Local Radar

A welcome to Technology Tips

web posted February 27, 2006
Technology Tips by Freddy Petersen
EdgfieldDaily.com Columnist

Maybe you’re like me and you are well known by co-workers, friends and family as the go to person for tips on anything computer related.  With this trust comes a certain amount of responsibility.  Having the information readily available for these eager advice seekers you must stay on top of the techno world in order to offer anything even remotely close to wise counsel.  With any luck this weekly column will help you toward that goal even if you are only concerned with keeping your personal computer up and running this will certainly a good place to visit often.

I’m very hopeful this column will eliminate some of those frantic late night and Friday afternoon calls I keep getting. Understand though this is only an advice column. Today’s computers are wide ranging in hardware and software so many times advice in one area cannot always cover the spectrum of computers on today’s market.  As you know technology evolves daily so any advice given can and will change weekly even daily depending on the circumstances involved. 

Many times due to the restraints of room and time I will refer you to a more detailed writing for the information we are covering on a particular subject.  I have never claimed to be an expert in all areas but one thing is for sure someone, somewhere, has written on the topic and I will do my best to steer you in the right direction to get the answers you need to fix your problem and fix it right the first time.

Now that we have that behind us we can begin to look at this week’s question.   

“If Internet Explorer is a such security risk, is there anything else?”

FIREFOX… simply put, the only browser you should be using today.

One thing all my friends and family know by now is that I am Firefox’s poster child.
What? You’ve never heard of Firefox?  Well good news!  You don’t have to put up with Internet Explorer anymore Firefox has come to your rescue.  This is the coolest looking browser out there and it’s completely free.  All the security risks that are associated with Internet Explorer are almost non-existent with Firefox.  There are tons of plug-ins as well one that even mimic’s Internet Explorer for those sites that are built totally around IE.
Don’t delete IE though you will still need it for your weekly Microsoft updates that only work with IE.  even though you can get the IE plug-in and it will allow you to get those needed updates from Microsoft some people have had problems getting that feature to work correctly.

For those of you who are die hard IE fans I am currently test driving the new IE 7.
It’s pretty cool as well and it seems as though Microsoft has fixed some of my long time complaints with this new release, but that's another article.

Now go get Firefox
Getfirefox.com

As always please write and let me hear if this information was of value
If you have a computer related question please feel free to write, I will try to answer all that time allows. Please note that any and all advice in this column is to be considered as just that advice only and is strictly for use at your own risk. This is free information readily available to the general public and for general informational purposes only. Please consult a trained computer professional if ever in doubt.
 
 

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