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Hmmm, your assistance please

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Our Lady Has Left the Building

13:54 / 22.05.05

For some reason my version of IE6 has suddenly, like today, decided to stop playing fairly with me, specifically in the area of opening new windows. Right-clicking and selecting 'open in a new window' makes it think for a couple of minutes, then pretend that I never asked it to do anything. I can run multiple instances of IE at once, and clicking on something that requires a seperate program to run (such as the Media Player surround-sound version of the radio version of Hitch-Hikers) will work, but I can't listen to any of the BBC shows that open up in their own little window with the bastardised version of RealPlayer.

Although my computer did crash this morning I wasn't using any internet apps at the time and I haven't noticed a problem.

Anyone got any ideas how to sort this out?

That don't involve the words 'change your OS'?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:06 / 22.05.05

Umm... change your browser?

Spatula Clarke

14:20 / 22.05.05

Stoatie speaks truth. Is there any reason why you *need* to stick with IE, rather than just downloading Firefox? It's only, like, a two minute download followed by a twenty second automated install.

Tryphena Absent

14:28 / 22.05.05

I am utterly shocked that you're still using IE. Are you mad?? You do realise that the rest of us get one pop up a month tops... and I'm using Netscape so who knows what Firefox and all those other browsers are like. Just never open IE again.

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:32 / 22.05.05

I'm afraid of the new. But I did a system restore back a few days and that seems to have solved the problem.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

14:33 / 22.05.05

Apart from being more stable and more secure, Firefox is just... well, better.

Shrug

14:33 / 22.05.05

JUSTGIVEINANDUSEFIREFOXFORFUCKSSAKE

Our Lady Has Left the Building

14:34 / 22.05.05

B-but, I'm a neophobe! I distrust the new and fear change.

Shrug

14:38 / 22.05.05

Would you do it for a scooby snack?

Shrug

14:44 / 22.05.05

I not particularily technically ept myself but it is extremely simple to implement and not scary in any sense. I've found it to be a brilliant service and really is IE worth the strife?

alejandrodelloco

16:46 / 22.05.05

but IE 6 is a shitty browser that eats all your webdesign and spits out trash. I hate it I hate it I hate it it is poo. If you look at my site in Firefox to see how it is supposed to look, and then see it in IE 6, you will claw out your eyes (I did). I spend all fucking afternoon on a nice basic redesign, and since I don't have IE, I never get to test it. What should work in every browser DOES NOT WOOKEE RAGE.

Tezcatlipoca

16:51 / 22.05.05

B-but, I'm a neophobe! I distrust the new and fear change.

Well, for one thing, if you want to put an end to your problems you're going to have to move on and ditch IE.
For another, FireFox - in terms of it's interface - really isn't very different to IE, or, for that matter, any other browser. Don't let the thought of having to learn an entire new browsing style put you off, because you won't have to. Most of the important differences are behind the scenes, but, trust us, you will find FireFox easier and more intuitive to use, and will find your woes at an end.

agvvv

16:52 / 22.05.05

Love your site alex.. the transparent png problem eh? You should use the solution in the thread you linked, it actually works. And yes, explorer is evil. When they obviously dont want to fix all its mistakes, why the #&¤% should we use it?

alejandrodelloco

17:20 / 22.05.05

Yes... I installed it, but cannot test it any time soon. Who wants to test it for me?

Offset Carrier

21:59 / 22.05.05

If Firefox is so great, why does it take thirty six years to load, in comparison to IE6's sprightly three? Bah.

Tryphena Absent

00:01 / 23.05.05

Perhaps it's your machine? Spatula thinks it takes two minutes. That's quite a discrepancy.

Billuccho!

02:12 / 23.05.05

Firefox took me a couple second to download and install. No problems. It's a great piece of software and I only get one or two pop-ups, um, ever. Took a little bit of getting used to (a day or so) but now I love it.

Of course, my computer is still screwed up the arse with virii or whatever, but my internet works wonderfully!

Spatula Clarke

02:25 / 23.05.05

If Firefox is so great, why does it take thirty six years to load, in comparison to IE6's sprightly three?

Because you're hooked up to the Internet via carrier pigeon? Because your housemates were downloading horse porn at the same time? Dude, I dunno.

---

03:06 / 23.05.05

I've just installed Firefox again after reading this thread, and while it's faster at loading certain pages, it can be slower to load images sometimes. It's going slower here too when I click and auto-scroll up and down threads. I'll stick with it and see how it goes, but it's often seemed pretty much the same when I've used it in the past. That was with the old pc though, and it was in a state.

I definately can't hurt to try it out, especially if IE is messing up, and it's totally easy to adjust to aswell. I didn't like the idea of having to mess around changing either, but it took hardly anytime at all and I was glad when I did.

---

03:09 / 23.05.05

If Firefox is so great, why does it take thirty six years to load, in comparison to IE6's sprightly three?

I had exactly the same thing with the old pc. With this one it's loading faster now. If your pc is quite old, then that could be it.

Unencumbered

05:09 / 23.05.05

If, as I suspect, you're talking about the time Firefox takes to start up, the reason that IE is quicker is that most of the program is preloaded when you boot your machine, so there's very little left to do when you click on that nasty little blue 'e'.

Tezcatlipoca

06:09 / 23.05.05

If Firefox is so great, why does it take thirty six years to load, in comparison to IE6's sprightly three?

Oh for fucks sake, listen to yourself. FireFox can take a few seconds longer to load than IE; a few seconds. That's hardly stolen time, my friend. It's not as though you're going to do anything worthwhile with your life during that slight delay.

Of course, my computer is still screwed up the arse with virii or whatever, but my internet works wonderfully!

Then you need to trundle over to this page and follow the advice thereon. If you still have problems, PM me and I'll sort them out for you.

Bamba

07:39 / 23.05.05

You can speed up Firefox launch times by using the Windows Prefetch funcionality which should level the playing field a bit in with IE. Remember that Internet Explorer is only a shell for Windows Explorer so there's really nothing much going on when you 'launch' IE so no other browser will ever be able to compete with it in that respect. Any, details fo how to Prefetch Firefox are here. There are also some under the hood tweaks you can here which I personally found made things noticably faster.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:56 / 23.05.05

Thanks for that, Bamba- I'm gonna check it out in a minute.
I also find Firefox takes a few seconds longer to load... the difference being, of course, that I only have to load it ONCE, and it stays loaded. No lockouts, no crashes...

And apart from anything else, it has tabbed browsing; a function I really couldn't understand the point of at first, but now find indispensable. Using IE at work I really, really miss it.

---

15:07 / 23.05.05

I definately can't hurt to try it out

't'

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

15:15 / 23.05.05

I distrust the new and fear change.

But... but... when you shoot IE6 in the knees and watch it bleed to death, what are you going to use?

lentil

15:23 / 23.05.05

tabbed browsing

Absolutely. A wonderful feature, and of particular relevance to your problem, Lady, being as you mentioned being frustrated with attempting to open new windows. Fuck new windows! Tabs are so where it's at. Right now I am viewing 12 web pages but only have two Firefox windows open: my Barbelith window, through which I am replying to this thread and lurking on three others, and my recipe window, which is bursting with ideas on what to do with the remains of my food supplies.

Twelve pages!
Two windows!

Spatula Clarke

15:51 / 23.05.05

THat's a point - does anyone know if it's possible to set Firefox up so that it defaults to opening links in new tabs with a left click, rather than having to right click and select from the menu?

middle click

I have tabs too! Tabs rock.

Spatula Clarke

18:08 / 23.05.05

Bloody hell. I never even realised that button did anything in Firefox other than get pressed accidentally and cause the screen to scroll annoyingly when I'm halfway through reading stuff.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

18:16 / 23.05.05

Tabs = Rock.

Bamba

18:28 / 23.05.05

The other good thing about Firefox is the fuckton of extensions available for it. Chances are if there's anything you've ever wanted your browser to do, someone's written a Firefox extension that'll sort you out. In fact, even if you think you browser does everything you could possibly want I challenge you to go through the list of available extensions and not see anything that makes you think "Hmmm, that would be useful." The Adblock one's sweet as all hell, zapping banners (and entire advertising companies in fact) with one deft click of a mouse is more fun that it should be and the way the page sort of rejigs itself as if the advert had never existed (unlike HOSTS based adblocking in IE which leaves ugly holes all over the place) pretty much rules.

You can also make it look really nice, the OSX-alike Abstract PC being my current favourite.

Tryphena Absent

18:55 / 23.05.05

Do you have to download flash plug ins and all the other mind-numbingly irritating stuff like that? I used to use Mozilla and it drove me spare, I don't want that experience again but you're definitely selling it to me atm.

Bamba

19:06 / 23.05.05

Yeah, you will need to install another vesion of each plugin for Firefox as the IE one won't work but it's basically a one-time deal so I wouldn't let that put you off (unless you're on dialup I suppose in which case it might be a factor). There's link to all the more common plugins for Firefox here but, whether you're using IE or another browser I'd advise fucking off the official version of Quicktime and the ever irritating RealPlayer and getting the much smaller and nicer Alternative. That's a link to Quicktime Alternative but there's a link for Real Alternative at the bottom of the Tools section on the left hand side of the page. I installed both of these after a recent rebuild of my machine so I don't have the official versions of either of them anywhere on my machine and everything works fine without the extra bullshit the official players bring with them. You'll never see that fucking "Quicktime Pro: Upgrade/Later" dialogue ever again for instance.

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