In article ,
"Steve B" wrote:

I was getting nagged that my IE was outdated, and that I should download the
newest greatest Google Chrome, which I finally did. Now, it must not have
gone in, as I still get the nag message. I'm not fond of it, as it takes me
to BING on a lot of things, and I hate BING.

Check in preferences. You may be able to override this.


I need a little help understanding this. I hear all sorts of bad things
about Google, and IE, and such. I seem not to have all these problems, tho
I am not fond of some things my computer does, like: taking me to Bing,
where it is impossible to find the article you went there for; taking a long
time up to forever to download some stories and videos, redirecting, etc.

Google seems to be trying to monetize their browser, so they collect all
manner of information. But the browser does work pretty well, by most
reports.


Will downloading Firefox improve my computer life? Do I have to uninstall
IE, and will my computer allow itself to be castrated thusly? Is there a
lot of configuring to do afterward? Do I have to get rid of OE, and
download a new news program, or does the installation of Firefox fix all
that? I am somewhat handy on computers, but not sure about setting the
things behind the curtain.

Advice appreciated on selecting a browser, news reader, and general computer
setup to make my computing life a little smoother.

You can have any number of browsers, and do not have to uninstall one to
have another. In each browser's preferences, uncheck the box about
checking for or being the default browser, so they won't fight for
dominance.

Firefox works pretty well, and is what I usually use. There is no risk
to trying it. Firefox is not really a newsreader, and so will not
replace Outlook Express, which has many problems.

But there are many newsreaders, so you ought to be able to find one that
you like. The best approach is to try a few of them, as there is not
one best newsreader. While you can have multiple newsreaders, some may
conflict if downloading news simultaneously, so make downloading
manually triggered until you settle on one.

The big thing to look for in newsreaders and email clients is how well
filtering works, so you can automatically ignore most spam and scams,
and bozos.

Joe Gwinn