Tag Archives: FireFox

What is in a techs mind when they work on a problem?

Computers, how to, Internet, , , , , , , , , ,

I don’t know in the startup, reboot, same problem. Check the other computer on the router, works perfect. Downloading Firefox on good computer, putting it on thumb drive and loading it on broken computer. Still does not work. Still able to ping google. Resetting all internet settings, no luck. Turning off wireless and using Cat5 cable. Still pings google, but browser does not work. Going back to wireless. Hmmm, what is next?

Let me take the computer home and try it on my home router. OK same thing. Lets try to browse the network, ok this does NOT work either. OK time fore more software. Lets see what HijackThis says. Well two things I see really quick… IERESET.INF with a ton of options that are not so good, also some DLASX_W.DLL, used for a dlink wireless the client tried to get working before I came over. I am going to remove everything other than Norton and Google toolbar. Lets reboot. Same thing. Ok let’s use google to find out more ideas. Running the reset command on the TCP/IP connection. Still broken. Reboot, still broken. OK, resetting the DNS. No help. Is it just port 80, hmm lets test some other program, does RDC work…no, ok so more ports.

Now looking for a tool to reset winsock, ok found a great one, let me pop in my thumb drive. Oops electric shock, blue screen, just rebooted my main computer. Uggg. Well now it is time to install that new DVD burner I bought the other day. Ok done, all up again. OK running the winsock reset, reboot, ping works, ugg browser still broken. This is getting very lame. OK I have some reg tools but I never had them fix much, but worth a try now, we are desperate. Running RegCure, found 894 errors and fixed them. Broken, rebooting, still broken, as expected.

Well I know it is software, but lets see if an Ubuntu live CD will work on this, plus I can test my new burner. The new burner is very fast, only 2:44 to burn, about 2 min faster than my old one. While burning I typed net view, and got error 6118, let me look into that. Nothing really there for browser problems. Did a search for the firefox error message “Though the site seems valid, the browser was unable to establish a connection.” And I got a large number of good information. A bit more research and it seems that Norton has caused this problem for other people, so let me download the Norton removal tool and see if that helps. This is most hopeful I have been that we have a solution, but it is taking forever to do. Ok, done, rebooting, crossing fingers. Yippie, it worked. Stupid Norton, I always hated that thing. So cool now.

Wow, I knew I would get it eventually, but that took a long time. It totally works now, just tested everything out, no problems. I am now installing AVG so the client has a bit of AV protection. Also going to run Windows Update, he has been offline for months with this problem.  Never got to try Ubuntu on this one.

I have had similar problems in the past, and it seems that it was a different fix each time. But if you found this blog because you had the problem listed above try some of the things here, it may just work.

CLICK HERE for the removal tool I used to remove norton.

CLICK HERE for the winsock reset tool.

Market Share of FireFox

Business, Computers, Internet, , , , , , , ,

firefox-logoI was an early user of FireFox, but FireFox version 1 would simply not render many sites that I used.  So I waited.  In the summer of 2007 I decided to try Ubuntu as the only OS on my main computer for a while, and for 6 months I only could use FireFox, by this time they were on version 2 and it worked as well as IE did on my laptop, so I installed FireFox on the laptop also.  It was great.  When I moved back to the US I had left my computer behind so I was back to XP, and then Vista but I still installed FireFox right away.  Then in the third quarter of 2008 they came out with version 3, and my gosh, it is now far BETTER than IE by every measure I tested it with.  I now use it about 95% of the time, there are still a few banks that will not allow FireFox to log in, and of course some Microsoft Sites.

So after all of this I decided to see how many people use FireFox as a percent of the whole.  First I looked at my sites, a very biased view of the world.  On my Treasure Page, a page that existing customers go to the number is 58% for FireFox and 40% for IE.  This number is interesting because we install FireFox on all of the computers we sell, we put both of the icons next to each other, so this means that if given the choice most people choose FireFox.    On our main page for selling computers recent numbers show that 37% use FireFox and 57%  use IE, this is much more like a random sample of the public.

So I decided to look around, and I found that the Global Market Share of FireFox is a bit over 20%.  There is a good company that tracks all of this here.  They have found something interesting also, that on weekends and on holidays the FireFox market share is MUCH higher than on weekdays.  This is mostly due to the fact that most people are forced to only use IE when they are at work, they usually don’t have the ability to install new browsers, and most companies don’t use firefox.  So the numbers for residential usage is probably much closer to 30-35% while the number for corporate usage of FireFox is probably in the single digits.  I hope the good people at FireFox will notice this and try to focus their efforts on fixing it.  It is obvious that people who have the choice choose FireFox, and at least 30% of the public cares enough about the added benefit of FireFox to install it and use it.  I figure at least 50% of the web surfing public can not figure out how to install it or does not even know that it exists.  FireFox then should also work with the OEM Computer Companies to get them to install it.

The only thing I really miss is that in IE I could hit Control-N and it would open a new window with the current window and its history intact, in FireFox it simply opens a new window with your home page.  I have heard other techie people talk about this also, but still there is no option for this.  The best fix I have found is an Add-On program called Duplicate Tab, it basically does this and a few other things.

Tell me what you think, reply down below.

Safari on windows!

Business, Computers, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wow, for once I am shocked and impressed by something in this industry. Mac just released Safari for Windows today. (Click here to get it) I was not keeping track and did not know it was coming, but shortly after midnight it came on saying that I could get it. I quickly installed it, and tested it out on my PC. The graphics look about the same but slightly better. I think they up the color setting on everything, and I like it. It seems to load as fast or faster. I will have to learn how to make some changes to it that I like to have but I will give it a good try.

This is a good idea that was a decade in the making. When you use it you feel like you are using a mac. I am a PC guy but I do see how this will get many new customers for Mac. I already see their market share increasing due to the tragic and predictable failure of Microsoft Vista. (Click here to see a survey of how big a failure vista really is)

I also downloaded FireFox on the day it came out, it was not so great at first but as IE got worse FireFox got better. For most of 2007 I used Ubuntu as my OS but I finally had to break down and go back to Windows on my main computer, but I did not go back to IE. I miss many things about Ubuntu, it is a much better OS but there are a few programs I need that simply don’t exist yet in the Linux world.

Thanks mac for raising the bar. I hope Microsoft either steps up or fades away soon.