1. what are the advantages and disadvantages of having firefox browser over internet explorer?

1.) Here is what the professionals say about the advantages and disadvantages:

C/net

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10442_7-6656808-1.htm...

Most professionals agree with C/net that Firefox is the all around better browser:

PC world

Wall Street Journal

Computerworld

http://cache.gizmodo.com/assets/resources/2006/10/...

More specifically:

Here is the historical and present values of security holes with IE & Firefox side by side

http://www.webdevout.net/security_summary.php#vuln...

Because IE has more open security holes it is much easier to steal your ID

http://secunia.com/Internet_Explorer_Arbitrary_Con...

Even the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team recommends you not use IE:

"There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies related to the IE domain/zone...It is possible to reduce exposure to these vulnerabilities by using a different web browser"

http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/713878

IE depends on ActiveX for some features to work, but it can be very dangerous. Here is what Microsoft says about ActiveX:

"An ActiveX control can be an extremely insecure way to provide a feature...From the moment a user downloads an ActiveX control, the control may be vulnerable to attack..."

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=...

(Firefox doesn't use ActiveX at all)

As you can see Firefox has a huge advantage in security.

A disadvantage that I can think of is that there are a very few websites that may not look correct in Firefox (in my years of using FF I've only run across a few). The fact that IE has over 80% of the market share means that web developers have to develop websites with IE in mind, but IE's webstandards are very poor so web developers have to downgrade their websites to work properly in IE. So when superior browsers such as Firefox or Opera browsers view a website, it sometimes does not show up correctly because the website was broken to show up properly in IE. Try the test yourself using IE & Firefox

http://webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html

(with superior browser gaining ground lately, web developers are now creating websites more standards compliant meaning that almost all websites should look fine in FF)

2.) I'm using Linux Firefox so its a little different than Windows Firefox. Follow the directions that somebody else said above me to set your hompage.

Yes, keep IE (its impossible to uninstall anyway - just don't use it)

Just double click the FF icon to open it

3.) Add yahoo & google tool bar

http://toolbar.yahoo.com/config/slv4_page?.p=downl...

http://tools.google.com/firefox/toolbar/install.ht...

4.) When you install FF you will be asked if you want to import stuff from IE

If you want, you can make FF look exactly like IE6

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3984/previews/

5.) Changing to FF should take care of the "IE encountered a problem and needs to close..." simply because its a different browser

1. Firefox is generally more secure and offers more functionality by using extensions. The problem is you might have to spend a little time to set it up properly, where IE just works fine out of the box.

2. To make Firefox your browser, you just doubleclick on the desktop icon. It will ask you if you want to make it your main browser to open webpages. Select yes. All webpages will now automatically be opened with Firefox.

You cannot uninstall IE. It's an intergral part of Windows. You can, however, delete the desktop icon.

3. Go to yahoo and download the toolbar. It'll work on Firefox as well as IE. I don't know why you'd want the toolbar, however, you already have search and all other functionality elsewhere.

4. Firefox has it's own buttons that offer the same functionality. You can change those, but it's a hassle. It's best just to get used to the Firefox buttons.

5. Yes, but now you might be getting the message "Firefox encountered a problem and needs to close. We are sorry if you lose anything you are working on.". All browsers can crash.

1. Firefox has a better spam protection, loads websites faster (seemingly faster) and has a better engine to deal with graphics especially canvas. It does take more resources and it has a few basic bugs like refusing to submit when a page isn't completely downloaded but it is far better than IE.

2. Whenever you start Firefox it will check if it is the default browser, if it isn't you'll be prompted to make it. Removing IE is quite a hassle, you'll have to remove its backup copy from windows installation first then remove it.

3. Add-ons for Firefox are available either at the site you want to link to (like yahoo) or at Firefox's site.

4. Firefox will ask if you want to import stuff from IE but I don't think buttons will be included, guess you can't do that.

5. Firefox crashes much less then IE, so you'll pretty much forget that phrase. Furthermore, if Firefox crashes, it automatically re-launches usually remembering all your tags so you'll be quite where you left.

Get Firefox.

Firefox seems to be much more web standard compliant, which means that it displays web sites more accurately and with less loading errors than IE. Firefox does eats up a lot of ram though. IE7 (the newest version) has a lot of features similar to firefox though, so it might be very similar. I strongly recommend firefox, but everyone has their own ideas. I'm sure you'll get a lot of responses on this question.

1)see the link below

2) you can use both together

3)you can add yahoo toolbar for firefox

4)firefox is similar in its interface with IE, so there should be no problem using it

5)The IE shutdown error does not occur in firefox much

IE is slow in booting up and loading pages, Firefox is just the opposite !