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#1
smhardesty
smhardesty
.
I know a lot of guys are now using their phones to do all their digital tasks, but there are still a bunch that prefer using a laptop or desktop computer. I use a laptop almost exclusively and one of the things I am always after is a web browser that is quick and secure. I've tried a bunch of different browsers. Some were good and some not so good.
I recently tried a new one that is showing promise. I've been using it for 5 days now. It's Waterfox and is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. I run it on Linux Mint and it is definitely faster than Firefox. I have yet to find any real problems with it. Something might pop up in the future, but right now it's performing very well for me. Below are a link to the Waterfox site home page and a link to the download page. If you're looking for something a little faster and more secure than what you have now, you might want to try it out.
https://www.waterfox.net/
https://www.waterfox.net/download/
.
I know a lot of guys are now using their phones to do all their digital tasks, but there are still a bunch that prefer using a laptop or desktop computer. I use a laptop almost exclusively and one of the things I am always after is a web browser that is quick and secure. I've tried a bunch of different browsers. Some were good and some not so good.
I recently tried a new one that is showing promise. I've been using it for 5 days now. It's Waterfox and is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux. I run it on Linux Mint and it is definitely faster than Firefox. I have yet to find any real problems with it. Something might pop up in the future, but right now it's performing very well for me. Below are a link to the Waterfox site home page and a link to the download page. If you're looking for something a little faster and more secure than what you have now, you might want to try it out.
https://www.waterfox.net/
https://www.waterfox.net/download/
.
#2
7394
7394
I'm still hanging with the Fox, on my PC desktop.
#3
StarTech
StarTech
I think I'll stick with FF too, beside I am from those days of 1200 baud so 50 MBPS is pretty darn fast to me. Even at 33.5KBPS things seem slow as I would had took a week to download some the files I now download in a couple minutes. It is the upload speed limit by my carrier that is a pain.They got me throttled at 12 MBPS.
Just wish my multiple download program was still compatible but the latest FF doesn't support it for some reason that is only known to them.
To be fast really depends on a lot things. One is having the latest and greatest which I don't. I am still running Win 7 here. And I have no mobile phone. That is proving to be a major pain in the asset as everyone is now demanding me to have one. They all have forgot how to do simple things without the latest and greatest technology.
Just wish my multiple download program was still compatible but the latest FF doesn't support it for some reason that is only known to them.
To be fast really depends on a lot things. One is having the latest and greatest which I don't. I am still running Win 7 here. And I have no mobile phone. That is proving to be a major pain in the asset as everyone is now demanding me to have one. They all have forgot how to do simple things without the latest and greatest technology.
#4
B
bertsmobile1
B
bertsmobile1
FWIW, I have 3 sim cards & 2 mobile phones ( long story )
One of the sim cards is a $ 5 / month limited use deal designed to cripple you with excess calls/data fees
This is the phone number all the sticky beaks get given and as the sim was only in the phone once, it will appear as a genuine phone number but of course never get answered unless I have to turn it on to verify something .
The monthly sales tax ( called GST down here ) can only be submitted via a mobile phone app or via a tax accountant $$$$$$ .
So a lot of people I know do the same thing, pop in the "government Sim on their never used phone, submit their tax return then pull the sim out & turn the phone off which of course forces the tax office to contact them by snail mail as the email address they give is also on the phone .
One of the sim cards is a $ 5 / month limited use deal designed to cripple you with excess calls/data fees
This is the phone number all the sticky beaks get given and as the sim was only in the phone once, it will appear as a genuine phone number but of course never get answered unless I have to turn it on to verify something .
The monthly sales tax ( called GST down here ) can only be submitted via a mobile phone app or via a tax accountant $$$$$$ .
So a lot of people I know do the same thing, pop in the "government Sim on their never used phone, submit their tax return then pull the sim out & turn the phone off which of course forces the tax office to contact them by snail mail as the email address they give is also on the phone .
#5
StarTech
StarTech
Just wish the Government types just a tad of a brain....I have been fighting with our Idiot Ran Service for two years trying just get my name spelled correctly so I can cash my refund checks. The advocacy got things supposedly straighten out in December to only some idiot undo it again. I have even bother to start on this year's taxes yet. Usually I like to just get it done and out of my hair asap.
I pretty given up on counting them to get things fixed but I pretty darn sure if I owed them they on my doorstep in a heartbeat.
I pretty given up on counting them to get things fixed but I pretty darn sure if I owed them they on my doorstep in a heartbeat.
#6
smhardesty
smhardesty
Hey, I wasn't trying to convince or persuade anybody to try Waterfox. I just know that Firefox is painfully slow at certain things and uses a huge chunk of system resources. I just offered the info about Waterfox in case anybody is having issues with Firefox.
I started out long before there even were any personal computers. My first "PC", if you want to call it that was one I "built" using parts and pieces from the Tandy Corporation and it was built on a piece of plywood. I went through every stage of communication over phone lines and then via wireless and cable modems. Truth be told, I enjoyed the days of using BBS (electronic bulletin boards) a whole lot more than I like what we now have as the Internet. I had contacts all over the world and we traded all sorts of information and software. It was kind of like having a little, private club of guys that met at different times during the day and night.
I hated anything and everything that Microsoft created and threw at the public. I never used Internet Explorer, ever. I used Netscape Navigator which, in a certain way, was a precursor to Firefox. The one thing that pretty much every operating system and every piece of software does over a period of time is to add all sorts of bells and whistles which are really nothing but bloat. I therefore am on a never ending quest to find software that at least attempts to reduce and resist the bloat. Firefox was once one of the fastest browsers in existence. Then, like so many other pieces of software, it became a hugely bloated and resource hungry monster. That is what I try and avoid and this Waterfox I am running is definitely much faster than Firefox. I have no idea if I'm going to run into any problems down the road, but so far, so good.
StarTech, the speed of your Internet connection provided by your ISP is completely different from the speed of the browser. A browser can not make your connection any faster or slower. Likewise, a faster connection won't make your browser faster. The speed of the browser is how fast it can render the data fed to it via the Internet connection. Then, things like opening new tabs or new widows are a product of the browser. The reason I started looking again is because the last few updates to Firefox have caused pages to be rendered a lot more slowly. I only use webmail for all my different email addresses and about 4 or 5 months ago Firefox started taking as much as 5 seconds just to log me in to my primary email account. I can load that page quicker using Tor, but I don't like using Tor for everyday tasks. I usually only resort to Tor if I have intentions of visiting websites I've never been to or if I'm going to hit a few places on the Dark Web. So, Waterfox seems to be providing what I need to do my daily browsing.
If anybody is interested in trying Waterfox and needs a little assistance, just give me shout. I run Linux, but I should be able to help with Windows based installations. I'm not too sure about helping with macOS. I just never got involved with any Apple products.
.
I started out long before there even were any personal computers. My first "PC", if you want to call it that was one I "built" using parts and pieces from the Tandy Corporation and it was built on a piece of plywood. I went through every stage of communication over phone lines and then via wireless and cable modems. Truth be told, I enjoyed the days of using BBS (electronic bulletin boards) a whole lot more than I like what we now have as the Internet. I had contacts all over the world and we traded all sorts of information and software. It was kind of like having a little, private club of guys that met at different times during the day and night.
I hated anything and everything that Microsoft created and threw at the public. I never used Internet Explorer, ever. I used Netscape Navigator which, in a certain way, was a precursor to Firefox. The one thing that pretty much every operating system and every piece of software does over a period of time is to add all sorts of bells and whistles which are really nothing but bloat. I therefore am on a never ending quest to find software that at least attempts to reduce and resist the bloat. Firefox was once one of the fastest browsers in existence. Then, like so many other pieces of software, it became a hugely bloated and resource hungry monster. That is what I try and avoid and this Waterfox I am running is definitely much faster than Firefox. I have no idea if I'm going to run into any problems down the road, but so far, so good.
StarTech, the speed of your Internet connection provided by your ISP is completely different from the speed of the browser. A browser can not make your connection any faster or slower. Likewise, a faster connection won't make your browser faster. The speed of the browser is how fast it can render the data fed to it via the Internet connection. Then, things like opening new tabs or new widows are a product of the browser. The reason I started looking again is because the last few updates to Firefox have caused pages to be rendered a lot more slowly. I only use webmail for all my different email addresses and about 4 or 5 months ago Firefox started taking as much as 5 seconds just to log me in to my primary email account. I can load that page quicker using Tor, but I don't like using Tor for everyday tasks. I usually only resort to Tor if I have intentions of visiting websites I've never been to or if I'm going to hit a few places on the Dark Web. So, Waterfox seems to be providing what I need to do my daily browsing.
If anybody is interested in trying Waterfox and needs a little assistance, just give me shout. I run Linux, but I should be able to help with Windows based installations. I'm not too sure about helping with macOS. I just never got involved with any Apple products.
.
#7
StarTech
StarTech
Since I use TB for my email accounts I rarely ever login via the browsers. It is set to auto check the pop accounts every 10 minutes and I let IMAP accounts do their thing. Haven't any webmail accounts in a long time.
#8
smhardesty
smhardesty
I gave up on T'bird and all the other email clients long ago. I used to do the same thing you mentioned. I just got tired of screwing with all the intricacies of the clients and having to save all the emails, logins, password, etc, etc, etc, every time I wanted to do a fresh install of whatever version of Linux I was running. Switching to all webmail accounts saves all that fussing. All I have to do is click on the bookmark for each account and read my mail.
I used T'bird for a lot of years. It served me well. I just decided to uncomplicate my computing and reduce all the software bloat on my systems. When I do a new install on a freshly wiped hard drive, I spend about 15 minutes doing the actual install, then another two hours, give or take, removing unwanted/unnecessary programs and packages from the installed system. That time also includes all the performance tweaking I do. I run a couple of scripts on my laptops to monitor just how much of my system's hardware resources are being used by what programs/tasks. This laptop I'm on is the first install of Mint XFCE 21.1 I have tried. There were some glitches with release 21.0 that caused problems on my laptops. All but one of those were resolved in 21.1. I expect the one remaining hiccup I seem to be experiencing will be resolved in a future update.
I'm back on Firefox right now. I've been bouncing back and forth between it and Waterfox trying to determine just how much quicker Waterfox is. On a lot of the sites I visit regularly, Waterfox is a lot quicker. So far, no site loads slower than when using Firefox. I did find one thing that kind of bothered me. There is no real forum for Waterfox, or at least I haven't run across it yet. I guess I need to login to my old Mozilla account and see of there is any help there. I'll have to go back and read through some of my old password lists. It's been so long since I've logged into the Mozilla site I'm not sure which password I used there. The pitfalls of getting older, I guess. LOL!
I used T'bird for a lot of years. It served me well. I just decided to uncomplicate my computing and reduce all the software bloat on my systems. When I do a new install on a freshly wiped hard drive, I spend about 15 minutes doing the actual install, then another two hours, give or take, removing unwanted/unnecessary programs and packages from the installed system. That time also includes all the performance tweaking I do. I run a couple of scripts on my laptops to monitor just how much of my system's hardware resources are being used by what programs/tasks. This laptop I'm on is the first install of Mint XFCE 21.1 I have tried. There were some glitches with release 21.0 that caused problems on my laptops. All but one of those were resolved in 21.1. I expect the one remaining hiccup I seem to be experiencing will be resolved in a future update.
I'm back on Firefox right now. I've been bouncing back and forth between it and Waterfox trying to determine just how much quicker Waterfox is. On a lot of the sites I visit regularly, Waterfox is a lot quicker. So far, no site loads slower than when using Firefox. I did find one thing that kind of bothered me. There is no real forum for Waterfox, or at least I haven't run across it yet. I guess I need to login to my old Mozilla account and see of there is any help there. I'll have to go back and read through some of my old password lists. It's been so long since I've logged into the Mozilla site I'm not sure which password I used there. The pitfalls of getting older, I guess. LOL!
#9
7394
7394
Our internet provider bumped us up from 350 mbps to 500 mbps, so I'm flying.. I can still remember ages ago having 'dial up'.. LOL Start PC, go eat breakfast, & come back to wait some more.I think I'll stick with FF too, beside I am from those days of 1200 baud so 50 MBPS is pretty darn fast to me.
#10
B
bertsmobile1
B
bertsmobile1
so you are better than 10 times over me
Download speed right now is 4.45 Mbps upload is 0.64
I some times think dial up is still with us .
This is our wonderful universal high speed broadband which in OZ was supposed to be universally available 100 Mbps , except for the 72,000 locations where it isn't
I get twice that speed if I use my mobile phone as a personal hot spot but of course I only can do that with the 3 Gb of total data / month .
We were supposed to get fibre to the door but as what usually happens in Australia, politicians come along and mess everything up so in the end it gets done 5 times at 50 times the price of doing it properly once.
Download speed right now is 4.45 Mbps upload is 0.64
I some times think dial up is still with us .
This is our wonderful universal high speed broadband which in OZ was supposed to be universally available 100 Mbps , except for the 72,000 locations where it isn't
I get twice that speed if I use my mobile phone as a personal hot spot but of course I only can do that with the 3 Gb of total data / month .
We were supposed to get fibre to the door but as what usually happens in Australia, politicians come along and mess everything up so in the end it gets done 5 times at 50 times the price of doing it properly once.
#11
StarTech
StarTech
Yes our service providers will promise speed bump ups here but have yet to see it. I am supposed to be at 300 Mbps but rarely see anything over 50 Mbps. Now the neighbor just went Verizon cell service for internet and he is seeing over 300 Mbps yet his RoKu is buffering alot. Anyway as I said even 3 Mbps was fast for me when I went from 33.6 baud besides my router is limited to 100 Mbps. Not complaining about my speed as I download, surf, and live stream the RoKu device ( no buffering) without any noticeable speed reduction. Now of I just using HD mode on the Roku as my tv is only HD mode and not 4K.
We are suppose to be seeing upgrades but some of the providers are ignoring us in the countryside too Bert. Where I use to be located has been upgrading to fiber optics for the last year. But here the only thing happen is finally gotten a local cell tower and At&T has just basically abandon us for a service area. I might check into that service if they can still VOIP phone service so my multiple in house phone system still works but even with the tower in sight I still seeing signal drop outs on my customer's phones using the Verizon service at my place. Not worth it if I lose calls or don't even receive them. So stick with the service that works best for me.
And those data caps are a pain to deal with but just shows how limited the provider's service is to begin with. HughesNet Satellite service is promising 25 Mbps service but has a data caps so they slow to snail speed about mid month.
Either way we have learn work around to these problem causers.
There is some slow downs lately but it not local but net related some pages takes a time to load but I can open another tab and surf another site right a way.
We are suppose to be seeing upgrades but some of the providers are ignoring us in the countryside too Bert. Where I use to be located has been upgrading to fiber optics for the last year. But here the only thing happen is finally gotten a local cell tower and At&T has just basically abandon us for a service area. I might check into that service if they can still VOIP phone service so my multiple in house phone system still works but even with the tower in sight I still seeing signal drop outs on my customer's phones using the Verizon service at my place. Not worth it if I lose calls or don't even receive them. So stick with the service that works best for me.
And those data caps are a pain to deal with but just shows how limited the provider's service is to begin with. HughesNet Satellite service is promising 25 Mbps service but has a data caps so they slow to snail speed about mid month.
Either way we have learn work around to these problem causers.
There is some slow downs lately but it not local but net related some pages takes a time to load but I can open another tab and surf another site right a way.
#12
B
bertsmobile1
B
bertsmobile1
In the countryside ?
No 75 Km from the Sydney Harbour Bridge 3 Km from the new International Airport and 4 Km from the major Sydney water supply dam that has had fibre to the door since 1975 .
The satelites that were supposed to be used for those in remote regions are oversubscribed from all of the users along the east coast .
We were supposed to get fibre to the door to every property that had a copper phone line along the east coat .
The modem racks removed for the phone exchanges were then to be repurposed in rural regions to give them Fibre to the Node ( mini exchanges on the side of the road ) and for regiona where there was no copper, satelite .
Australia had the first fully fibre phone network on the planet ( fibre connecting all of the phone exchanges ) and also the biggest fibre network on the planet when we just had the one government owned telephone company .
The it was decided that we needed "competition" so now we could get the benefits of competition like Donald Duck novelty phones
Originally the government owned telco was going to roll out fibre to the premsis because they had been running fiber backbone for 30 years and knew the cost savings and potential quality ( & speed imporvements ) then the conservative ( liberal party ) appointed directors vetoed the fibre roll out so the next government ( labour ) did it themselves and made the NBN ( National Broadband Network ) promising 100mbps to every premsis which could be upgraded as better softwear was rolled out to 100Gbps and indeed some businesses have 100Gbps fibre connections.
Now that government only lasted 1 term and the new ( liberal ) government trashed the original plan ( remember they vetoed the previous fibre roll out as well ) turned it into a pigs breakfast that cost 4 times the original estimate & delivered 1/4 of what was promised and blamed the previous administration.
Meanwhile , the new system, that included voice as well as www does not have sufficient band with so if it try to phone some one in Melbourne saturday or sunday afternoon when lots of the locals down there are live streaming the foot ball, I can not get through.
If they had a heart attack & their medi-alert tried to ring for an ambulance, it can not get a phone connection either
No 75 Km from the Sydney Harbour Bridge 3 Km from the new International Airport and 4 Km from the major Sydney water supply dam that has had fibre to the door since 1975 .
The satelites that were supposed to be used for those in remote regions are oversubscribed from all of the users along the east coast .
We were supposed to get fibre to the door to every property that had a copper phone line along the east coat .
The modem racks removed for the phone exchanges were then to be repurposed in rural regions to give them Fibre to the Node ( mini exchanges on the side of the road ) and for regiona where there was no copper, satelite .
Australia had the first fully fibre phone network on the planet ( fibre connecting all of the phone exchanges ) and also the biggest fibre network on the planet when we just had the one government owned telephone company .
The it was decided that we needed "competition" so now we could get the benefits of competition like Donald Duck novelty phones
Originally the government owned telco was going to roll out fibre to the premsis because they had been running fiber backbone for 30 years and knew the cost savings and potential quality ( & speed imporvements ) then the conservative ( liberal party ) appointed directors vetoed the fibre roll out so the next government ( labour ) did it themselves and made the NBN ( National Broadband Network ) promising 100mbps to every premsis which could be upgraded as better softwear was rolled out to 100Gbps and indeed some businesses have 100Gbps fibre connections.
Now that government only lasted 1 term and the new ( liberal ) government trashed the original plan ( remember they vetoed the previous fibre roll out as well ) turned it into a pigs breakfast that cost 4 times the original estimate & delivered 1/4 of what was promised and blamed the previous administration.
Meanwhile , the new system, that included voice as well as www does not have sufficient band with so if it try to phone some one in Melbourne saturday or sunday afternoon when lots of the locals down there are live streaming the foot ball, I can not get through.
If they had a heart attack & their medi-alert tried to ring for an ambulance, it can not get a phone connection either
#13
smhardesty
And I would hate to hazard a guess at just how many times I would start a download right before I went to bed, hoping it would be done when I got up the next morning. I downloaded some BIG files back then, at least big at the time. It only took a couple of times where the download blew off, forcing me to start all over, before I found a software download manager that would pickup right where it blew off. Now, I download 2 to 3 GB Linux distributions while I take a drink of water. If it looks like the download is going to take more than 5 minutes, I'll cancel the download and try another mirror. LOL!
I'll never forget when I bought my first modem. It was a 300 bits per second device. Yes, only 300 bits/s. Once I finally managed to get the driver installed and working, I had no idea what to do next. LOL! Then came a real advancement over that 300 bits/s modem and I bought a 2,400 bit/s modem for asynchronous dial connections. WOW! I was finally able to connect to my first BBS. I was in heaven. LOL! How things have changed!
smhardesty
HAH! I laugh about that myself. I have 600 Mbps service now. They keep sending me emails, trying to get me to up my service to their 1Gbps service for only $15 a month more. There are exactly two people in this house and my wife doesn't get in the 'Net very much. I see no need for increasing the speed at this time.Our internet provider bumped us up from 350 mbps to 500 mbps, so I'm flying.. I can still remember ages ago having 'dial up'.. LOL Start PC, go eat breakfast, & come back to wait some more.
And I would hate to hazard a guess at just how many times I would start a download right before I went to bed, hoping it would be done when I got up the next morning. I downloaded some BIG files back then, at least big at the time. It only took a couple of times where the download blew off, forcing me to start all over, before I found a software download manager that would pickup right where it blew off. Now, I download 2 to 3 GB Linux distributions while I take a drink of water. If it looks like the download is going to take more than 5 minutes, I'll cancel the download and try another mirror. LOL!
I'll never forget when I bought my first modem. It was a 300 bits per second device. Yes, only 300 bits/s. Once I finally managed to get the driver installed and working, I had no idea what to do next. LOL! Then came a real advancement over that 300 bits/s modem and I bought a 2,400 bit/s modem for asynchronous dial connections. WOW! I was finally able to connect to my first BBS. I was in heaven. LOL! How things have changed!
#14
smhardesty
smhardesty
I feel your pain with the government intervention. Back in the dial-up days I convinced an ISP from out of our area to offer service in our area. What we all had at the time was complete and total garbage. I knew a fellow that lived quite a ways south of me who had service with the outfit I eventually convinced to come into our area. He told me that he was actually getting close to 50k speeds on a 56k modem. He told me they had found a way to "clean the lines" and nearly everyone using their service was getting speeds like that. After a few phone calls I drove to their location and had a real heart to heart. They agreed that if I could get 250 signatures on a petition, they would do what they could to come into our area. Long story short, it happened. Then, because somebody at the old ISP that was losing business to the new outfit knew somebody in a position of authority with the State, the new company was forced out of the area. Some crap about phone companies not being allowed to infringe on the territory of another phone company. Bottom line was that everybody EXCEPT the old company lost out. It was a real crock, but nobody could do a thing about it.so you are better than 10 times over me
Download speed right now is 4.45 Mbps upload is 0.64
I some times think dial up is still with us .
This is our wonderful universal high speed broadband which in OZ was supposed to be universally available 100 Mbps , except for the 72,000 locations where it isn't
I get twice that speed if I use my mobile phone as a personal hot spot but of course I only can do that with the 3 Gb of total data / month .
We were supposed to get fibre to the door but as what usually happens in Australia, politicians come along and mess everything up so in the end it gets done 5 times at 50 times the price of doing it properly once.
#15
smhardesty
Then, several months ago, and completely out of the blue, I got an email with an offer I wasn't sure was legit. They were offering me 600 Mbps speeds, with NO data caps, and at a cost of $15 per month less than what we were already paying. I was extremely skeptical. I couldn't understand anybody offering me something better, for less money, without a catch. Turns out there was no catch. They did this because a competitor was all set to move into the territory with better service for less money. So, all they were doing was preempting a possible future exodus of customers. Worked for me! No need to change providers if the one I already have offers the same, or better, service for less money.
smhardesty
I hated that data cap stuff myself. Since I use Linux, I am constantly downloading different distros to try out. I don't do it now as much as I once did, but I still try a couple new flavors each month. When we bought his house 6 1/2 years ago, I was able to get 300 Mbps service, but it had a data cap of 750 GB. We were constantly exceeding the cap and had to spend a few days each month at 5 Mbps. We use YouTubeTV for our television service and I was usually downloading a bunch of something, so we hit the cap regularly.And those data caps are a pain to deal with but just shows how limited the provider's service is to begin with.
Then, several months ago, and completely out of the blue, I got an email with an offer I wasn't sure was legit. They were offering me 600 Mbps speeds, with NO data caps, and at a cost of $15 per month less than what we were already paying. I was extremely skeptical. I couldn't understand anybody offering me something better, for less money, without a catch. Turns out there was no catch. They did this because a competitor was all set to move into the territory with better service for less money. So, all they were doing was preempting a possible future exodus of customers. Worked for me! No need to change providers if the one I already have offers the same, or better, service for less money.
#16
smhardesty
smhardesty
You mentioned that place had fiber to the door in 1975. Most people don't realize that fiber optic technology has been around for a LONG time. I don't recall the exact date, but some inventor or scientist back in the late 1800s actually experimented with what would eventually become fiber optic service. Then, in the 1930s, they really started improving fiber optic technology to coincide with the first commercially available television service. It only SEEMS like fiber is new because it was never available to the average Joe until more recently. But, I'm with you. Knowing that fiber has been around as long as it has, why isn't it already run to every doorstep, in every civilized country in the world already? I'm betting that if fiber was run to my own house, I'd have several choices of very high speed Internet service, at a much lower cost.4 Km from the major Sydney water supply dam that has had fibre to the door since 1975 .
#17
B
bertsmobile1
B
bertsmobile1
When we just had the one government owned telco Australia was the world leader in telecommunications .
The PMG had more patients than most of the universities.
When we laid the Sydney Brisbane co-axial cable it was the longest installation ever done
Then when we took it down to Melbourne again we broke all sorts of records for doing what the techs said was impossible .
We were the first to sent live TV down a wire , again it was that co-axial cable which carried all the phone calls between the major cities + live TV simultaneously , again "technically impossible " at the time .
We used to have delegation from all over the world ( including the USA) to see how we managed to do it and to train in out technology.
The observatories still could not get enough data through the network and that lead to the introduction of optical fibre .
The US defence force watched that very closely and the next roll out of optial fibre was to the 3 US spy stations and in particular Pine Gap as light down a tube can not be listened to by foreign operatives like voltage through a wire can be .
This quickly led to a fibre backbone so every phone exchange that used to have a copper wire connection was linked to each other by fibre, again the first country to do so and the largest fibre network on the planet as we had only one network that covered the entire country ( missed a bit in the middle ) .
Then we introduced competition that was not needed to improve the service which was recognised as being the most reliable on the planet .
SO the R & D got shut down as the emphasis went from the quality of the service to lowering the price to end users to be cheaper than the competition.
And as you would expect the competing telcos spend all their money in the biggest cities where they can extract the most profits and even on the fringe of the cities the service quality drops off to being a joke .
During the 2019 bushfires there were no phone service available and during the 2021/22 floods , again no phone so we were back to the 50's of relying on battery powered radios to recieve ( only ) emergency instructions with no way to contact the emergency services other than short wave, & CB radios .
The PMG had more patients than most of the universities.
When we laid the Sydney Brisbane co-axial cable it was the longest installation ever done
Then when we took it down to Melbourne again we broke all sorts of records for doing what the techs said was impossible .
We were the first to sent live TV down a wire , again it was that co-axial cable which carried all the phone calls between the major cities + live TV simultaneously , again "technically impossible " at the time .
We used to have delegation from all over the world ( including the USA) to see how we managed to do it and to train in out technology.
The observatories still could not get enough data through the network and that lead to the introduction of optical fibre .
The US defence force watched that very closely and the next roll out of optial fibre was to the 3 US spy stations and in particular Pine Gap as light down a tube can not be listened to by foreign operatives like voltage through a wire can be .
This quickly led to a fibre backbone so every phone exchange that used to have a copper wire connection was linked to each other by fibre, again the first country to do so and the largest fibre network on the planet as we had only one network that covered the entire country ( missed a bit in the middle ) .
Then we introduced competition that was not needed to improve the service which was recognised as being the most reliable on the planet .
SO the R & D got shut down as the emphasis went from the quality of the service to lowering the price to end users to be cheaper than the competition.
And as you would expect the competing telcos spend all their money in the biggest cities where they can extract the most profits and even on the fringe of the cities the service quality drops off to being a joke .
During the 2019 bushfires there were no phone service available and during the 2021/22 floods , again no phone so we were back to the 50's of relying on battery powered radios to recieve ( only ) emergency instructions with no way to contact the emergency services other than short wave, & CB radios .
#18
StarTech
StarTech
I remember those days back when skip was so good on 11 meters I could talk to fellows in Queensland using only a 1/4W (QRP mode) really pissed a guy off 25 miles away couldn't even do it with 3KW amplifier. I was in Alabama, USA at the time.
What was worst was when I got through his antenna backdoor that said no one could penetrate. He was complaining I was using an amp myself that day until kick on the 250 watt amp and bent his needles. <LOL that day here>
What was worst was when I got through his antenna backdoor that said no one could penetrate. He was complaining I was using an amp myself that day until kick on the 250 watt amp and bent his needles. <LOL that day here>
#19
smhardesty
smhardesty
I haven't heard anybody refer to CB radios as 11 meter in a while. LOL! I remember those good old days too. Names like Teaberry, Moonraker and more come to mind. I had a set of beams that I would swing over the trailer park I lived in and turn the 1000 watt cooker on with the D104 mike. Tore the devil out of every TV and radio in the park. LOL! I can recall those days of whistling into the D104 saying, "Skip land, skip land, skip land. You got the one and only Rattlesnake on this end." Gee, I miss those days. LOL!I remember those days back when skip was so good on 11 meters I could talk to fellows in Queensland using only a 1/4W (QRP mode) really pissed a guy off 25 miles away couldn't even do it with 3KW amplifier. I was in Alabama, USA at the time.
What was worst was when I got through his antenna backdoor that said no one could penetrate. He was complaining I was using an amp myself that day until kick on the 250 watt amp and bent his needles. <LOL that day here>
#20
StarTech
StarTech
That what bandpass filter were inventive for. My rakers and 4 watts was driving the neighbors crazy until I built a bandpass filter and then I could the 250 without any complaints. It is the CW that gives my problem currently as every pouch control goes it paces as I use the key.
#21
7394
7394
Wow !!
#22
C
carputech4232
C
carputech4232
Yes i see and followHey, I wasn't trying to convince or persuade anybody to try Waterfox. I just know that Firefox is painfully slow at certain things and uses a huge chunk of system resources. I just offered the info about Waterfox in case anybody is having issues with Firefox.
I started out long before there even were any personal computers. My first "PC", if you want to call it that was one I "built" using parts and pieces from the Tandy Corporation and it was built on a piece of plywood. I went through every stage of communication over phone lines and then via wireless and cable modems. Truth be told, I enjoyed the days of using BBS (electronic bulletin boards) a whole lot more than I like what we now have as the Internet. I had contacts all over the world and we traded all sorts of information and software. It was kind of like having a little, private club of guys that met at different times during the day and night.
I hated anything and everything that Microsoft created and threw at the public. I never used Internet Explorer, ever. I used Netscape Navigator which, in a certain way, was a precursor to Firefox. The one thing that pretty much every operating system and every piece of software does over a period of time is to add all sorts of bells and whistles which are really nothing but bloat. I therefore am on a never ending quest to find software that at least attempts to reduce and resist the bloat. Firefox was once one of the fastest browsers in existence. Then, like so many other pieces of software, it became a hugely bloated and resource hungry monster. That is what I try and avoid and this Waterfox I am running is definitely much faster than Firefox. I have no idea if I'm going to run into any problems down the road, but so far, so good.
StarTech, the speed of your Internet connection provided by your ISP is completely different from the speed of the browser. A browser can not make your connection any faster or slower. Likewise, a faster connection won't make your browser faster. The speed of the browser is how fast it can render the data fed to it via the Internet connection. Then, things like opening new tabs or new widows are a product of the browser. The reason I started looking again is because the last few updates to Firefox have caused pages to be rendered a lot more slowly. I only use webmail for all my different email addresses and about 4 or 5 months ago Firefox started taking as much as 5 seconds just to log me in to my primary email account. I can load that page quicker using Tor, but I don't like using Tor for everyday tasks. I usually only resort to Tor if I have intentions of visiting websites which haircut suits me I've never been to or if I'm going to hit a few places on the Dark Web. So, Waterfox seems to be providing what I need to do my daily browsing.
If anybody is interested in trying Waterfox and needs a little assistance, just give me shout. I run Linux, but I should be able to help with Windows based installations. I'm not too sure about helping with macOS. I just never got involved with any Apple products.
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