payroll anyway, so why not?

If this doesn’t happen, Thunderbird could turn into vaporware quickly.

Foxmarks is a freely available add-on for the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Normally what you would do to send/retrieve your bookmarks is use the Foxmarks servers to store this information, however if you host your own web site (or just use free FTP space provided by your ISP) you can store your own bookmarks privately via FTP. See video below for details.

My primary browser is Mozilla Firefox v3.0.1. The reason I champion that particular browser over others is because it has the most plugins available. If there is anything on the internet that can be done in a browser, chances are it will happen in Firefox first.

Plugins, while a blessing, can also be a curse. As cool as it is that you have tons of nifty add-ons to choose from, some of these add-ons may screw up your browser. How the screw-up occurs could be in any number of ways, but you know when you’re browser is screwed up.

Firefox browser problems don’t happen often, but when they do you can fix just about any of them by creating a new profile.

Here’s how:

Close the browser first.

Do a run dialog and type firefox -P, then click OK.

This is what you will see by default:

If you want to "start over", delete the profile and all files associated with it. Note: You will lose all your bookmarks and browser settings when you do this. (For bookmarks you can retrieve them if you have Foxmarks installed.) Add-ons will remain installed.

When you create a brand new profile, Firefox will treat it as if you’ve just installed the browser for the first time.

If you’re not sure whether you want to delete the old profile, just create a new one. Firefox allows multiple profiles to be installed. From there you can troubleshoot to see if it fixed any issues you may have present.

For the add-ons present, they will "see" it also as a new installation so you can do additional troubleshooting that way.

If you happen to use the Mozilla Firefox web browser, here are a few little hidden things about it you may not have heard about.

The Book of Mozilla

This has been in every Netscape browser and in every Firefox browser. In the address bar, type about:mozilla and you will read a strange passage from the "book" of Mozilla. No such book exists obviously but they call it as such. You can read up on what these mysterious words mean here.

Running Firefox inside Firefox

Type chrome://browser/content/browser.xul inside the address bar and it will launch another instance of Firefox inside Firefox.

Robots welcome you

Tying about:robots in the address bar makes this show up:

View the credits

Typing about:credits will give you a list of everyone involved in the development of the browser in one way or another. The list is long.

Mozilla has released the first update to the new Firefox 3 browser: 3.01. It promises better security and more stability.

Several security issues were found in the original Firefox 3.0. One critical flaw was stated by Mozilla this way:

Vulnerability can be used to run attacker code and install software, requiring no user interaction beyond normal browsing.

Obviously, not good. So, 3.01 fixes this and several other issues. In fact, 3.01 is nothing but a maintenance release, as the release notes show.

It is recommended that all users upgrade ASAP. If your browser has not yet automatically prompted you to upgrade, you can select “Check for Updates” from the Help menu.