Don't forget with Adaware and Spybot you have to manually update the signatures to catch the latest little perishers.

OK Tony,

Well I am here on Firefox.

Security may be improved but my initial impression is that BT browser tabs work a whole lot better. I will need to spend a bit of time reading the Help file.

I have not yet found how to import bookmarks as mine are not stored in IE. So that will take a while to sort. I have managed to view my mailbox though, so that is progress.

Don

I must admit I did not like firefox on PC when I first tried it. I think its a case of familiarity where I was more familiar with IE so preferred that. Now I am a mac user firefox is great but not much different to IE except the spell checker works as you type therefore quicker to post in forums with having to click the 'abc' symbol to check spelling at the end of a reply.

I must put Firefox on my laptop pc!

I have notices the red dots underneath certain things in posts this evening. I have not read up on the spell checker yet. But with deliberate miss-spelling it does give you a clue.

EDJUCATED UNDAR A THORn TRE IN AFRIKA :rolleyes: :D :D

Don

Is there anyway to enable smooth text in FireFox?

Mac version shows smooth text automatically so does IE7 on PC but Firefox shows awkward jagged text :rolleyes:

Stephen,
Text looks no different on my screen. A few other things like the posting box do though. ( Outlines are far more pronounced ).

Also had my first oddball if you see my comment on Christine's Ladybird pic.

Don

Good for you, Don! Personally, I don't especially care for Firefox, and prefer Opera, followed by SeaMonkey. but I stress that I'm just talking personal taste in this. All three of the modern browsers are technically excellent, and just switching away from IE to one of them reduces your infection risk by a very significant factor. I estimate better than 50% risk reduction, although that very much depends on your other security habits.

Some revision: essentially there are 5 main ways that spyware and viruses get into your machine. (Not listed in order).

1: Direct infectors ("worms"). Use a firewall for near-100% protection. A hardware firewall is best, but the built-in Windows XP firewall works just fine.

2: Email attachments. This hasn't changed in many years: if you open the attachment to an email without checking it first, you are at high risk. Use a good, up-to-date anti-virus program, and don't just rely on it to catch everything, help it out by thinking before you open stuff. If in doubt, just delete it unread. (Show me the law that says you have to open every stupid email people send you.)

3: File sharing. Simple rule: don't do it. If you have to run (e.g.) Limewire to download movies or music from dodgy sources, do it on a second machine, either one you don't care about (it can be an old pile of junk running Windows 98 you can just format when it gets infected) or else on a non-Windows box that is pretty much immune to infection (a Linux machine, for example). Don't fileshare on your main machine.

4: Browser exploits. Internet Explorer is the big risk factor. Do not use IE. Use any of the three excellent modern browsers: Opera, Firefox, Seamonkey. Or all three if you like. I suspect that Opera may be the safest of the lot, but if so only by a small margin - all three are vastly in front of Internet Explorer.

5: Common sense. No matter which browser you use and how good your firewall is, if you deliberately download and run something nasty, it's got you. Think stuff through before you download. Is this a reputable source? What happens if I type "Product X" and "spyware" into Google? Am I sure that I'm at the genuine Product X site and not a fake one?

Well I have given it a go and totally agree. I have not even read the Help files as it is very similar to the BT browser as far as tabbed browsing goes, but with the addition of Speed Dial tab.

So I am now an Opera convert and busy creating my bookmarks in that.

Thanks for the Link :) :cool:

Don

Cool! Speed Dial is neat, isn't it.

One thing to watch out for: Opera is very customisable and out of the box it's rather different. If you are happy, that's great, but if you don't like something, it's quite likely that you can customise it. Some examples:

I find the default colour scheme pretty but a bit difficult: it's too hard, for example, to see the scroll bars on longer pages. TOOLS >> APPEARANCE >> WINDOWS NATIVE does the trick. (There are a zillion other skins you can download, most of them looking like a dog's breakfast, as user-provided skins so often do, but the boring, practical; "windows native" one suits most people just fine.)

I rarely use the fast forward and rewind buttons, nor the "new tab" one. Old-fashioned regular forward and back buttons, plus a stop/reload are all I need. Just right-click the button you don't want and select "remove from toolbar". (The less clutter, the better I like it.) Naturally, you can restore the missing ones, and add others too, if you change your mind.)

Opera defaults to starting up on the exact same pages you left it in last time. This is a neat feature (in fact there is a Firefox plug-in that mimics it), but I prefer to just start with a home page. TOOLS >> PREFERENCES >> pick whichever of five options you prefer.

Don't like the close buttons being sprinkled around in different places, one on every tab (Firefox 2 style)? TOOLS >> PREFERENCES >> ADVANCED >> TABS >> untick "show close buttton on each tab".

Want Opera to ask if you are sure before you shut it down? TOOLS >> PREFERENCES >> ADVANCED >> BROWSING >> tick "confirm exit"

There is heaps more, but these should get you started.

(Posted, by the way, using Firefox, which is my least favourite of the three modern browsers, but I tend to have so many things open at once that it helps me find stuff if I always visit particular sites using particular browsers. So here on WPF I'm a Firefox man. And although I like Opera the most, Firefox is still pretty good.)

PS: I bet there is a way to import your BT Browser bookmarks all in one go. Trouble is, by the time you figure it out, you could probably have just done it by hand. But you could try exporting them to a file (from inside the BT Browser) and then importing them from inside Opera.

I have spent loads of time setting up bookmarks etc. Well pleased with Opera and I will only use Firefox if I break it ............ so probably never.

Once again Tony thanks. This is dead easy to use/set up and just like an upgraded BT browser.

Proper multi tabbing with the advantage of the Speed Dial tab. No spell checker but then I didn't have one before.

Don