Internet Explorer -vs- Firefox

No need to yell. I am on vacation so I am not online every day, but here goes. First off, I use Firefox exclusively with the Charlotte MLS. Charlotte does not support Firefox but IE tab works perfectly. Charlotte is a marketlinx based MLS and I would suspect that the same setup should work with all Marketlinx based systems.

You actually have three choices with regard to IE functionality in Firefox, besides IE Tab there is IE View and IE View Lite. You may have to try those also to see which one will work for you.

Back to IE Tab. First you must log into your MLS system with IE you cannot switch after the fact, It will not work! There should be a status bar displayed in Firefox, If not go to View >> Status Bar and make sure it is checked. On the status bar you should see an icon that looks like a small version of the Firefox icon or perhaps the IE icon, that is the status indicator for IE Tab. If you right click on the status icon the IE Tab Options box will appear, by default you will be at the first tab setting which should be Sites Filter. There you will see a small list of sites that automagically switch to IE before they actually display in your browser. In the URL: box you would type the url of the login page of your local MLS. In my case it is http://cmls.marketlinx.com/*, then click on the Add button. While you are there also make sure that the Enable Sites Filter box is checked.

Please note that it is important that the entire domain and all pages be rendered in IE, to assure this do not include any other parameters in the URL: box and make sure that you add the /* at the end so that all pages from the domain are rendered properly.

If this is done correctly, when you go to your MLS system, Firefox will first invoke the IE rendering engine before actually going to the correct domain. At this point your entire session will be in IE (actually in a Firefox tab that is using IE). Another crucial point is that you must have IE installed on your Windows PC or it will not work. I am assuming this is the case. Also since you are using Parallels on your Mac make sure that IE works by itself (without Firefox and IE Tab) because if it doesn't work by itself it won't work in the tab either.

Gri, If you need more assistance I would be happy to help you. Try these thing first. 

Hi Brad,

Checking my web stats I have about 18% of users using Firefox and 77% using IE. Even though Firefox is gaining ground the difference is still significant. As a former programmer back in the day when Netscape and IE were the major browsers; I don't see websites developers taking Firefox more seriously until they gain more ground, as far as percentage of users. I'm not saying developers are discounting Firefox but it will not be supported equally to IE because the numbers are not there yet.

The reason more developers are not supporting Firefox(MLS, TopProducer) because developers would have to basically maintain two different sets of code because they both render html differently. On every page, the code would have to detect if a user is using IE or Firefox and then the session would be directed to the appropriate set of code. For a programmer that would be a nightmare situation because it basically takes twice the work. Every time you modify the code you would have to change it in two different places.

The reason many sites don't render properly on Firefox is simply because they are not designed to work on Firefox. When Firefox gains more market share (probably closer to IE numbers) is when more sites will be compatible on both browsers but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

As far as preferences I use IE mainly because I come from a MS background and those habits are hard to break, but I do QC my websites with Firefox just incase.

I enjoy using firefox, but too many of my on-demand applications require IE. Microsoft is guarding themselves well. When I bought a new system with Vista, firefox caused so many problems, I had to remove it...

Alex - Stats are just what they are. IE still comes bundled with every Windows OS and so it will continue to dominate. If you take that into account 18% usage for Firefox is significant. Every marketing study I have done or seen all say the same thing. If you currently use a product just the fact that it is bad is not enough reason to change to something else. The same applies to IE.

A properly written website or web application should work equally well with IE or Firefox or Opera or Safari (for you Mac users) and does not need separate codebases. It is only when programmers are not diligent or want to use very specific (ie non standard features) that we run into trouble.  This is the real reason many sites do not work on Firefox, not the need to maintain two separate sections of code.

You actually hit on the exact reason for many not using or even trying to use alternative browsers when you said, "those habits are hard to break".

Candy - I think the appeal of Firefox is that you can extend the functionality with add-ons. As an example, I am a cyclist by hobby and old-school cyclists tell you everything about their bicycles in terms centimeters, millimeters, grams and kilograms. Then in the same sentence they talk about their bikes weighing in pounds and ounces. Now I would like to think of myself as a pretty smart guy but I can't convert from imperial to metric in my head. I happen to have a widget in the status bar that when I press on it it redisplays the page with all the measurements converted from one system to the other, just a flick of the button, try doing that with IE. BTW, my road bike weighs in at 6880g just over the UCI lower weight limit for racing of 6.8Kg.

Stuart -  Our site is seeing a huge increase in Firefox traffic, over the last month Google reported to us that 38% of the site visitors are using Firefox!

Brad - I am training for an upcoming Century in early September so I do need some time off to "Get the miles in." I had tapered off the mileage in July because of work and other stuff, but was able to ramp up the mileage to about 180 last week. Take a look at this Blog entry to see a goal I reached this year as a result of 150 pound weight loss and a return to cycling after a 15 year layoff.  Assault on Mount Mitchell.

Bud - (Sorry Brad for bypassing you since this is your blog post, but Bud addressed me through a comment so I wanted to respond).  Bud it's your opinion that that IE is "bad" product. Firefox has some features that I like but I use IE because I have no reason to switch. As a software engineer (in a past career) I've always had multiple browsers on my PC because it has always been requirement in my former line of work, but I've always stuck with IE because I prefer it. I've had issues with IE in the past but I've always known how to trouble shoot them.

Most of the time it's a dll conflict with another program installed on the computer. The reason this happens is because IE shares a lot of dll (libraries) that other programs use. Sometime installers replace system level dll with their own versions and those modified versions are not fully tested / compatible with the IE version installed on a particular computer. By the way, I built a brand new computer in January and IE has yet to crash. I wish I could say the same about Windows but that's another subject all together.

As far as your comment about "website or web application should work equally well with IE or Firefox or Opera or Safari (for you Mac users) and does not need separate codebases. It is only when programmers are not diligent or want to use very specific (ie non standard features) that we run into trouble.  This is the real reason many sites do not work on Firefox, not the need to maintain two separate sections of code."You are incorrect! Programmatically you can do things IE that is not possible on Firefox (without a lot of work-arounds). For instance IE is natively uses activeX controls. With activeX controls you can pretty much add desktop functionality to a website (i.e. access the hard drive, write/read memory, and etc). You have the entire Win32 api to your disposal.

I have written web applications for IE that use facial recognition technology, text to speech functions, and control robotic arms, web-cams, printers, scanners, signature pads, and etc. All this would not be natively possible with FF. This might not be important if you are just viewing a simple website /  blog but in the corporate world it is important.  When you are dealing with mission critical applications that require fast turnaround times you don't have time to make applications cross-platform compatible when one of the platforms is used by only 18% of the population.

I might have taken the example to the extreme but I'm just pointing out that there are differences between the two browsers and not all applications can be handled with the same set of code. I can go on with more examples but I don't want to bore everybody with more geek talk.

No active-x for mac users, no active-x for linux users, active-x does work with Firefox add-ins. My statement was incorrect only if you live in a Windows only world.

Yes you can do a ton of stuff with Microsfot only additions, but back to MLS and realty sites, most do not use Active-X controls, I know mine doesn't, so this is really not the issue. 

You are correct that no one will care until market share increases. Firefox market share is still increasing but it stands at only 12.72% worldwide and 19.65% here in the US. What is amazing is that Firefox has a significant share in Germany at 26.69%.

This is all I am going to say on this subject because I am going to go ride my bike instead (I have priorities!) 

Griselda were you able to get FF working with IE Tab or IE View? 

Hi Brad -I was wondering where you were. I thought you might have been in SLO showing your son how to scam for the college hotties. 

Bud- We do live in a MS world. My Webtrends reports that 90% of my traffic is generated by Windows users. The world may not be fully dominated by MS but it's pretty close.

The original post was not whether the MLS worked better on IE or Firefox. The post was asking which browser you preferred. I brought up activeX because you made a blanket statement stating that a single codeset could be used for all platforms; which is obviously not the case. If you qualified your statement I could have accepted it, but you tried to pass on a statement that was obviously incorrect.

You could get away with a single codeset with some simple web applications but you couldn't get away with it if you wanted do anything half-way complex like Topproducer 7i(which doesn't use activeX). You would ultimately have to select a browser which the majority of the population uses. It's a dollar and cents thing. Would you pay a programmer $150+ an hour to code for a browser that has 70% of the market share or 18%? That is the reason many sites don't work with FF.

Brad,

Our MLS requires IE but when I'm on my laptop I prefer FF.

And my iphone uses Safari and I do a lot of browsing on that when I'm away from home or office.

I wonder what Google's browser will do to the marketplace.