Was just wondering if its just me, or are IBM trying to be clever (annoying) when you pass the mouse over their advert. The mouse can't get to certain parts of the advert and the mouse will jump up or down.
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Was just wondering if its just me, or are IBM trying to be clever (annoying) when you pass the mouse over their advert. The mouse can't get to certain parts of the advert and the mouse will jump up or down.
Took awhile for to get that ad and remember this thread....I usually get HP ads....
My cursor will flicker slightly on that ad when the little guy starts moving...but that's about it. Happens on other flash ads at other sites for me....so I never paid it much attention. Figured it was just a matter of my processor choking briefly on the Flash code.
Besides....I don't click on ads, so if my cursor goes berserk on them...I don't mind. :D
When I'm using my Ubuntu Linux box some of the flash ads on this site causes Firefox to crash and close without warning. I don't seem to have that problem on other sites or when I'm using Opera. I think the advertisers would be better off if they posted simpler ads that are not "in your face". An annoyed surfer is not going to click on an intrusive ad.
Just curious, but at what point does it become a firefox problem, since it seems to only affect that browser? Where is FF's error handling? A HUGE part of good programming is trapping errors before they ever get to the operating system, and cause things like crashes and freeze ups.
I have to agree and say that I hope the Mozilla team starts taking browser crashes more seriously. There's more improperly coded pages than proper ones out there, and the developers need to recognize that.
Precisely, prof. As a developer yourself, you know that it's MUCH easier to code a program that ONLY functions when fed letter perfect code to interpret, than to code one that has potential website faux pas provided for and dealt with. Glad someone else sees this. The trident and presto engines are far hardier when it comes to bumps in the road. Gecko crawls into a little ball and dies.
So by saying that are you implying that either VDr or the Webspehere ads are not using letter perfect code - otherwise Fx would handle them ok.Quote:
Originally Posted by JPnyc
People shouldn't write dodgy code in the hope that there laziness will get picked up via a catch all in someone elses code.
You want Fx code to be made good so it can pick up on other code that is bad. Seems like an oxymoron to me.
Hate to think what would happen if that was the case in Defence systems or Aeroplane naviagation \ auto pilot software.
I guess rushing out dodgy code is why Windows always ends up wth so many patches etc.
No, patches exist because it's not possible to foresee every single vulnerability in something as complex as an OS. The ONLY way you find those out is to have 300 million hackers all trying to find them. There IS no other way. That's why we don't know for sure if Linux is secure, or if Mac OSX is. You don't have the same knowledge base out there trying to crack them.
I'm saying that no matter what errors it encounters, there should be error handling. It should never reach the OS to cause a crash.
I know FF is the darling of the web, but the truth is, mozilla programs are NOT well coded. The engine, which isn't mozilla's, might be better at supporting w3c standards, but the fact is the browser is buggy, crashes left and right, is an absolute memory pig, and uses profiles that corrupt with a good hard sneeze.
It's popularity is due to fantastic marketing, because it's just not that well coded a program.
Now Opera, which isn't marketed NEARLY as well, is a much better overall example of programming. For one thing, they wrote their own engine (presto), which can take what you might throw at it, like IE's trident can, without choking, but unLIKE IE's trident, is standards compliant. That, to me, is an impressive piece of work.
What good would a fantastic, fast, and shiny car be if every time it hit a bump or pothole it had to go to the repair shop? That's the equivalent of what FF does with any issues it finds in a webpage.
I don't know much about programming and I am not a FF spokesman, but I can't remember last time my FF crashed. Yes, sometimes the extensions have crashed, but that has nothing to do with FF itself. Its a good stable browser which brings good features. I wouldn't say its popularity came because of good marketing. It was all about good timing, good features, fast and above all a good browser.
What features? Tabs? What other features does it have, right out of the box? You may not have crashes but the list of FF users from our 30 forums that have had issues is ponderously long. I rarely ever hear from Opera or IE users.
I wrote a program for in house use on the job I had before this one. A fairly simple one, mostly to make my job easier, but they still use it there now that I'm gone. I built in error handling in the unlikely event that there was an issue with a record returned from the database.
Unfortunatley, the one potential error i DIDN'T handle was, what if the connection to the database failed. See, I didn't know they were going to change the path to the server housing the database, but still I should've provided for that possibility that the connection would fail. I didn't do such a great job on it.
That's a simple example of what I'm talking about. Most every aspect of page rendering and code interpretation should be in try/catch blocks,and trap errors.
Amongst other things, it has RSS feeds and extension & theme capabilities.
I'd guess that you don't hear about Opera crashing because no one uses it. Kind of like why you (almost) don't have spyware and viruses for Linux and Mac.
So it had tabs, and RSS feeds. The extensions most newer browsers are capable of. But see, here's the problem: you have, by today's standards, a bare bones browser, in terms of features. Without extensions, you have No mouse gestures, limited ability to move tabs around, can't save open tabs for next session. These are basic features for the new tabbed browser world. Opera has them, Avant, Maxthon, all have them.
So now someone comes along and writes an extension. In addition to increasing resource use to get features that others have already native to them, you have the issue of compatability. See these extension writers don't know each other. They don't test each extension with every other possible combination of extensions that exist.
So you have a recipe for problems there alone. Now add to that there is no quality control over the coding in these extensions. Everyone and their brother is writing them.
I tried 2 mozilla programs for a good while. Didn't take me more than a yr to ditch em both. But before I did I joined their support forum, and I found out that issues with things like corrupt profiles were absolutely RAMPANT. Well, that's what happened to me too, twice.
With a purported 50-million lines of code, and 5+years in the making, Windows Vista is the largest, and longest concerted software project in human history.
The average software developer in the US produces around 6,200 lines of code a year. 50-million lines of code divided by 6,200 lines of code per year equals 8,065+ years worth of coding.
Yep, it's no easy feat, to code an OS. No easy feat to code a browser, even. That's why vulnerabilities exist in all of em.
The whole idea of FF is that it IS a barebones browser which allows you to add what you want to it. It is a lightweight browser which doesn't come bundled with all sorts of thing that you might not need. Thats what makes it faster than other browsers. And you can hardly compare it to Maxthon and Avant which themselves are add-ons to IE.
There are many extensions and themes for FF. Some are officially sanctioned by Mozilla, some are not. The officially sanctioned ones can be downloaded from the Mozilla web site, and the pass Mozillas quality control before they are added to the site. The others are not officially sanctioned and have not been tested by Mozilla. The responsibility to use tested extensions rests on the user, not Mozilla. They are hardly to blame for users using bad and buggy extensions.
But for a lightweight browser, with basically not too many features, it already uses as much resource as Opera does, which has many many times the amount of features.
This, to me, is another example of poor coding. Poor memory management. I've had extension conflicts and I've only ever DLed extensions from their official site.
Also, the faster claim is mythical. This is a good read for all browser users. I've tested myself, using this testpage. IE comes out fastest here.
I can't say very much more about FF except that I've been loyal to it because its changed the way I browse and improved it by lightyears.
Having said that, you got me curious about Opera, so I'm gonna download it and check it out.
Well I neglected to mention, Opera isn't my main browser either. The interface doesn't suit me, but I'm sure impressed by what they've turned out. A fine piece of software.
First thing I checked with Opera was to see if websites that didn't work with FF would work with Opera. So far 0/2. Opera can't render the page exactly the same FF doesn't. Only IE works properly with them.
In addition to that, Opera apparently won't work with my homepage. Its a portal in Hebrew. The text of every article shows for a second, than disappears. FF works fine with it.
I am not trying to bash Opera, just making observations.
If it shows for a sec then disappears, Opera's content/ad blocker is catching it. This is where Crunchie can help more than I, since it's his main browser.
I just retried it, and it looked good until I pressed on one of the talkback links on the bottom. You can see in the attachment what happened.
You must be using the Australian version :oQuote:
Originally Posted by usil
So shouldn't that mean you should review the web page design rather than blaming Fx for being poorly written ? eg my bank internet site used to only work in IE but now after about a year has finally been updated to support other browsers.Quote:
Originally Posted by JPnyc
Exactly, it's not an integral part of your OS such that you can't uninstall it, or if one part of it goes bung your system is stuffed.Quote:
Originally Posted by usil
Besides it's only flash ads on VDr that cause me the problem so it's obvious to me that it's some combination of the two so I just block ads and flash.
No, it doesn't mean that at all, Nix. FF isn't coded for the real world. I have used this analogy countless times, but it works. I think most people would agree that a Lambourghini Countach is a fantastic and beautiful automobile. However if I were to buy one, the streets in and around NYC would destroy it in a matter of months. Now, whose fault is this? Should I go to NYC and demand that they repave all the roads, just so I can drive my fabulous car? They'd laugh 1st, then throw me out of the office.
By the same token, no one should expect the web to be rewritten for a single browser which was coded for some perfect fantasy world that doesn't exist. I repeat, Opera's engine is every bit as standards compliant as the gecko engine, and I've yet to hear a complaint about it crashing, nor has it ever crashed on me. That's real world programming.
With the size of the rear window in the countach, you'd be lucky to make one safe trip.:rolleyes: Feel free to work that into the analogy, otherwise it would seem off-topic.....
Liam
Usil, what link was that? I loaded the page in Opera and it seemed to display ok for me with every link I clicked, but since I can't read hebrew I dunno what link you clicked on.
It wasn't exactly a link, it was a line in the talkback comments on the bottom. If you click on one of the lines, it expands.
That site in general is doing all kinds of weird things for me.
Hmm, don't think I'm able to find it.
Looks like you need to brush up on your Hebrew :D
Same thing happened to me again. Tried to use the english version www.ynetnews.com which was fine, so I gather Opera has a problem with Hebrew sites.
I'm still curious though, so I'll keep it a while longer and use it on English sites.
I found that when using Firefox on Scottish sites, it oftens comes out in Sanskrit....
Seriously now....lately I've been having some real problems with FF....especially in loading times....it also has a few problems with some ads/graphics here at VDr. I may be switching back to IE soon.....thanks for that test page link, JP.
As far as I'm concerned FF isn't all its cracked up to be .... I downloaded it and had nothing but problems... and when I inadvertantly clicked make default browser(on the pop up that would never stop) I couldn't get it off.... I had to uninstall and delete everything related to it.
As far as speed and resources.... it was no better or worse then any other browser I used ... Now I just use Maxthon.... works great for me. ;)
Bis, don't go back to plain IE, try Maxthon or Avant. You'll be better protected against malware than vanilla IE. I haven't had a thing on any pc I own since I started using it 3 or 4 yrs ago. It also has an activeX blocker that tells you when sites attempt to load one onto your system. You might never view Yahoo the same way again (they try every time).
You can also blend SP2's protection with it, although I'm not sure that it's needed (I did it anyway).
Using that test page:
Firefox: 4.0779
Internet Explorer: 2.6570
Hel-loooooooo?
That's what I've been saying. The "faster" bit is a myth. What gives the illusion is the WAY that FF loads pages as opposed to IE. IE runs right down the page, loading things in order, while gecko loads all the smaller elements first, and images and larger elements last. So it LOOKS done sooner, but in fact, it's not.
Here at work
Fx 9.099, 9.199, 19.891
IE 10.625, 8.375, 32.063
Which is pretty bloody poor for both given we're probably using some mega throughput capability.
I'll have to try it at home although so far for me Fx comes out faster on average.
I spend money on faster CPU's, Video cards, RAM, Motherboard chipsets .....
So what's all this talk about faster? Faster what? ... Browsers? Oh crikey(small trib to Steve), are we still playing "faster browser"???
When it comes to faster ... it's hardware! Software is a personal choice, browsers be software. And to be certain some browsers are "quicker" than others... depends upon what you load them up with, extentions, themes etc. etc. .... bare bones software will win every time.
Really depends upon the hardware though ... the fat pipe, the router that really allows everything to flow sweetly. And the lack of spyware, malware and other nasty items on your system! ;-) What advert? IBM, who 'dat?
I've been using Opera for 5 or 6 years now. It's gone through some growing pains but is a great browser.
Would it be overly pedantic to point out that the rendering test page isn't actually valid XHTML? :) If you fix up the code by adding the missing stuff, the rendering time in both browsers drops by more than half.
There's an old adage in network protocol implementation -- be conservative in what you send, and liberal in what you receive. Firefox and the ad developers are both equally at fault here.
The ad developers are at fault for making resource greedy ads, yes. But a browser shouldn't be made to crash from less than stellar coding, if there's proper error handling in the program. The worst it should do is display the page improperly or not at all. But a crash means the error wasn't handled.
And frankly, it makes sense. Think about it; if you're a top programmer, where are you going to look to work? With an open source program or for some lucrative company making expensive software? Those high paying jobs with commercial software companies are taken by the finest programmers.