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Get The Facts

June 19th, 2009 · Windows

If they can skew the truth, so can I! Except mine will be more accurate and not as skewed. Still fun to do a LITTLE skewing though.

Internet Explorer 8 Firefox 3 Google Chrome 2.0 Comments
Security Yes Yes Firefox and Chrome both use Google’s excellent and proven Anti-Phishing and Anti-Malware lists which are continually updated. They have had this technology for longer than IE has. Furthermore, IE’s continued use of the long-proven vulnerable ActiveX technology makes it a danger to use.
Privacy Yes Yes Firefox and Chrome both include private browsing modes which make sure no trace is left on the user’s system. Furthermore, their lack of ties to a specific host OS, like IE has, allow users to take their favorite browser with them on a thumb drive whenever they use a public computer, further ensuring the privacy of their browsing history and accounts.
Ease of Use Yes Yes Supporting the latest web standards ensures that the browsing experience is universal regardless of which standards-compliant browser you use. Google Chrome’s slimmed down UI makes using the web simple, easy and fun, while Firefox’s high customization makes it easy to have YOUR web, YOUR way. Oh, and tried to use IE8 on Linux, MacOSX, or Windows 2000? Nope. Firefox runs on all of those. A pre-alpha version of Chrome is available for Linux and OSX.
Web Standards Yes Yes IE8 is only JUST implementing CSS2.1, something other browsers have done long ago. They are already movong on to CSS3! IE8’s Compatibility View is a step backwards, ensuring devs do not need to change their websites to adhere to standards if they are only concerned with IE; just tell users to click the button instead! Firefox and Chrome continue to improve their performance and compatibility, and both score highly on web benchmarks and compatibility tests such as Acid3. Internet Explorer has yet to break 20% in Acid3, which most other browsers are near or at 100%!
Developer Tools Yes Yes Firefox has a myriad of useful tools available as extensions, such as Firebug and DOM Inspector. Chrome has tools to allow you to debug scripts, view the DOM tree, and even see how long each resource on your page takes to download and render. As for profiling, the JavaScript engines used in both browsers are significantly faster… but Chrome has a script profiler anyway in the dev branch. And with Firefox extensions I can safely say it probably has one too.
Reliability Yes Yes Firefox does not yet have tab-process support, but it is stable enough not to need it for the time being, in my personal experience. Chrome has crash recovery as well as tab isolation. It’s possible the IE team didn’t notice because Chrome doesn’t crash very often, thanks to tab isolation!
Customization Yes Yes Customizability [sic] is not a word. Firefox has addons that can do anything you could want it to do. IE8 has… toolbars. Chrome already has better support for extensions than IE8 and that support is not yet ready for the public eye.
Compatibility Yes Yes IE has traditionally broken web standards more than any other browser. We have already established that it is not compatible with those web standards. Being compatible with proprietary standards YOU invented is EASY. It should also be mentioned that IE’s compatibility with ActiveX comes at the price of security and privacy.
Manageability Yes Yes The majority of desktop users are not concerned about Group Policy settings, even if they know what it means. Nevertheless, Firefox and Chrome both properly handle downloaded files, marking them as “untrustworthy” in Windows. Firefox also respects a limited number of applicable group policy settings for Internet Explorer. But ultimately if a group policy setting has to be enforced at the application level instead of the system level, a clever user will always find an application to work around it.
Performance Yes Yes Chrome is built for speed, and nothing can come close. Except maybe Safari 4. Firefox is also quite speedy, so it gets an honorable mention. Both browsers have newly designed JavaScript engines tuned for speed. IE8 is still using an outdated engine that is not. Oh they tried, but they didn’t use native code compiling like Chrome and Firefox are.

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Garry’s Dir Mod Update

March 3rd, 2009 · Programming, Website

I made some changes to my mod of Garry’s Directory List script. The latest version of garry’s script is seen here.

Mine is here.  The biggest change is I’ve gone for the look of the new Windows 7 Content view for files and folders … I like it very much. :)

In addition I have removed most of the excess whitespace, added hover effects, and added tooltip info to images.  In addition there are custom icons for some different filetypes, and it’s easy to change those.

There are also a couple interesting statistics at the bottom.

Download the source here (requires 7zip or a tool that can extract .7z files to use).

Shockingly IE8RC1 renders it correctly without requiring any hacks.  I did not test it with IE7 (I’m scared to, given the semi-hackish way I got the folder/file lists working without tables).  The latest versions of Gecko, Webkit, and Opera all handle it fine… and of course Gecko and Webkit get fancy rounded borders too.

For the future I might add some javascript in to allow for custom sorting and maybe different views for files/folders… who knows.  But that would require coding a lot of the template over in JavaScript.

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Google Chrome Portable 2.0.162.0

February 12th, 2009 · PortableApps, Programming

Google Chrome’s dev branch is finally looking a bit more stable so it’s time for an update to Google Chrome Portable. [Read more →]

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My Personal Windows 7 Tips and Tricks

January 20th, 2009 · Windows

  • Drag and drop notification icons between the overflow and the visible tray to set them to always show or always hide (if you want to reset an icon to the default auto-hide option, you need to use the “Customize…” dialog still).

[Read more →]

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OpenSearch Google in Windows 7

January 14th, 2009 · Programming, Website, Windows

I just hacked together a neat little PHP script that allows me to Google search right from Windows Explorer in Windows 7.  I was inspired by this guy.  I don’t wait around for Google, I’ll do it myself. :D [Read more →]

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Windows 7 Tip: Superbar Shortcuts

January 13th, 2009 · Windows

Shift+Click a superbar button to launch a new instance of that program (even if one is already open).

Ctrl+Shift+Click to launch a new instance as administrator.  Great for Command Prompt or a Task Manager replacement. :)

That is all.

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Google Chrome Portable Minor Update

January 9th, 2009 · PortableApps

The first 2.0 beta of Chrome was released today so I updated my download to support it.  The new little features are nice!

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Superbar stuck on top? Nope.

January 9th, 2009 · Windows

In Windows 7, the new Superbar is awesome IMO.  However the Taskbar Properties Control Panel has removed the “Keep the taskbar on top of other windows” option and made it on by default.  This also results in maximized windows not being able to cover the taskbar.  If you prefer to use the Win key to bring the Taskbar forward and don’t care if it’s covered up, and want the screen real estate, this post is for you.

[Read more →]

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New Program: Google Chrome Portable

January 8th, 2009 · PortableApps, Programming

If you haven’t tried Google Chrome, you should.  It’s a small, fast, lightweight browser.  It’s lacking in features, but its focus on speed and security make it perfect for portable usage, in my opinion.

I have made an installer and launcher.  There are some limitations with running a local and remote Chrome at the same time (most notably, they must be the same version number) but that in itself should be a rare occurance.

Download Google Chrome Portable here.

For a changelog and some other bits of useful info, see my PortableApps.com post.

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AppCompactor 1.0

January 8th, 2009 · PortableApps, Programming

Mostly bug fixes, however I also finally added icons and proper wizard graphics, thanks to Silk icons.

Download here.

[Read more →]

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