Firefox/WinXP Bleg
by tgirschSeptember 14th, 2007
For some reason, when I click on HTML links in programs like Outlook, Word, or even Thunderbird, it opens them in IE, even though I have Firefox set as my system default browser.
Any easy way to fix that?
Service Pack 7.04 from Ubuntu.net fixes that.
heh. You beat me to it.
OK, so how about a fix for someone who has to (or even just wants to) use Windows?
(And for what it’s worth, I’ll gladly switch to Linux when I don’t have to jump through 17 hoops just to get a friggin wireless NIC to work. Not to mention being able to get a corporate VPN client to work without having to do a custom compile and build of the kernel…)
Well, then, my guess would be that fx isn’t really the default browser, even though it might think it is. I’d open firefox’s options and click on “check now” in the first tab to see if fx is the default browser. If it finds it isn’t, it’ll change it for you. I’d be surprised if that didn’t fix it.
If that doesn’t fix it, I’d run a check for spyware that might be changing the registry setting (spybot s&d is prob your best bet).
One of the nice things about linux is not having ie at all.
Or spyware, for that matter.
Thanks, I’ll give that a try. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Windows has more than one default browser setting. The only browser that appears at the top of my start menu is Firefox, though.
And I’d love to be able to run Linux, but it just isn’t there yet. If all you do is write word documents and surf the web (from a wired connection) it’s pretty nice. But if you need to use custom software for work, or a VPN, or wireless internet, it’s still seriously lacking (as of 9 months ago, the last time I messed with it).
I installed Ubuntu two or three months ago. It took some tweaking to get the resolution right on my laptop’s screen, and the wireless took the better part of the day. I thoroughly enjoy the whole thing and never use windows unless I have to. But like you, I have to at work when I use certain programs. But I was able to get on our wireless network at the office with some tweaking.
In short, I’d say that aside from proprietary programs, which can’t be helped, the only thing is having time and energy to do mild tweaking.
But as for your default browser, the top of the windows list is a ruse; it doesn’t necessarily signify your default browser. Let us know if you get the thing working right.
Our field guys, and millions of other folks, run wireless internet with Windows XP. It’s pretty darn simple to configure.
In general, it’s easy to configure wireless in linux as well. The problem is that some card manufacturers won’t support linux and make it hard on linux devs, much like many web sites used to look bad in mozilla before it became more popular. But over the past year or two, more and more people have been realizing that Firefox is far superior to IE, even if it takes a little more effort at the beginning….
jonathan:
Is my face red! That was it, all right.
As for Linux and Wireless, that’s never been my experience. And I’ve had machines with Broadcom wireless hardware, which Linux instantly recognizes but which still didn’t work. As Ted says, WinXP was a snap. That’s some egg in the face of Linux, in my estimation. Windows should never be better at anything.
You’re wrong about Broadcom, actually. The ubuntu forums are filled with people desperately trying to get Broadcom cards to work and numerous solutions, of which one will probably work. It took me at least a full day trying to get mine to work before I got lucky. (Incidentally, linux idd “recognize” it instantly, but it couldn’t do anything with it … and this is because the damn card is so cheap more than anything.)
That’s not an egg in the face of linux. It’s just a sign that hardware developers don’t feel like it’s worth it to develop for linux.
Anyway, it hardly matters, really. And I’m glad you got your browser thing straightened out. I love me some firefox.
It’s just a sign that hardware developers don’t feel like it’s worth it to develop for linux.
Because it isn’t.
Believe me, I love me some free OS, but people generally like to get paid for their work, and it’s proven challenging to build any sort of profit model around Linux.
Anyway, thanks again for the help.
people generally like to get paid for their work, and it’s proven challenging to build any sort of profit model around Linux
Well, I’m hesitating on Linux for the same reasons you are, but I don’t know that that is fairly put down to Linux’s fault. It’s the OEMs who aren’t providing drivers for their own hardware - something that in most cases other people are doing for them for free, so the OEMs can profit from selling more hardware that Linux-heads will then support for them. They complain that they can’t make money in the Linux market, when the Linux people are paying them for useless hardware to which they then add value; meanwhile Microsoft charges developers for dev packages so the developers can produce software that runs with Microsoft’s OS, and they willingly pay Microsoft for that privilege.
It seems like the entire computer industry is filled with whiney buggers who feel they’re entitled to be paid to make their own products usable after they’ve already been paid for the products - and who then openly mock the people who are improving their products for them for free.
Good point.
It’s a cost-benefit thing. With profit margins on most PC hardware razor-thin, it’s not worth the extra development cost to make drivers for a niche OS that is used by only a very small percentage of your potential customer base. I wish it weren’t so, but it is so.
And for what it’s worth, this problem seems to be almost completely unique to wireless NICs. Pretty much every other piece of hardware I have — scanners, digital cameras, printers, etc. — works flawlessly in Linux with no effort on my part. It even recognizes my el-cheapo card reader that Windows had trouble with.