Done with Chrome, switched to Firefox!

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Originally Posted By: ClutchDisc
You can turn IE off under the control panel, no need to keep it.


Don't you need IE for Windows Updates?

I will say I really like Chrome. I can wirelessly print from it, it's my pdf reader, It allows me to save anything as a pdf, Flash is built in and updates by itself, it syncs between my Chromebook, Android devices, Linux laptop and Windows laptop. I have the Google Voice extension so I can text or call right from the browser, Google Mail extension, Ad Block...I really never stopped to think how great Chrome was until I started typing! I could go on but you get the picture.

I have IE on my work computer, it works just fine.
 
Originally Posted By: dishdude
Originally Posted By: ClutchDisc
You can turn IE off under the control panel, no need to keep it.


Don't you need IE for Windows Updates?

No.
 
Originally Posted By: ClutchDisc
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: ClutchDisc
You can turn IE off under the control panel, no need to keep it.


Can I remove it?

You can only turn it off. To do that, you need to go to the uninstall a program link on the control panel. At the top left you will see "turn windows features on or off". Click that.


I realize that, I just wanted to know if I can safely remove the program, free up the disk space, and still have Win 7 get the important updates.
 
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I realize that, I just wanted to know if I can safely remove the program, free up the disk space, and still have Win 7 get the important updates.

Sorry I don't think I quite understood what you were asking before. There is no way I know of to remove IE as in uninstalling it. As far as I know, you can only turn it off. But you don't need IE for windows updates.
 
Originally Posted By: ClutchDisc
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I realize that, I just wanted to know if I can safely remove the program, free up the disk space, and still have Win 7 get the important updates.

Sorry I don't think I quite understood what you were asking before. There is no way I know of to remove IE as in uninstalling it. As far as I know, you can only turn it off. But you don't need IE for windows updates.


That's what I thought, thanks!
 
I keep Firefox, chrome, and safari installed to see how my sites look, but gave up Safari (except for the iphone and ipads) as it doesn't remember my log-in's and tells me that the site doesn't allow it to memorize. Never became a fan of Chrome.

Firefox synchronizes fine.
 
If you like how chrome works but hate the bloated nature and privacy invasion, I HIGHLY suggest checking out Comodo Dragon. It is a lite version of Chrome and is more secure. No privacy tracking in Comodo Dragon.

I'd also suggest SW Iron, too.

Both still work with your gmail accounts to keep bookmarks, pw, etc. They can both use all chrome extensions, too.
 
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If you use Windows Live as your email client, you have to have IE installed even if you never use it. Without IE installed, Windows Live will default to offline mode. I found this out after uninstalling (remove check mark by it in Windows features) IE10 after I started using Maxthon. Windows Live got stuck in offline mode and nothing could get it into online mode. Found out about the reliance on IE, re-installed it and Windows Live Email defaulted to online mode again and worked fine.
 
Originally Posted By: Zeus33
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
Chrome also takes a long time to load, and uses more memory, but runs stable.


How old is your system? Chrome doesn't load, it opens instantly.


Chrome and Firefox both take many seconds to "appear" on the screen after calling for them on both of my laptops. Both are nearly 10 years old with 1.5-2.0 GHz processors and 1-2 GB of RAM. One boots primarily to Xubuntu and one dual-boots Xubuntu and Windows 7. Our desktop is a year-old Dell and Chrome and FF both load pretty fast on it.

Do you let Chrome run in the background, such as for Chrome remote desktop or Gmail offline? If that is the case, then Chrome is always running on your computer and it won't have to load.
 
I detest chrome. Its a decent browser but not for me.

I use firefox with adblock plus for 95% of browsing

there are a FEW things that I use IE 11 for.

if your computers are that old its probably a combination of hdd speed and processor.

SSD made it go from 3-4s to instant on my notebook
 
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd


Chrome and Firefox both take many seconds to "appear" on the screen after calling for them on both of my laptops. Both are nearly 10 years old with 1.5-2.0 GHz processors and 1-2 GB of RAM. One boots primarily to Xubuntu and one dual-boots Xubuntu and Windows 7. Our desktop is a year-old Dell and Chrome and FF both load pretty fast on it.

Do you let Chrome run in the background, such as for Chrome remote desktop or Gmail offline? If that is the case, then Chrome is always running on your computer and it won't have to load.


It must just be an age thing, or I could see the 1gb RAM system taking a while. Everything I use has at least 2 gigs of RAM. Most are 4 or more.

No, I don't let it run in the background (I don't let hardly anything run in the background), and I don't use gmail. I minimize my startup items, etc, to make sure all available power is used to do the function I want done, not to run other things in the background.

At least it functions properly on your newer setup.

I've seen it load slow on certain systems, but they usually have a bunch of extensions that have to process.

Slightly off topic, do you notice it's quicker in Xubuntu than W7?
 
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Unless you go into advanced settings within Chrome, it does stay open in the background, even when you close it by default. You have to disable that "feature" to get it to actually close and terminate the process.
 
Originally Posted By: Zeus33
Slightly off topic, do you notice it's quicker in Xubuntu than W7?


No...applications are about as slow in Xubuntu as in Windows 7. Chrome takes about 2-3 seconds to appear from being called, and takes another 2-3 seconds to actually respond to typing in the omnibox. It's much faster on Windows 8 (with 4 GB RAM). It loads instantly on my Chromebook...but then again, it should.
wink.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Rand
I detest chrome. Its a decent browser but not for me.

I use firefox with adblock plus for 95% of browsing

there are a FEW things that I use IE 11 for.

if your computers are that old its probably a combination of hdd speed and processor.

SSD made it go from 3-4s to instant on my notebook

+1 I have to use chrome for my school website because it doesn't play well with Firefox. But everything else I use Firefox with Adblock Plus.

By the way, I'm really liking the little updates to Firefox with FF 31. Anyone else on 31 yet?
 
Originally Posted By: badtlc
Unless you go into advanced settings within Chrome, it does stay open in the background, even when you close it by default. You have to disable that "feature" to get it to actually close and terminate the process.


True. Like I said, my systems are very minimized.

Or if you don't want to disable it all the time, do this: In order to close Google Chrome completely when background apps are running, select Exit from the Chrome menu.

Regardless, the default settings would help speed up his launch, not slow him down.
 
I re-installed Windows XP on the older desktop last night from the recovery discs I had made before I put Xubuntu on it. I will modify my earlier comment about Chrome being slow to load. Even on this older hardware, it does load pretty snappy. It's a single-core Athlon 1.7 GHz processor with 2 GB of RAM running on a 160 GB 7,200 RPM HDD. Chrome is up and online within 2 seconds at the most. If I close it out with the red X in the upper right corner, all of the Chrome processes that resided in memory eventually (within about 5 seconds) are killed, at least according to Windows XP's task manager.

This computer seemed pretty slow with Xubuntu on it, and both Chrome and Firefox would leave me twiddling my thumbs for a few seconds waiting for the browser to load. It would take about 3 seconds for it to appear then another 3 seconds or so for you to be able to type anything into the box, or pick a bookmark. Maybe it was just the OS.

Chrome does load in the snap of a finger on my work computer (Core i5 with Windows 7 and 4 GB RAM) and at least as fast on our home computer (Pentium G2030 with Windows 8.1 and 4 GB of RAM). I do have Chrome processes on the home computer running all the time probably; our non-wireless printer is a Google Cloud printer via the Chrome browser. I love that; I can print something on my home printer from Chrome on my work computer or my Chromebook. I also really like Chrome's remote desktop...so I do have processes in memory, so it makes sense that the browser would appear instantaneously on that machine.
 
on my xubuntu install FF takes about 1.5 sec to open while chrome variants take about 4 because I disable the background running option. On that machine, Xubuntu runs waaaay faster than XP or any windows OS. Enabling HDD caching and a few other performance tweaks probably helped as well as which FS you pick.
 
Originally Posted By: Hokiefyd
I re-installed Windows XP on the older desktop last night from the recovery discs I had made before I put Xubuntu on it. I will modify my earlier comment about Chrome being slow to load. Even on this older hardware, it does load pretty snappy. It's a single-core Athlon 1.7 GHz processor with 2 GB of RAM running on a 160 GB 7,200 RPM HDD. Chrome is up and online within 2 seconds at the most. If I close it out with the red X in the upper right corner, all of the Chrome processes that resided in memory eventually (within about 5 seconds) are killed, at least according to Windows XP's task manager.

This computer seemed pretty slow with Xubuntu on it, and both Chrome and Firefox would leave me twiddling my thumbs for a few seconds waiting for the browser to load. It would take about 3 seconds for it to appear then another 3 seconds or so for you to be able to type anything into the box, or pick a bookmark. Maybe it was just the OS.



That's good news! Yeah, Windows needs to be refreshed from time to time to keep everything running smoothly. If you really want to be impressed, upgrade to a SSD. The prices have come down a decent amount lately and they average around 50 cents a gig. On desktops, you can use a fairly small drive for your OS drive and then keep the old platter drive for your data. You will be amazed at how quickly programs open. They really breathe new life into old rigs that don't have a lot of processing power and RAM.
 
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I know this is starting to veer off topic, but...

I refreshed that desktop in order to sell it. I intend to put it on Craigslist this weekend. I'm going to replace it with a Chromebox. Windows 8.1 runs just fine on our "main" desktop computer, the one that my wife uses, and it'll stay that way. We tried an OS X experiment a year or two ago, and she didn't like that. She knows Windows, she's comfortable with it, and it works. The worst thing I have to do is cough up $10-15 each year for a NOD32 license. I can live with that.

But for the computers I mess with, I like Chrome OS. I tried X/Ubuntu on a few of my older machines, and it was generally fine, but it didn't knock my socks off. They were slower to boot than Windows (especially XP, which boots pretty quickly), but they also weren't really any faster once up and running either. Every time I'd turn one on, it'd bug me about updates, and they often needed a computer restart to complete. Turning the computer on, and letting it update and restart, is often a 5-10 minute affair, and when I'm simply wanting some Pandora out in the garage to listen to, waiting for a computer to update for 10 minutes isn't what I'm interested in. Not necessarily a knock on Ubuntu itself...that's just the nature of the beast for a complex and powerful OS like it or like Windows.

That's why I'm liquidating some older equipment to buy a Chromebox. It's a true hands-off experience. You turn it on and it's on. You get a system update once every six weeks. I can handle that.
 
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