Best of 2003: Mozilla 1.3
I don't want to get crazy and claim that PCWorld is still halfway relevant, I'm not flashing back 10 years or anything. But they did select Mozilla as the
best Web Browser 2003 so they do deserve some credit. I don't know if anyone still reads PCWorld and similar mags, but I suppose this is closer to mainstream than me getting all Munched up and screaming, "IE stinks!"
Which it doesn't, but Mozilla is such a better browser I'm kicking myself for not forcibly making the switch long ago. I finally think I've stumbled on the right combination of things to make it stick and finally quit the IE habit.
1. Install Firebird 0.6. The default Qute theme looks great, I like the IE theme on Mozilla proper (we're going for comfort and familiarity, not the ability to make my browser look like a piece of teak).*
2. Remove IE icon from the QuickLaunch bar (most important step oddly enough).
3. Download the IE replacement icons, Tabbrowser extensions, make some userChrome.css/user.js edits. Tabbrowser takes some trial and error to get it exactly how you like it, but it's must have.
4. Change the default Firebird application icon (default's way ugly).
5. Change all the HTTP extension association icons back to url.dll. (I am totally visually inflexible I suppose. Plus, again, the default Firebird/Mozilla application makes me cringe when I put 20 of them on a secondary desktop.)
6. Change Firebird to my default browser in its preferences. Launch IE and break it to it that it's not the default and it shouldn't keep asking.
The
texturizer site is one of the better resources I found for extensions and the like. After a week of IE cold turkey, while I was reinstalling my other box, I didn't have Mozilla on there yet. So I was using IE to track down some drivers--pop-ups firing off everywhere, new windows opening left and right, and there I was wondering "why was I suffering all this ridiculousness?" Good question.
* I'm not sure how widely understood the difference between Firebird and Mozilla is--in a nutshell, Firebird is a standalone browser that will ultimately replace the browser component in the Mozilla Application Suite (which is basically what's commonly referred to as Mozilla 1.x today). Newer rewrite, just a browser.
Caveats: VS.NET still triggers IE when debugging ASP.NET apps. That's fine. Mozilla 1.4b is capable of sucking up RAM in certain circumstances, I didn't find it to be altogether frequent. That was the last version of Mozilla I was using and I haven't seen Firebird doing anything comparable yet but who knows. There are some DDE glitches firing urls from some applications.
Random conjecture: Macromedia should be racing to take up Netscape's role behind Mozilla if the logical withdrawal/shutdown happens behind the AOL curtain.