Question For All You Firefox Users

Edit menu > Preferences > General Tab .. Downloads .. Always Ask Me Where To Save Files.

You should also have a similar option if you right click the link for the download file, I think.

Gary.

I got rid of Firefox with Windows 8. Every time I turned around I had problems with it on some sites. But if I remember correctly in the settings you put check mark in select where to download. That way just point to old poi with the new one to get message. Do you want to replace.

You may want to try Google Chrome browser on your XP machine. I go back and forth with Firefox and Chrome on my XP laptop and feel the Chrome is a little faster.

I prefer Chrome to the others.

That would be Tools (press Alt T) - Options - General
or
click Firefox (on the top left corner) - Options - General

Another way:
right click the link to download a file, click Save Link As...

There is no Preferences on the Edit menu.

The only thing I have found is Tools-->Options and I have been all through those. I could not find any option related to Downloads or the location to save a file.

In Options window, click General (on the top left corner of Options window, right under the word "Options"). Then look under Downloads section. There are 2 choices:

Save files to (click Browse button if you want to change it)
Ask me where to save files (click this if you want FF to ask every time you download)

I set mine to Save files to: Desktop

And I thought I read all the options. Somehow, the wording of that option didn't click in my brain when I first read it. But I tried it and that got me what I was looking for.

THANKS!

It is much easier to find.

I agree. Setting the download location to a folder on the desktop works best for me as well. I've used Firefox for years on both my Win7 and Win 8 machines with no problems. Used Chrome for a bit and had one issue after another. It's gone now.

Since Windows 3.0, I have never been the type to put a lot of icons - folders, files or shortcuts, on my desktop. Right now, it only has four. My Win 7 laptop only has 1 - the recycle bin

Tools -> Options -> General, at the bottom half of the General options.

Haven't used IE in this century. In fact, it is blocked on all of my firewalls from even reaching the Internet. Safer that way if someone tries to exploit IE by getting it to connect where it shouldn't (and my firewalls have caught that happening).

Firefox is nice for some things, Chrome is nice for others. I still use Firefox mostly because there are some extensions that I depend on that I can't get for Chrome. I suggest playing with both and seeing which you like the most, but either is much better than IE.

Interesting. I'm using Firefox 22.0 as well, but on Linux. I would have thought the menus would be the same regardless of OS, but clearly not.

Glad you got it sorted out, in any event.

Duplicate post, sorry

I found that option yesterday, changed it and got the behavior I was looking for. I'm all good now.

I download everything automatically to the desktop. That way, I don't have any downloads stashed somewhere and forgotten. If it's on the desktop, that means I have work to do.

Firefox has served me well through Windows XP, 7 and 8.

Gary A - a little off topic but if you haven't done so already I'd suggest checking out the NoScript and Adblock Plus add-ons.

Are you able to update your Internet Explorer? I think you can use the newer IE with XP, it's a good idea to keep up with the updates for windows. If it isn't an automatic update it might be an optional update.

IE 8 is the latest version supported on XP. You can't install IE 9 or 10 on XP.

Correct. That's the root cause of my problems with some newer websites. IE8 can't handle them and IE8 is the most recent version available for WinXP. On my Win7 laptop I was able to upgrade to IE9 and now IE10.

My wife is the primary user of this old desktop system. I have offered to get her a new PC but not being very tech savvy, she has told me "NO" in no uncertain terms. So, I keep it running. Last year, the 8-year old 120GB HDD finally gave up the ghost. At least it was a SATA drive which is current technology. My in-laws PC is even older and when I needed a replacement HDD for their system, I had to settle for a "gently used" one... have you tried to find a "new" EIDE HDD lately?

I installed a new 500GB HDD in this old desktop and scratch loaded WinXP and all the application programs... took me several days. Earlier this year, I replaced the power supply (bad fan), the case fan and the CPU fan on the heatsink. It's been rebuilt and just keeps running, which makes her happy. Heck, she is still using MS Money 1999 and that product was discontinued years ago. But, she understands it and doesn't want to change. It's like old WordPerfect users who wouldn't change to MS Word.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.... IE is reserved for Windows updates....if I feel they are necessary. That's about it. I loaded in the 'IEtabs' add-on. It's great! Even did a Windows Updates in Firefox with IE tabs once. Took all the IE shortcuts off the machine. My guests just have to deal with it.

Before I start, I want to confirm this is not intended to start a flame war. I'm merely about to mention something you might want to consider in order to breathe new life in that box before Microsoft blocks XP users.

What I did, was install Lubuntu. It's a very lightweight Ubuntu-based system, which you can test easily with a Live CD (always a recommended approach). It does not have the fancy Unity desktop, but / and is extremely fast - and totally up to date security-wise.

I see I'm not the only Linux user here, and this one is rather simple to use, I promise - with the start menu in the bottom right, just like XP.

Firefox can be installed on it, it also has Chromium (a streamlined version of Chrome) by default, and I must say it should even be possible to install Money o it with minor effort (no details here, they'll be sent later if anyone is interested).

The only drawback I have thus far with Linux, is that I can't run MapUpdate natively on it. You are informed that you will need a workaround for that. But I also don't think you can run it on XP, right ? So you probably have another machine for that

Do let me know if you want to hear more, and I hope I didn't take this topic too far off its original thread

Which website(s) does IE8 have problem with? Are there any errors/warnings when you visit the site with IE8? Do you mind giving us the URLs?

I use (and have used) FireFox from the first day it came out. Before that I used "Netscape" (before FireFox took over it's place).

I wouldn't use IE if you paid me. Well maybe ONCE a day just to get the money, but then the rest of the time it would sit idle in the background.

If I didn't have FireFox then I most likely would go with "Opera".

Nuvi1300WTGPS

I wish I was. I have an old laptop by my bed. Still on XP SP1 (my only attempt to accept "security updates" from Microsoft resulted in them "fixing" the network interface so the it would no longer run Linux, only Windows! That was the last update accepted.) I have upgraded the memory and hard drive over what originally came but it is still minimal by any current standards. Used to browse fine, I could have lots of windows open at once. But when I went to Firefox 11, everything changed. Now it is slow and can't play videos, I can have about 6 or 7 tabs open, any more and it gets too slow to use or locks up completely. I would just switch to Chrome but I really depend on a Firefox extension that I have on that computer. Don't dare update again out of concern that the bloat will get worse.

Stay with your 3.6 and enjoy it.

I am on IE6 and don't have any issues for the few times I need it. Strictly Firefox all the way.

Netscape Navigator from www.oldversion.com

They may even have older ver of firefox, never really looked for that.

I like firefox than IE10.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/startup-home-page-downl...

No errors, they either don't display properly or are very slow. One example is nascar.com. They redesigned the site earlier this year and a lot of the mouse-over graphics don't display properly. Another example is my credit union website gtefinancial.org but you won't be able to see the problems if you don't have a login to the user area.

On other websites I was getting occasional warnings that scripts were taking too long to run and might lock up IE8... which they did. I was having to use Task Manager more & more to end a non-responding IE8 window.

A few weeks ago I went to a website that I don't normally go to (don't remember it's name) and when I landed on the home page, it displayed a message in a popup box that since I was using an old browser, some areas of the website may not display correctly.

I've tried compatibility view on some websites with only limited success. After years of using IE8 I just got tired of the hassle. Remember, I'm using IE10 on my Win7 laptop and I'm not seeing these problems on that system.

Another good choice is Opera

my favorite browsers for XP...

• Firefox (with Adblock Plus)
• Opera (with Adblock Plus)
• Pale Moon
• IE8

Here is an example. This is a screen shot trying to view the Results & Standings (mouse-over) using IE8: http://i42.tinypic.com/2zsbuid.jpg

This is a screenshot of the same webpage using FF: http://i40.tinypic.com/212fsxl.jpg

I'm using IE8 on XP Home running on 1.8GHz Centrino CPU (notebook) with 1.2GB RAM. Nascar (menu mouse-over) looks exactly the same on both FF20 and IE8. I have no problem with both browsers.

However, after closing IE8 and going back to Nascar and mouse over on the same spot, I got exactly the same problem as you.

To resolve the problem, I closed IE8 and cleared up all IE temporary files. Then I relaunched IE8. It's fixed. Pull down menu looks correct. Problem comes back when I close IE8 without clearing up IE temp files.

Another problem that is more serious seems to be my CPU usage. It gets pegged at 90-99 percent when IE8 is on Nascar. Firefox CPU usage is between 0 to 10 percent. I'm on Nascar (on another FF tab) while typing this reply.

That is a good enough reason to abandon IE8 all together.

BINGO! You found the same problem as I have been experiencing. I forgot to mention the high CPU usage, but I will get that on many websites, especially those with a lot of active graphics like nascar.com. I think the high CPU usage is due, in part, to scripts slowing down IE8 warning messages that I sometimes get.

The fact of the matter is as time goes on, fewer and fewer sites will support IE8. Ultimately your options will be to switch to another browser (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc.) or upgrade your computer so you can run a current version of IE.

Currently, to run the latest version of IE (10), you need at least Windows 7.

Here's the archive, starting with the first version 0.8!

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

A bit off topic, but here's the same for Thunderbird:

http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/thunderbird/releases/

That's why I recently switched from IE8 to Firefox on my wife's WinXP desktop system since I can't upgrade it to IE9 or IE10 and she doesn't want a new PC.

I found some interesting articles about high CPU usage displaying some webpages in IE8. There seems to be 2 main causes:

1. The large number of unnecessary pre-loaded add-ons in IE8

2. IE versions after IE8 employ GPU rendering instead of software based rendering

Here are the 2 articles:
http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles...

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/windows-platform/articles...