Did you guys uninstall IE?

I'm confused. Did you guys uninstall your IE? I'm wondering how to make it so that Foxfire is my default browser so that when I check my email through MSN Messenger, it will open with FF. Is there a way to do this?

i don't think so.  i just check it in IE

in Firefox go to Tools->options->General->check default Borwser

get another msn client. msn messenger sucks.
I personnaly like mercury, but I don't have the IE problem because I use Linux and don't use a hotmail-email

UNINSTALL EVERYTHING AND USE LINUX. LINUX. FOR ALL YOUR PROBLEMS.

Some newer versions of Windoze make it impossible to remove IE and Outlook completely, but you can make something else your default browser.

"newer" being Windows 98 and later.

the only reason i'm not switching from msnm is the neato handwriting plugin which is like a no-hassle whiteboard. if anything else accomplishes this well, i switch.

While MSN Messenger opens links that have been sent to you by your chat buddies in your default browser, it always uses IE to open hotmail mails. There's no exceptions. Microsoft are crazy like that.

stop running microsoft for anything but games

Why would I want to disable IE? I just set it to the minimum settings (to minimize bugs) and use Mozilla... I have nothing that opens IE, and if I do, it's uninstalled as soon as it does. I keep IE for those sucky old nonstandard sites I *have* to browse (like, for work).

>>10
I don't even use it for games. I take my games seriously; if people keep using Windows for games, producers will keep writing games for Windows. Luckily many newer games are released on Linux these days. If only Valve were as good as ID :(

>>12

Unfortunately, Linux still sucks for realtime multimedia applications. It has complicated, inconsistent, problematic sound, graphics, and input systems, and it tends to be more laggy and slower than Windows. Windows was designed to run on a single machine, X Windows' client-server architecture fucks everything up.

Linux is awful for gaming, really. People who say its great for games are the sort of people who make a big deal out of it having  gimp  which is a shit photoshop clone or that it ALMOST WORKS the first time you install it. Linux is a joke for desktop systems.

I'm afraid there's still a lot of work to do on Linux for it to be usable as a desktop OS. Sure, it's free. Sure, it has very, very nice console stuff. (99% of which Windows does too, and without Cygwin) Sure, it's not Microsoft (and believe me, this is my favorite thing of Linux). But I need to work fast and efficiently, and I grew tired of hand editing bizarre configuration files and stuff that ALMOST WORKS. Windows has its problems, but it's much more polished and offers better performance as for desktop, multimedia, video, and gaming applications.

>>15
I'd agree with that pretty much. Its a shame because open source is a great idea, linux as a desktop or gaming environment just needs more a massive amount of more work.

(apologies for bad english)

>> I'm afraid there's still a lot of work to do on Linux for it to be usable as a desktop OS

Ubuntu?

>> Windows... offers better performance as for desktop, multimedia, video, and gaming applications.

Not in my experience.

desktops:
windows for games, everyrhting else is linux or bsd

>>19

What about Photoshop, 3D Studio, ...?

>>20
Maybe 3d studio. I don't like photoshop on linux. Gimp all the way.

>>21

Hardly comparable. What about emulators, Trillian, professional CD/DVD authoring software, font editors, ...?

>>22
windows for games and proprietary windows software.

trillian? try gaim

linux and bsd is entirely capable for desktop applications

>>23

Technically, MS-DOS and Windows 95 are too

>>24
ms-dos and windows95 are limited, linux and freebsd is only limited by the availibily of software designed for them, not an inherrent limitation such as ms-dos or windows95

companies could easily make 3dstudio run on linux, etc etc for any windows-influenced product you can name

its about windows exclusivity of software $$$, not the capabilities of the open source operating systems... in almost every other aspect besides skewed corporate development of software... the open source operating systems are far superior

>>21
gimp is pretty shit really, its poor software.

>>25
Yeah like betamax was far superior to vhs. Who cares. I just want to play games not fuck around on it  for eleven hours to get them to even load.

the first step to improving the Linux desktop is making X suck less...a lot less.

then the desktop environment developers need to take lessons on UI design, and stop chasing behind the Windows/MacOS tail-lights.

>>28
i guess i should re-evaluate my second statement. while I abhor the major DE's like GNOME and KDE, the E17 project has pretty much got it all right.

the only problem is that (outside of the obtuse text-file configuration) there are 0 native applications outside of the bare essentials (window manager, file manager, login manager, terminal emulator, application dock, etc), and it lacks any decent multimedia or networking framework. then again, i don't think Rasterman meant his project to be used outside of the "experimental sandbox" context.

another related problem is that with the foothold that GTK+ and Qt have gained since the inception of the Linux desktop, it's highly unlikely that EWL applications will enjoy the same widespread success as, say, Gaim or k3b.

>>29
in addition, E17 is a fiercely exclusive project in the sense that the developers conscientiously refuse to cooperate with outside projects and standards on freedesktop.org and such. i'm also not sure how nicely it plays with internationalization standards such as i18n and UTF-8.

>>14
Poor guy, I was a n00b when I installed it and I had no problems then and no problems now. I use it as my desktop, so I watch videos, play mp3s/oggs, and do whatever the hell I want. And I rarely find a program that I want without a distro related binary, dunno when you tried it.

>>31
Meant 15

i dont think anyone is arguing that linux is easier to use than windows or macs. if you want your games to Just Work, buy an xbox or a ps2.

as far as i can tell, linux (2.6 kernel) is a MUCH better desktop than windows. under load, it is still really responsive. windows gets hella slow with 100% cpu usage. the UI is much also more customizable and generally can be better designed than windows, especially in using the keyboard for basic navigation.  terminals are also much easier to use on linux. they are such a pain on windows.

in my experience games have been at least as easy to install under linux as windows. they also install themselves nicely in a single folder and put their config files nicely in your home directory, instead of spewing random shit all over the place like they do in windows. they also run just as fast as on windows.

about linux having less apps than windows: yeah it does have less apps. many, many less. but the apps generally actually freaking work nicely and dont spew random shit all over the place. they dont take over your entire system and irreversably install themselves in every nook and crany and pop up all the freaking time trying to do everything for you. linux also has some nice apps not available on windows.

mplayer plays every video i have every tried to play with it just fine. it took me ages to set up all my codecs and crap under windows

gimp and gaim are both excellent apps and work better under linux than windows

updating linux (atleast with gentoo) is much easier than windows. no navigating stupid websites all the time, just type "emerge sync && emerge -uD world" and wait a little while...
in the same vein, installing progams is generally much easier. to install the gimp, for instance, just type "emerge gimp-2.0," no looking around for installers, downloading them, clicking through stupid wizards, etc.

anyway, i can do everything better under linux that i could under windows, and it doesnt constantly piss me off.

Ah, fuck. Another gentoo idiot. Please, please take your ignorant adolescent blather and go back to the gentoo forums. You guys are worse than Mac zealots; you're half as intelligent, and twice as loud.

>>34
Hey, don't shit on all us Gentoo users just because one of the blathering newbs decided to post here!

lol gentoo sux

More people should Dual-boot Fedora and WinXP. it actually works quite nicely. i use mostly linux for what i do(web browsing and e-mail and chat), and i get more work done that way. (granted, its mostly because most of my favorite games dont work with linux, and im too lazy to reboot...)

but when i want to play a game, or watch anime, i have to switch to windows. why for videos, you ask? because i have 120 gigs of NTFS filestorage. and i cant access it in Fedora. :(

get fedora to 'play nice' with NTFS and i'll switch completely to linux.

you can mount ntfs from linux

>>38
Yes, you can, but you better not write to it :)

>>39
yea write support is still sketchy

but the project is still active, it will get better

can sure as hell playback anime from an ntfs drive tho