Comments on: Firefox versus Internet Explorer in a corporate network

By: Paperino

Paperino — Wed, 13 May 2009 19:46:55 +0000

Seems point 5 is now resolved. In my systems, AR9 opens correctly an URL with the default browser, Firefox, not in IE.

By: Klaus Eichele

Klaus Eichele — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:57:49 +0000

Unfortunately, Michael is correct with his topic ” 5. Many applications are dependent on the IE”, and it is related to Acrobat reader. There is one issue with Acrobat reader that has not been addressed so far: klicking in a PDF on a link with an url will open in IE, no matter what is installed as default web browser.

By: Brian McCullough

Brian McCullough — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 04:53:25 +0000

I’ve found one good reason to install Firefox even if you intend to rely on IE as your primary browser. And it is specifically because IE is so tightly tied to the OS. I’ve had IE occassionally become damaged (typically in areas related to the search functions) which made it very difficult to browse to a network drive or internet site to download a patch or repair file. If Firefox was installed, I could workaround the browsing problem easily. Otherwise, I had to burn a CD with the update on another machine and rely on sneakernet.

By: Lester Earnshaw

Lester Earnshaw — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 17:35:02 +0000

I preferred Firefox until I began running into problems: Firefox will not read PDF files. I have tried a number of “fixes” without result. And, Firefox will often refuse to return to the previous page. I have to leave the program and start again. Most annoying.

By: Damien LaGoy

Damien LaGoy — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:02:08 +0000

Re: Acrobat in Firefox:

Another option to getting a Firefox page into Acrobat is to open Acrobat first, choose “Create PDF from Web Page”, then copy/paste the url into the the URL bar.

This will also preserve the hyperlinks.

You may also select “Get entire site” but it will take longer and you will end up with a large file.

By: Helmut

Helmut — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 12:56:44 +0000

it is not an option to us the portable firefox for cooperate networks. The application can be placed centrally on a network drive.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:38:05 +0000

Hmm sorry the script got cropped or something

function buttonClick(){
var longString = “”;
for (var i = 0; i

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 14:36:32 +0000

If you are interested in seeing the difference between the speed of Firefox and IE try this script out:

function testing(){
}
function buttonClick(){
var longString = “”;
for (var i = 0; i

It takes firefox about 1 sec to finish it, while IE takes over a min.

By: Fireacer

Fireacer — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 11:43:09 +0000

Firefox is capable of integration on a corporate network. Novell have been know to implement the use of firefox in circumstances when it is required. In fact they now offer it over the use of IE7 since it is a more efficient system to use and can offer higher custom plugin support to adopt network security measures. Since Novell is one of the leading teams in large networks and network security, its a sure sign the IE7 still has a way to go. And if you are concerned about running web applications like active X, its net percentage is a thousand times lower than JAVA. It also has security leaks. As for page rendering which is far more important than applications, just take a look at the ACID 2 test…whilst its not perfect firefox 2 is several times better than IE7. nearly every web application system works on firefox except active X…. Java, Flash / Shockwave (same base engine) , Adobe , Javascript, Java applet and more apparently. btw object orientation is a not a standalone system. OOP is irrelevant in browsers since its impossible to be built using JUST OOP, since you require rendering engines and positioning systems, OOP is just for the GUI. which uses virtually no memmory compared to the rendering engine. infact if it is OOP for the GUI, if an extention or plugin is built incorrectly then the script execution will NOT crash the browser. its isolated compared to if it was not OOP. for this reason and many more Firefox is a stable and well ballanced browser offering a smart and better choice to the over monopolized micrsoft IE. well done sun microsystems ….. firefox is a sure winner.

By: DominoG

DominoG — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 11:44:26 +0000

Adobe offers a Firefox plug-in, new to me too.

By: Özgür

Özgür — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 11:25:30 +0000

There’s something much worse and more basic than the hype on Firefox: the hype on object-oriented programming(OOP). As long as this hype goes on, programs will continue to be buggy and huge in terms of memory and cpu cycle consumption, be it open source or commercial.

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 19:09:59 +0000

As far as I know, Adobe doesn’t offer a Firefox plug-in, but you can print to the “Adobe Printer�? to create a PDF file with Firefox. There won’t be any hyperlinks in the PDF document, though.

By: Stratos

Stratos — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 06:10:38 +0000

I’m new using Firefox, and I’d like to know if there’s actually a way to integrate the above mentioned ACROBAT Icon. One IE+Acrobat feature I’m missing is the ability to select text on a web page, and then a right would allow you to: “Convert selected links to Acrobat .PDF”; “Convert selected links to existing .PDF”; “Convert selected text to Acrobat .PDF” and “Convert selected text to existing .PDF” This is using IE6 and Adobe Acrobat v7.0.8.

Can I get something like this in Firefox?

By: Marco M.

Marco M. — Wed, 23 Aug 2006 08:44:43 +0000

The ADM is a dead project but check out the CCK at:

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/cck/firefox/

It is an attempt at creating an IEAK equivalent. You have to use scripting to deploy it via GPO but the ADM relied on scripting too.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 02 May 2006 17:00:27 +0000

I have Acrobat Professional running on my computer, but I don’t see an icon in the Firefox toolbar that lets me create a PDF file of a web page including all its links. So I don’t know what “support of Firefox” means here. Let me know, if you do.

By: allen james

allen james — Thu, 20 Apr 2006 15:20:26 +0000

Acrobat 7.05 supports firefox integration:

Updates in Acrobat 7.0.5

New operating system support for Mac OS v10.4

New browser support:

1. Netscape 8 (Windows only)

2. Firefox 1.0 (Windows only)

3. Mozilla 1.7 (Windows only)

By: Michael

Michael — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:27:09 +0000

Thanks for the comment! I must admit that I didn’t make my views clear enough about the things you mentioned.

The point about the rendering engine is that you often need IE anyway. If I offer IE on all my machines I have to support it, i.e. I have to be concerned about vulnerabilities, patching, user support, etc., etc. Now, if I add Firefox to all my machines, I have two browsers to support and this means just extra work. Of course, I could find ways so that IE can only be started by apps and not by users, but this means extra work, too.

As to the apps that integrate into IE. I didn’t mention Adobe Reader, but Adobe Acrobat. Of course Adobe Reader works with any browser. But I am talking about this little icon you have in IE’s toolbar after you install Adobe Acrobat. It allows you to convert a web page into a PDF file with all the links in it. I often do that with web pages I archive, adding comments and highlighting text. With the success of Firefox, more and more software vendors add such extensions to Firefox, too. So for example there wasn’t Google toolbar before, now there is. So you're right, that at least this argument is losing its grip more and more.

By: jm.one

jm.one — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 23:45:49 +0000

All in all u make some good points. But i dont see any in point 5.Desktop Apps that inegrate the IE rendering engine will keep doing so if you use Firefox as your browser.Talking about appliations that run in the browser, there are some out there that depend on IE. Adobe Acrobat for sure isnt one of em. The Adobe Acrobat Reader (let alone the full featured version) are actually Desktop apps that can run without any browser. And they come with plug-ins for both Internet explorer and for browsers that use the Netscape/Mozilla plugin API (besides Mozilla Forefox and Seamonkey that are Opera, Safari, Konqueror etc etc.) On a side note there are Adobe Reader releases for Mac OS X and Linux as well. The Adobe Acrobat Plug-In runs well in Firefox.So all in all Adobe Acrobat is NOT such an application that requires Internet Explorer.I`d expect a system Admin with your level of being informed to know.

By: MT

MT — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 18:02:44 +0000

You may want to check out http://www.firefoxmyths.com