The Real Deal 164: Chrome vs. Firefox

Tom and Rafe square off on whether Chrome or Firefox is best for your browsing.

Which should you use?

Rafe and Tom discuss

Speed

Ease of use

Plug-ins-Add-ons

Downloads

Compatibility

Security

Other browsers
IE, Opera, Safari

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Comments on Firefox

Hi Tom and Rafe
I use Firefox because of its ability to remember what position I previously scaled the resolution to fit my TV (monitor). Example CNET TV does not scale well because of the video player. However CNET homepage scales great, so I scale the homepage to fit the screen but leave the CNET TV page set to its default size. Chrome does not remember the scaling upon restart nor does it have the ability to scale on one Web page and not another.

Chrome does not correctly display Web pages as designed. Example: Chrome does not display CNET TV tabs correctly. The tabs are displayed on two rows above the player. So I decided to use Firefox, the new 3.5 beta 4, it's fast, dependable and has features that I need. If you use a large screen HDTV to display Web pages I recommend using Firefox.

Final thought: Chrome is really fast and I think the tab features are great. For home use I would use Firefox, for work I would use Chrome.
I am looking forward to the show.

Jimmie from KC

Comments on Chrome
Tom/Rafe,

I love using Google Chrome. I tried using for my company’s internal Web site, but it displays HTML codes in some form fields, it is kind of annoying.

Love the show,

Mandeep

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When you do a search in Chrome, every occurrence of the string is highlighted. Not only that, but the line that each result is on is marked on the scroll bar, so you can scroll through the text normally but still see where every occurrence is.

-The way that Chrome handles searching is better than Firefox. In Firefox you have a search bar which takes up extra space. And you have to choose your search engine from a drop-down menu. And you have to remember to change it back by default.

-In Chrome, if I wanted to search Wikipedia instead of Google, I would begin to type Wikipedia. After a few letters, upon being prompted, I would press tab and then type in the search string.

-Firefox supports AdblockPlus, the best way to block ads. Chrome doesn’t have any good ad blocking program.

Tony

Questions

Dear Tom and Rafe,

First off, I’ve been a longtime listener since before Rafe was permanently on the cast. This is my first time to write in though, and this one’s mostly for Rafe.

I’ll try to make this short and to the point. I too have 2 security cameras (Axis 207W) and a WHS (homebuilt). My router is WRT54GS (which also loses internet connectivity daily) with a EZSX88W switch for more jacks. I wired the house to include the cameras so there’s no need for wireless. How do I (do you) access the cameras remotely? You briefly went over it on the real deal but I need a bit more please. You assigned them each a port number. How do you do that? You use a WHS addon to get to the cameras. Which one, and how? Please help if you have a few moments, it would be greatly appreciated. I’m in the Army and I’m gone from home for months at a time. I’d like to be able to log in and see and hear my wife and kids while deployed.

Thanks for the shows guys!

Sincerely,
Staff Sergeant Kyle Keith

RAFE: WHS

First of all, for my cams, I assigned each one a static IP on my home lan, and also a static port. So camera one is 192.168.1.199:15101 and two is 192.168.1.200:15102

For remote access to my WHS, I use the free homeserver.com DDNS service.

I added a link on my WHS home page to map to mydomain.homeserver.com:port1 and :port2 (for my two cameras)

To add the links to my WHS page, I use the WHS addon WHIIST.

The hard part was getting mydomain.homeserver.com:Port1 and :port2 to redirect to my cameras.

Using my WRT54GL, I just opened ports to them, and then the links worked. One trick: The NAT range I had on my router was lower than my cams. So my router was doing NAT from 192.168.1.1 to .149. The cameras, as i said ealier, were 192.168.1.199 and .200.

I finally got fed up with my WRT54GL and its need for constant reboots, and have just installed a DLink DIR-655. The port redirection trick didn’t work. I had to use the “virtural server” option on the DLink and not port redirection to get incoming links to go to my camera. As with the WRT, the NAT routing and the static urls of my panasaonic cameras don’t overlap.

I’m sure there’s a better way to do this, but this seems to be working for now.

My advice: If you want to talk with your family when you’re deployed, use Skype and a Webcam. Security cams are great for peeking in and for security, but not for dialog and interaction.

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Hi Guys! (This is flowdd, the guy talking about chrome on the last podcast)

Well, I have just purchased a nice pocket video camcorder, that shoots in HD and I would really like to be able to edit this video and post it to the web, but my computer is pretty slow. I can’t really afford to get a new computer right now but I was wondering do you know any simple video editing software that would work well on slower computers, and that could handle HD video?
–
Thank You!
-flowdd

http://tv.isg.si/site/?q=node/873

Ultimately HD video is large and slow.

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Hi guys,

I just started watching the show and find it very helpful. I have Verizon FIOS for my internet, which they include their own wireless modem/router. Up until now I have been using my own Linksys router (I believe it is the WRT54G) to keep my wireless network “locked down”. The installer suggested that I not use my own router as it may cause problems with my internet connection and that the router they include will do all of the same things I was already doing. This includes using a long WEP password, and only allowing certain MAC address to access the wireless network and also turning off the broadcasting. I feel that using their router only somehow allows them access or is not as secure as using my own router. I have changed the admin password on the router after the tech installed it.

Should I use both routers, get a new one or just continue to use the one provided by Verizon? Thoughts?

Thanks,

Rich

Next time: Road Test

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