LIJI's blog

What is the common thing between Firefox, Safari and Opera?
All of them are Windows browsers which are directly competing with one enemy, called Internet Explorer.

The shared goal of all of them is to beat IE in order to make a better web using standards.

But one thing keeps the browsers away from their goal - The users.

Imagine this situation:

Jonny is using IE. Jonny is interested getting Firefox in order to replace IE. Jonny is talking with Matt about getting Firefox, while Matt uses Opera. Matt tells him about some week points of Firefox and why Opera is better and such. Jonny changes his mind and talks with Tim about getting Opera, which does the same thing but with Safari. Jonny gets confused, imaging that all 3 browsers are bad and sticks to IE.

All browsers lost.

What am I trying to say? Firefox, Opera and Safari users should support ALL 3 browser in order to reach their shared goal.

If someone asks you about Opera, don't say "Nooo! It sucks! Use Firefox because it's much much better", but say "Opera is very good, Yet I still prefer Firefox". 

Another thing that I believe should be done is the developers of the different browsers helping each other improving their browsers, making them even more better than IE. They should be less competitive and more supporting in order to beat their shared enemy - IE.

Please remember what I said in this short article, or you will hurt both Firefox and the other browsers, letting IE win easily.

Update, 27/11/2007: Added artwork in the theme of the article

How many of you have visit a site that doesn't support Firefox? Many I believe.

So did I.

Recently I have visit a site (Written in Hebrew in this case) which filters Netscape-like browsers because the lame Hebrew support the older Netscape browsers had (Netscape 6 and earlier I think) and encouraged me to download IE 5.5 "because it's free and 80% of people use it".

After using the User Agent Switcher to pretend I'm using IE6 the site was loaded successfully without any problem.

I sent the owners of the site an email telling them that their site DOES support Netscape browsers and correcting them that 60% use IE and no everyone (non-Windows users) can use IE or want to use it.

I got an emails back from them, which translated they mean:
"We did a check with the one responsible for the technical and computer system and he updated us that the site does support Netscape.
We will soon open a new website which will be easier to navigate and available in any browser."

A few days before the response I got the nasty and pointless redirection disappeared. Another victory for Firefox! :D

In the bottom line: If a website claims to not support Firefox, check it deeply and then complain, it really does help!

You made Firefox your default browser, removed any shortcuts to IE, removed access to it and even bought XP Lite to remove the exe files and the rendering engine, but you still have leftovers of IE?

Follow this guide and you will get rid of these leftovers of IE:
-The Favorites menu in Windows Explorer
-IE Related menu items in Windows Explorer
-The Tools menu (It's because Bill hardcoded the Favorites and Tools menu together, you can add the Network Drive and Folder options buttons to your toolbar if you want.)
-MS Products icons in the taskbar setup
-Changes in random IE-related dialogs.
-About Windows (Funnly enough, it's still displayed as "About Windows 95" in the resources) and Is this copy of Windows legal. (Blame Bill for hard coding again. I believe everyone knows if his copy is legal or not anyway.)

Example Changes:

Before	After

A random IE dialog included in browselc.dll. I have no idea when it's actually used.

Before	After

Replacing IE and WMP with Firefox and Winamp. (Winamp not shown in this screenshot)

Before	After

Replacing the icons with the non-MS equivalent. Windows Movie Maker was replaced by Seamonkey because I don't know a non-MS equivalent for it on Windows. Hearts was replaced by a random game I made.

How to install:
This should be used only on Windows XP in English.
1. Open "c:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcache\" with your favorite file browser.
This is where Bill keeps a copy of all system files that shouldn't be deleted. (e.g. shell32, IE, Outlook Express, Paint, Notepad and Minesweeper. (System files indeed!))
2. Delete (or move to a back up folder) explorer.exe and browselc.dll from this folder, so Bill won't restore the original copies of the files.
*. At anytime of the process, if a popup message about Windows File Protection appears, press Cancel and then Yes.
3. Download this file and unzip the files to a folder. These are the original version of the files after resource hacking.
4. Press Ctrl+Alt+Del, go to the process tab and close explorer.exe. You will notice the taskbar is gone too.
5. Use a file browser (Which is not Windows Explorer!) or an MS-DOS prompt to copy explorer.exe to C:\WINDOWS\ and browselc.dll to C:\WINDOWS\system32\. It will override older files. (If you have IETab installed you can open the needed folders in Firefox.)
6. Ctrl+Alt+Del again. This time do New Task and enter explorer.exe.
7. If this doesn't work try restart explorer again or restarting Windows.

Enjoy your IE-Free shell. :)