Firefox versus Internet Explorer and Operating systems.

In the past few months I have installed Google Analytics on my site and today I had a closer look.

It seems that what we really knew was right, Microsoft has the greater share in the operating system department.

The first graphic shows the list of operating systems that people who have logged onto my site are using. The various versions of Windows is winning hands down with the Mac next and Linux brining up the rear.



The second graphic shows the various flavours of Windows being used. As it shows XP is used most. Vista hardly has a show, not the success Microsoft really wanted. I do think people are not upgrading their OS as often as they used to. Why mend something that is not yet broken? I also think people are thinking of the alternatives to Microsoft. Linux in it's various flavours are much more user friendly nowadays.

With Linux being a free OS and getting better all the time, people are turning that way. As a basic desktop alternative to be used in an office or at home Linux can do everything Windows can. I use Ubuntu on my second computer and have it dual booted on my laptop.

BUT it is a very different story when it comes to web browsers. Firefox has the greater share in that department. The third graphic shows the web browsers and the operating systems side by side. Firefox is ahead on all three operating systems.






I have been a fan of Firefox for a number of years now and have found it secure and up to the job of any web site I have come across. To read of a time when Firefox actually helped me, go to this page, I could not believe the difference it made over I.E.

Click on the graphics to make them larger.

The stats on the graphics here relate to when I started using Google's Analytics on my site, which was from 8th January till yesterday 2nd February.

I have been using Trafficera to get more people to see my site, see previous blog post. It is a traffic exchange but I have found that it works. They do pay you if you get others to sign up too.

How to make your computer more secure.

The main way that viruses etc. come into a computer are through the Internet. One way to stop viruses and mallware is to use secure software. The way I have done this on my computers is to use non Microsoft software.

Only my main computer runs Windows as an operating system and I have stopped using anything higher than 2000. (I like the desktop and the way 2000 works anyway.) My other two computers run various flavours of Linux.

On the Windows 2000 box I have opted for Mozilla's Firefox and Thunderbird. One reason for this takes me back a few years. I had already started using this software on my computer and I was asked to supply and install a computer system in the church building I attended. I was to install all the computers, including servers, laptops and desktop machines.

This was done and the two servers were set up with SME server, a variation of Linux specifically for servers. One was set as a web server and the other as a file and print server. One ran for over a year without a restart and the other was only restarted after an add-on was added.

The desktops were set up with Windows 2000 and all went well for about a month. I was then asked to have a look at the setup as the Internet had slowed to a crawl. I logged in and had a browse of the Internet. All seemed well for me so I said everything was OK and left them to continue.

After only about another week or two I was told the Internet was still slow and could I have another look. This time when I logged on and everything was OK I asked what they meant by slow. One guy told me he clicked on a page, went downstairs and made everyone a cup of coffee and on his return found the page was still loading, very slowly.

I got out some anti virus and anti mallware software and found the bandwidth was taken up with many trojan horses and mallware serving up adverts for undesirable stuff, stuff no one had asked for.

After running the "anti" software and cleared off everything that should not be there I then installed Thunderbird and Firefox. Some people wanted to use Outlook so I had to compromise. At least that is marginally better than Outlook Express. I even set the icons that pointed to Internet Explorer to point to Firefox.

A few months later I asked how the Internet was getting on, to a response of "no problems since you sorted it".

That has shown me that this is the best road to go down to stop mallware and viruses. Of course you always need an anti virus programme installed to catch them.

Another little trick is to have images blocked as default in your email programme and if you need to look at them, you can load the images one at a time, and only from people you trust. If you don't know the person who has sent it, just delete it.

If you swap to Linux, then you get even less stuff coming through.