# Like Firefox? Try Maxthon.



## Chris (Jan 12, 2006)

Since this is my site, I'm going to vent a bit.

I personally can't stand Firefox. It's absurdly-strict HTML translation ends up breaking half of the sites on the internet because like it or not, not all sites are coded to be 100% compliant with every HTML standard out there.

Is this Mozilla's fault? Not really. I know there are tons of "purists" out there that sing the praises of Mozilla, but realistically, it's just not a very good browser. I don't care if the reasoning behind it is "Webmasters need to code their sites to be compliant", it's just not something that everyone does. Why make a browser that ignores non-compliant code, rather than recognize it and compensate for it?

Case in point. I don't have Mozilla installed, but if you do, try this simple test. Look at this page: http://www.sevenstring.org/forum/index.php.

Here's what it looks like in Internet Explorer and Maxthon:







Now, here's Mozilla:






Notice a difference? Right now there's a bug in the forum software that is stripping the leading # sign off of a lot of HTML color codes, most notably the descriptions for the forums. While Maxthon and IE are smart enough to realize this and compensate, Firefox's absurd all-or-nothing compliance standard ignores it, so you get a very monochrome looking page.

Also, notice the underlined usernames in the moderator column. Notice how in Maxthon, they are color coded to the Moderator's name. Not so in Firefox, because it's a standard link and not a 100% perfect CSS. Again, it's the code's fault for not being absolutely perfect, but it's compliant ENOUGH for just about every other browser engine out there. Yet again, Firefox, in this case, screws me, because I can't code around the limitations of the forum software, and I would have to pine through hundreds of templates and CSS sheets to get vBulletin's code to be absolutely compliant with Firefox's standards.

Look at the navigation bar up top in Maxthon. See how the text is white, yellow and red, for things like "Site features" and "Premier Options"? Now look at Firefox. Again, monochrome.

Maxthon does everything Firefox does.

It supports plugins.
It supports tabbed browsing
It supports mouse gestures
It uses equivalent memory and resources
It's skinnable
It's well supported
It has built in pop-up, activex and ad blocking
It has equal the security features and protection against script exploits

That list could be a mile long. It's just a better browser, and it uses the IE engine so it's shell integration is better. If you browse sites in IE, your cookies will carry over to Maxthon. If you add links in Maxthon, they migrate to IE automatically, and vise versa.

Now I know this will piss off a lot of Firefox purists, because I've found them to be quite possibly the most vocal bunch out there. I see "Use Firefox!" images in signatures all over the place, as well as ads on even the most mundane and insignificant of websites. Google's Adsense even has an option where you can get paid to put a Firefox ad on your website. 

I say it's horseshit, and to hell with Firefox until they realize that the "real" internet isn't made up of sites coded by people who sleep with an HTML reference under their pillow.

Maxthon does everything FF does. In my opinion, it does it better, and it does more. So if you're using Firefox, you aren't seeing Sevenstring.org, and I guarantee many other websites the way that the author intended.

The coup de grâce of the whole thing is that while I was installing Firefox to write this up, I had to deal with this:






"Quality Feedback Agent". In this day and age of people raving about not sending any unnecessary information over the internet (processor serial numbers, anyone?), I find it amazing that Mozilla has the audacity to REQUIRE that I install their feedback agent if I'm going to use their browser. You can't unselect it. If you use FF, you run the Feedback agent.

I've used Firefox plenty. I know what it can do. Maxthon is better. I'm not going to step into this thread and defend it on every point. If you try it, I'm willing to bet you'll think it's better as well. If not, feel free to post up here your reasoning why you don't like it. I don't care what browser you use, but the fact that my website looks like shit in Firefox because of code that I didn't write and would be a massive effort to rewrite to Mozilla's compliance standard - quite frankly pisses me off.

You can download Maxthon here: Maxthon Browser

- Chris


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## Digital Black (Jan 12, 2006)

Been using Maxthon as my secondary browser ever since you first told me about it a year ago.. 
Very stable.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jan 12, 2006)

Grrrr! You're like a great, big, angry teddy bear, Chris.

I'm gonna give this Maxipadathon a whirl. I've been real happy with Firefox, but we'll see. 

Hey, since it's based off of IE, is it as spyware/malware prone as that piece of shit is? I find Firefox to be far less vulnerable.


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## dpm (Jan 12, 2006)

That's weird. I installed Firefox 1.5 a day or two ago and was able to opt out of the Quality Feedback Agent (and did). That said I'm using Maxthon now and I'm impressed so far. FF seems a touch quicker (from Australia), but it has some issues that were getting annoying.


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## Chris (Jan 12, 2006)

> Hey, since it's based off of IE, is it as spyware/malware prone as that piece of shit is? I find Firefox to be far less vulnerable.



No, it's not, it's as secure as Firefox is.

I don't want to get into a Q&A about it. I've said my piece, try it and see if you like it. Maxthon.com has a forum setup that the developers frequent that can answer security and usage questions a lot better than I can.


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## Shikaru (Jan 12, 2006)

I think it's the only program on my computer that has never crashed on me. Also, I can't live without Super Drag&drop now (I tried the firefox plugin version, and it just didn't feel right). I've converted most of my family members to Maxthon as well. No luck with my Girlfriend yet though, she swears by firefox  Plus she's ranted many a time to me about HTML standards and such

Also, I found Firefox to be sluggish in comparison to Maxthon

Basically Amen to everything chris said


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## giannifive (Jan 12, 2006)

Wow Chris, you really hate Firefox/Mozilla, huh? And you seem to have a serious problem with coding standards, too, especially for a CS guy. Well, if Maxipadathon ran on Linux I might try it. For now I'll get back to debugging a C code I'm writing. I bet it would compile with no problem if I wrote it in HTML and let Maxipadathon view it, huh?  It sort of reminds me of the a joke UNIX utility that that tries to read the user's mind when it's not sure by opening /dev/uri_geller.

-J


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## Chris (Jan 12, 2006)

> Also, I found Firefox to be sluggish in comparison to Maxthon



Likewise, especially loading up.



> Grrrr! You're like a great, big, angry teddy bear, Chris.



I'm not angry at all bro, just frustrated that my site looks like shit for a very popular browser, and the only way I can fix it right now is to spend hours upon hours editing code that I didn't write in the first place. I'm a webmaster, I want my site to look good, and it looks like fucking crap in Firefox.

FF is superior to IE, absolutely. Tabs, gestures, flat out FUNCTIONALITY is better *than Internet Explorer* all around. Maxthon has ALL of that functionality, and doesn't fuck the code because open source purists refuse to take their noses out of the air and scale their compliance standards back a notch.

The mantra of "If your site doesn't look good in Firefox, it's your bad code, not our fault." is a fucking pile of shit and one of the reasons that companies like Microsoft will always be at the top of the food chain. The elitist attitude of the FF developer team might make them gods in tech/geek circles, but to the rest of the consumer world, it just doesn't work. In the end it just fucks people like me.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jan 12, 2006)

Chris said:


> No, it's not, it's as secure as Firefox is.
> 
> I don't want to get into a Q&A about it. I've said my piece, try it and see if you like it. Maxthon.com has a forum setup that the developers frequent that can answer security and usage questions a lot better than I can.


Hey, since you pushed it so hard, it won't kill you to answer a question or two. 

I did try it. I like all the functionality so far. The IE vulnerability thing was the only concern I had.

And uh... the teddy bear thing was a little thing (I may suck at, some claim) called HUMOR!  Geez, ya twat, lighten up.


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## Chris (Jan 12, 2006)

giannifive said:


> Wow Chris, you really hate Firefox/Mozilla, huh? And you seem to have a serious problem with coding standards, too, especially for a CS guy. Well, if Maxipadathon ran on Linux I might try it. For now I'll get back to debugging a C code I'm writing. I bet it would compile with no problem if I wrote it in HTML and let Maxipadathon view it, huh?  It sort of reminds me of the a joke UNIX utility that that tries to read the user's mind when it's not sure by opening /dev/uri_geller.
> 
> -J



I don't have a problem with coding standards dude. I think they're great. I'm a software engineer for the Department of Defense. I know a LOT about writing compliant code, I work with it every day and I'm paid pretty damn well to do so. I'm not trying to wave my dick around, but I know what I'm talking about, especially when it comes to writing code. It's how I make a living, and I'm very good at it.

I DO have a problem with coding standards that aren't backwards-compatible for no other reason than "being on the cutting edge", which is the case with Mozilla.


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## Chris (Jan 12, 2006)

The Dark Wolf said:


> Hey, since you pushed it so hard, it won't kill you to answer a question or two.
> 
> I did try it. I like all the functionality so far. The IE vulnerability thing was the only concern I had.
> 
> And uh... the teddy bear thing was a little thing (I may suck at, some claim) called HUMOR!  Geez, ya twat, lighten up.



 I'm not trying to be snappy, I just want to set the precedent of "This thread doesn't mean to ask me Maxthon support questions". 

Let's go spoon.


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## Drew (Jan 12, 2006)

Well, I was inches from deleting it earlier in the week, but after reading your rant I thought I'd give it one last try. I'm an Opera user, and in general Opera kicks ass...But the IE compatability thing is, sadly, useful - Yahoo Mail's Beta won't run off Opera, and Opera's FTP support blows. 

I remember not liking how it opened new tabs for some reason, but I haven't done anything where that;d be an issue yet. So far, after disabling all the annoying splash popups at start, it's better than I remember it.


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## Chris (Jan 12, 2006)

Make sure you update it, they patch it all the time.

Edit: And you shouldn't be FTPing with a web browser anyway, you boob. Use WS_FTP.


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## Drew (Jan 12, 2006)

I'm lazy  

I've remembered what it is - opening "404: file not found" messages in new tabs, in the background. drives me crazy. 

Aside from that, it's a great browser.


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## Chris (Jan 12, 2006)

Drew said:


> I'm lazy
> 
> I've remembered what it is - opening "404: file not found" messages in new tabs, in the background. drives me crazy.
> 
> Aside from that, it's a great browser.



I've never had that problem. 

Clearly, you should update it.


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## Josh (Jan 12, 2006)

I've really tried to like FireFox, but I just can't do it. I've used IE/Maxthon for years without ever having any of the spyware or security problems that the Mozilla drones are always chanting about. Given that, and the fact that IE is (as Chris said) more tolerant of variations in code standards...I can't see any reason to use anything else.


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## Drew (Jan 12, 2006)

Nooooo shit... Josh, how the hell are you?


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## Chris (Jan 12, 2006)

Josh said:


> I've really tried to like FireFox, but I just can't do it. I've used IE/Maxthon for years without ever having any of the spyware or security problems that the Mozilla drones are always chanting about. Given that, and the fact that IE is (as Chris said) more tolerant of variations in code standards...I can't see any reason to use anything else.



 God Hath Spoken.


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## noodles (Jan 12, 2006)

I *despise* IE's user interface and way of working. I've been using Mozilla browsers since way back, simply because they run on the OSes that have been part of my daily life for a decade and a half (UNIX and Linux). I've tried just about everything at some point, and have come to the conclusion that nothing is perfect. I can find something I hate in every program.

Currently, IE and Firefox are the only approved browsers where I work, and we do not have the ability to install software on our work machines. I'll have to see if I can get approval to try this at work, since it is the only place I can use it. I wouldn't dare to dsigrace one of my home PCs with Windows, but I am a crotchedy old UNIX elitist like that, and I wouldn't have it any other way --you should witness how Suse 10.0 runs on an AMD Athalon 64 3500+.

I hope I can get some approval, because there are things I hate about Firefox, it's rigid adhearance to antiquated standards being one of them. I have watched the whole progression of shells with great frustration and annoyance. I can't use ksh, because most systems only have sh, and we're not going to allow "useless" software on our servers. I can finally use ksh, but now csh is on the up. When I'm finally allowed to use that, bash comes out. Well, I can use bash now, so I'm wondering what's next. I'm tired of programming and engineering snobs telling me that I have to follow the methodology of some guy who was a professor at MIT or Berkley twenty fucking years ago.

Don't even get Chris and I started on ANSI standards...


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## Metal Ken (Jan 13, 2006)

Maxthon is like an IE shell, it seems like, to me. However, i like Opera a lot.


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## David (Jan 13, 2006)

I will definately check it out. Does maxthon block virus' like Firefox does? That's the tmain thing that I praise about it. If it has that... I'm an instant convert.


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## giannifive (Jan 13, 2006)

Chris said:


> I DO have a problem with coding standards that aren't backwards-compatible for no other reason than "being on the cutting edge", which is the case with Mozilla.


Well now you're actually saying something! If this is the case then I agree with you.


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## Chris (Jan 13, 2006)

noodles said:


> Currently, IE and Firefox are the only approved browsers where I work, and we do not have the ability to install software on our work machines. I'll have to see if I can get approval to try this at work, since it is the only place I can use it. I wouldn't dare to dsigrace one of my home PCs with Windows, but I am a crotchedy old UNIX elitist like that, and I wouldn't have it any other way --you should witness how Suse 10.0 runs on an AMD Athalon 64 3500+.



Probably slower than Debian. 



noodles said:


> I'm tired of programming and engineering snobs telling me that I have to follow the methodology of some guy who was a professor at MIT or Berkley twenty fucking years ago.



 Dude you and I are a lot alike. I don't know how big they were where you live, but out here, you'd have to add people that say "I worked at Digital (DEC) on the VAX mainframes."

Oldschool engineering talent that is still talent, but antiquated and unwilling to evolve.


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## Chris (Jan 13, 2006)

giannifive said:


> Well now you're actually saying something! If this is the case then I agree with you.





If you wade through all of my inane babbling and ranting, I think that's the real root of my discord.


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## noodles (Jan 13, 2006)

Chris said:


> Probably slower than Debian.



Do we really to turn this into a distro debate? Let's just all be happy we're not running BSD.  



> Dude you and I are a lot alike. I don't know how big they were where you live, but out here, you'd have to add people that say "I worked at Digital (DEC) on the VAX mainframes."



Wow, those DEC guys are everywhere. I used to get into a daily arguement with this one dude I worked with nine years ago over OSF/1. Add the old IBM mainframe bastards with their CICS and ADA to the mix, and I get ready to kill people.


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## Chris (Jan 13, 2006)

noodles said:


> Do we really to turn this into a distro debate? Let's just all be happy we're not running BSD.



Not at all, I just like to bust balls, and debian is fucking impossible to setup correctly so I feel a little uberdorkier having gone through the 500 unnecessary hoops it requires. 



> Wow, those DEC guys are everywhere. I used to get into a daily arguement with this one dude I worked with nine years ago over OSF/1. Add the old IBM mainframe bastards with their CICS and ADA to the mix, and I get ready to kill people.





I actually used to be a sysadmin for AS/400 terminals.


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## noodles (Jan 13, 2006)

Chris said:


> Not at all, I just like to bust balls, and debian is fucking impossible to setup correctly so I feel a little uberdorkier having gone through the 500 unnecessary hoops it requires.



Don't I know it! I've used about every dist out there, and settled on Suse simply because it has most of what I'm looking for right out of the box, without any huge gaping security holes that you can throw a bowling ball through (Redhat). Then again, I frist installed Linux when the process was download file, un-tar/gunzip, burn boot floppy, configure, install core, start downloading components...why am I doing this again?  



> I actually used to be a sysadmin for AS/400 terminals.



 Man, I thought admining AIX on a RS/6000 was punishment.


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## D-EJ915 (Jan 13, 2006)

Opera owns, period.

Nothing beats its full-screen feature.

What I love is the built-in RSS/email crap and how it works bookmarks (way above and beyond the others).

Also, the Info and Links parts are sweet, it tells you all the info about a page, such as encoding and such and lists all the links on a page.

It just owns.

screenshots:
full-screen mode
Thing that comes up when you click in the address bar and I stick all my crap in there...it also shows the "links" thing


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## Shorty (Jan 13, 2006)

Chris said:


> I DO have a problem with coding standards that aren't backwards-compatible for no other reason than "being on the cutting edge", which is the case with Mozilla.


Finally the voice of bloody reason in this browser madness! 

I have had this conversation so many times with people. I have to code for all browsers and what works well in IE doesn't in FireFox (and vice versa). Goddamn Mozilla.. please add a little bit of gentle degrading in circumstances


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## giannifive (Jan 13, 2006)

noodles said:


> Don't I know it! I've used about every dist out there, and settled on Suse simply because it has most of what I'm looking for right out of the box, without any huge gaping security holes that you can throw a bowling ball through (Redhat). Then again, I frist installed Linux when the process was download file, un-tar/gunzip, burn boot floppy, configure, install core, start downloading components...why am I doing this again?


Hey a distro flame war on a guitar forum! I'll join in!

I tried a bunch, too: Red Hat, Fedora, Mandrake, Debian. I even tried OpenBSD instead of Linux. In the end I settled on Gentoo. It's not for everyone, I admit. But I love how streamlined it is, and how it comes with a ton of packages.

I'm in charge of our group's Beowulf cluster (80 CPUs). It's currently running Fedora, but I'm going to rebuild it as an auto-assimilating (think "Borg") cluster with Gentoo.


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## giannifive (Jan 13, 2006)

Chris said:


> Probably slower than Debian.


Debian and SUSE can't hold a candle to Gentoo in speed. My whole system is compiled with "-O3 -march=pentium4 -fprefetch-loop-arrays -funroll-loops -pipe". Now that's metal 

Alright, I think I've sufficiently alienated all non-computer nerd guitarists on this forum...


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## Chris (Jan 13, 2006)

giannifive said:


> Debian and SUSE can't hold a candle to Gentoo in speed. My whole system is compiled with "-O3 -march=pentium4 -fprefetch-loop-arrays -funroll-loops -pipe". Now that's metal
> 
> Alright, I think I've sufficiently alienated all non-computer nerd guitarists on this forum...



Not to worry, I know exactly what you mean.  

Let's just sit back and act nerdy.


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## Chris (Jan 13, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> Opera owns, period.
> 
> Nothing beats its full-screen feature.
> 
> ...




Maxthon's fullscreen mode, with tabs. 







And Maxthon does RSS and whatnot as well.


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## Jeff (Jan 13, 2006)

Gentoo will put hair on your balls, but for ease of use, I prefer Ubuntu and Fedora Core. Both are faster than SuSe, which seems to be a friggin' slug everytime I try it. Plus, I hate KDE anyway, and SuSe is still KDE-centric, no matter what anybody says.


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## Chris (Jan 13, 2006)

Blasphemy!

How the hell can you hate KDE?!

What do you use? Gnome?


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## Drew (Jan 13, 2006)

D-EJ915 said:


> Opera owns, period.
> 
> Nothing beats its full-screen feature.
> 
> ...



Um, I have yet to run into a browser that doesn't offer some sort of fullscreen support. Just to test this, I F11'd the IE 6.0.28 on my work desktop - yep, fullscreen. 

I LIKE Opera - don't get me wrong - and off the top of my head I don't know if Maxthon has the same sort of transfer support as Opera (the transfer dialogue rocks), but literally the only thing that's kept me from switching is the fact it keeps opening links that open in new windows as tabs behind the one I'm already using, and that's probably just a version issue.


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## Drew (Jan 13, 2006)

Update - apparently, some genius thought itd be a good idea to have it ship with the defaults set to open new windows in the background. Problem solved.


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## Jeff (Jan 13, 2006)

Chris said:


> Blasphemy!
> 
> How the hell can you hate KDE?!
> 
> What do you use? Gnome?



XFCE or Fluxbox.


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## keithb (Jan 13, 2006)

Looks fine in Firefox to me


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## Scott (Jan 14, 2006)

I use firefox, but decided to try maxthon. So far, im not digging it. The default options concerning tabs and stuff is annoying, but im changing those as I come across them.

Also, it slows down and stretches the websites im on every now and then. and when I lose my connection, i can't go back to a previous page like I could before. This might be an option I can change, but I can't find it.


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## The Dark Wolf (Jan 14, 2006)

Scott said:


> Also, it slows down and stretches the websites im on every now and then.


 I'm experiencing this a bit, too. Jury's still out on Maxthon. Firefox seems better performance-wise on my computer (read- faster), but I like the features/functionality on Maxthon.


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## Ancestor (Jan 14, 2006)

Hmm... Safari, anyone?  For real. Quit bangin' yer head against the wall and pick up a nice Mac. Keep the PC for running all your software... offline! LOL!


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## Scott (Jan 14, 2006)

Ancestor said:


> Hmm... Safari, anyone?  For real. Quit bangin' yer head against the wall and pick up a nice Mac. Keep the PC for running all your software... offline! LOL!



Ohhh ok. I'll go pick up a mac, so that I can have safari...seems logical[/retardedness]


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## Ancestor (Jan 14, 2006)

Just trying to help, broham. Some people are born masochists.


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## Scott (Jan 14, 2006)

*goes to dictionary.com*
*looks up masochist*
*reads*
*reads*
meh, I just hate macs with a passion so im getting tired of the whole "switch to macs" suggestion. No worries


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## Ancestor (Jan 14, 2006)

Word! LOL! I even annoy myself at times.


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## Scott (Jan 14, 2006)

I irritate myself sometimes...but then I just apply some creme and stop for a couple days..


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## Chris (May 9, 2006)

El bumpo.


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## Scott (May 9, 2006)

the irritation cleared up!


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## Chris (May 9, 2006)




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## Leon (May 9, 2006)

i've actually bumped to Galeon, since it runs the best on my machine. hopefully by the end of this summer i'll be getting a new machine in the 2.6 GHz range, which will smoke my 450 MHz box from 1999, and thus erradicate my dependence on superlite software.


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## Chris (May 9, 2006)

You're actually using a 450Mhz processor right now?


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## Leon (May 9, 2006)

well, right now i'm on campus, using what appears to be new machines (Dell Optiplex GX620 w/ Pentium 4 3.4GHz, 2GB RAM). but at home, yes lol.

these things are stupid fast. i want to take one home, wipe windows, and install Fedora 5 with XFCE


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## noodles (May 9, 2006)

Leon said:


> i want to take one home, wipe windows, and install Fedora 5 with XFCE



Reading things like this makes my bitter, black heart swell another size. 

[action=Noodles]runs Suse 10.0 on his AMD Athalon 64 3800+.[/action]


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## Leon (May 9, 2006)

truth be told, both running Xfce, i might not be able to tell the difference between Fedora and Suse . at the time i made the switch, Fedora was the best i found for making the switch. maybe someday i'll evolve my unix ability and get a more powerful OS.


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## Chris (May 9, 2006)

Debian spanks them both anyway.


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## zimbloth (May 9, 2006)

Im guessing the bug you mentioned in your original post was fixed. My Sevenstring.org front page looks exactly like the Maxthon one.


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## Chris (May 10, 2006)

zimbloth said:


> Im guessing the bug you mentioned in your original post was fixed. My Sevenstring.org front page looks exactly like the Maxthon one.



I spent about two weeks going through the code here to make it cross-compliant. It's not really a bug, and it's not fixed - I just took the time to recode a ton of shit so that it was Mozilla-friendly.


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## zimbloth (May 17, 2006)

Sounds like a fun time. Thanks.


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## Buzz762 (Jun 7, 2006)

Chris said:


> You're actually using a 450Mhz processor right now?




Until late last year I was using a pentium 3 @ 350mhz

I upgraded the video card to a GeForce MX440 and that kept me in business for a little while. It was capable of handling all I ever really did on my computer... including rendering a couple of video projects for school... although because of the low processor speed, the video played off-sync with the sound. What made it even better was the primary actor in the video was from the orient who speaks with a very heavy accent. When we started watching the video in class (the first time this kid had seen the finished product) he pointed out that it looked just like a low-budget japanese movie.


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## 7 Dying Trees (Jun 11, 2006)

edit: must learn to read second pages of threads.


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## Elysian (Jun 11, 2006)

Metal Ken said:


> Maxthon is like an IE shell, it seems like, to me. However, i like Opera a lot.


+1...


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