Blog - All Moz'd
All Moz'd
I've switched to Mozilla's Firefox and Thunderbird over the last week or so.
In the browser's case, I had been tired of Internet Explorer's ever-growing vulnerability list for a long time. Also the browser hasn't been updated in years.
I've always been using several browsers for work, but I had tried switching to something else a few times and I couldn't quite find myself as comfortable as with IE. Being a PC user, IE has the advantage to be part of the OS and therefore to load quickly. I always found Mozilla a bit heavy, and I don't want Opera's banners nor to pay for a Web browser.
With Firefox' first official release I gave it a try and now I'm convinced I won't be going back.
Firefox pros: tabs!, popup blocking!, extensions (Locale Switcher), automatic text finder, gradual table rendering, RSS support (though I still use SharpReader), in development!, ...
Firefox cons: no <ruby> support, no CSS writing-mode support (sure, it's CSS3, but it works in IE), occasional display bugs, takes a little bit longer to start-up.
As for email, I had been using Eudora ever since I started using the Internet, about 10 years, so it's a big change to move to other software. Thunderbird seems to have pretty much all I want though, and more. Plus it's all free.
I was able to import all of my tens of thousands of emails without trouble (I never delete any email except for spam). It did take a few hours though. :)
Thunderbird pros: UTF-8 support!, blocks images and scripts in spam (making it safe to look at it), good spam filtering (with Eudora if I marked one Japanese email as spam, it marked all of them as spam), extensions (Quick Reply), multiple accounts, threaded views (a bit limited cause it matches only/mostly by subject), cleaner interface, quote levels coloring, ...
Thunderbird cons: ?
So far so good!
Posted on November 16, 2004 at 22:42 | Tweet
|
Trackback
Comments RSS
Hi,
we use the same combination here. We use the Web Developer Extension for Firefox - very cool!
Also nice is the build in page info feature, the JavaScript Console and so much more. We use it now for some months and we never regret the switch. Even GMAIL works without problem which fails in Opera.
Posted by Markus on November 17, 2004 at 20:11
i use firefox since 1 year now, it's better than ie
Posted by toki doshi on November 18, 2004 at 05:27
i've been meaning to make this switch myself. any problems with thunderbird so far?
Posted by william on November 18, 2004 at 13:39
I'll check out the developer extension. :) Thanks for the tip!
With Thunderbird, no problem so far, I like it! It's also easy to set up! You should give it a try!
Posted by Patrick on November 18, 2004 at 13:58
I downloaded thunderbird after having read your post .. i have been wanting to leave MS entourage for a while now ... but an import of my whole mailbox (55.000+ mails) to mac mail app has always created a huge snafu in terms of folders and filters .. so .. i was hoping for thunderbird .. but the import function only offers me imports from eudora (which i don't have) and communicator ... and netscape i think ... i read the FAQ and it said 'all others, just use import' .. hmm .. will investigate more
Posted by Peter on November 20, 2004 at 05:01
I think that for other email programs, you need a file of the "mbox" format. So it's necessary that either the email program's mailbox files are already in that format, or that it can export to that format.
55000 emails is a whole lot! Better start the import before going to bed (if you do find a way). :)
Posted by Patrick on November 20, 2004 at 09:45
Read a great article on Opera Vs. Firefox from Opera Watch.
http://operawatch.blogspot.com/2004/11/opera-vs-mozilla-firefox.html
Posted by K on December 2, 2004 at 00:21
The ComputerWorld article it points to is good. However I thought the OperaWorld write-up was biased...
Posted by Patrick on December 2, 2004 at 00:26