IE vs Firefox. O.K., sorry Firefox, I *tried* (unless DUers here can save you)

[UTUSN]

I'm a LOW-tech/NO-tech type. My entire computering has been the standard, NON-adventuresome Windows/IE/HP. All I use it for are DU, about a dozen websites, and e-mail.

Last year, for the first time, I took the BOLD (for me) steps of installing Windows 10, but most of all of using Firefox. Since DU and politics are the major organizing principles for me, I was attracted to Firefox's not being the conventional for-profit corporation thing.

Well, I've given it a fair, long try and have butted my head on these things:

* The Firefox (window?) freezes up repeatedly. Sometimes I can fix this by going FullScreen and back, but most of the time I have to use Task Manager to close Firefox and reopen.

* Frequently with the freeze there's a popup saying the problem is "a long running script" with the options to "Continue" or "Debug" or "Close". None of the options tried seem to do anything and I end up closing Firefox and reopening.

* In IE I could easily Copy/Paste picture URLs for posting at DU. In Firefox, there is a window of (URLs?) that seldom are JPG and I have to test-post them to preview whether they work or not. Lately there have also been Copy/Paste problems for just plain TEXT. I've resorted to opening up a separate IE window just for this, then going back to Firefox.

So, unless any of you wonderful DU computer wizzes here can tell me what I'm doing wrong, I'm leaning to going back to IE. But is IE being discontinued? The "Edge" thing I haven't even figured out, besides that the Windows 10 scroll is tinyly NARROW and hard to manage. Thanks in advance.

[tk2kewl]

1. Have you tried Chrome?

[UTUSN]

2. What's it got that IE or Firefox don't? Doesn't have the problems I cited?

By the bye, IE never gave me problems.

[tk2kewl]

3. if you like ie go with it

i write web apps and despise ie. i find chrome to be the least troublesome. that being said the latest version of ie i have used is 11.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. I use Chromium, with my problem free Linux OS

Firefox has gotten so damn buggy, and nanny-like that I rarely use it anymore. Freezes often.

Chromium is lightweight, fast to use, easy to configure any settings I want, never freezes or crashes.
Doesn't hurt to give it a try, you can always remove it.

[UTUSN]

6. "Firefox has gotten so damn buggy" - Exactly. Thank you for the validation.

Is "Chromium" the same as google chrome? You have definitely convinced me to ditch Firefox.

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. Chromium is a light weight version of Chrome.

zippy as hell.
and I use Ghostery plus Ad Guard ( because Firefox decided to make Ad Block non-functional in an update of the browser)

I like Chromium because it is pretty intuitive in layout and how the settings can be managed.

[Egnever]

9. Auto updating for one

Aside from that if you have a Google account you can sign in to the chrome browser and your bookmarks and any extensions you use will follow you to an machine you sing into it on. A very handy feature if you use it on more than one machine.

[valerief]

4. With what you use your computer for, you should get a $200 Chromebook.

No security software needed (as long as you don't add certain apps and it sounds like you wouldn't need to). It's really simple stupid. But that isn't what you're asking.

Sounds like you need to investigate your Firefox Tools/Options. Better yet, you need someone to sit with you and walk you through Windows 10. It's really not as overwhelming as some people make it out to be. Maybe you can take a one or two day class somewhere. Maybe you can hire someone to come to your house, like someone from a Best Buy.

[Egnever]

10. Agree completely

For the use case the op presented a chrome book is the best choice hands down.

[Denzil_DC]

8. If you're going to continue using Firefox,

rather than going for one of the alternative browsers others are mentioning, here's a couple of suggestions.

* Frequently with the freeze there's a popup saying the problem is "a long running script" with the options to "Continue" or "Debug" or "Close". None of the options tried seem to do anything and I end up closing Firefox and reopening.

I was getting this a lot, along with long load times on many pages, including DU, to the point where it was unusable. It was sometimes the result of fussy coding on a page, but also ads on the page that were taking forever to load.

Try installing the Ghostery extension: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-gb/firefox/addon/ghostery/

It will block all sorts of ads and tracking scripts. If you want to support a site by viewing its ads (and the site's ads don't slow your browser to a crawl), you can whitelist the individual site, or allow individual ad servers within it, quite easily.

* In IE I could easily Copy/Paste picture URLs for posting at DU. In Firefox, there is a window of (URLs?) that seldom are JPG and I have to test-post them to preview whether they work or not. Lately there have also been Copy/Paste problems for just plain TEXT. I've resorted to opening up a separate IE window just for this, then going back to Firefox.

If I want to copy an image to post elsewhere, I just right-click on it and choose "Copy image location" from the list of options that appear, then paste it where I want it as normal. No idea what might be causing your problem copying text.

If your problems persist and you want to try a last-ditch option with Firefox, you could try uninstalling/reinstalling it, or less drastically, try refreshing it: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-preferences-fix-problems#w_solution-1-refresh-firefox