Planetary Society Website? Options

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

I'm unable to use the planetary society new website, it crashes firefox everytime I visit it. Anyone else with this problem?

[TheChemist]

I can see it with Firefox 1.0.6 on XP with no problems.
But I see they have updated their site just recently. Maybe they are using some new fancy feature and
you need to update your Java engine or something like that ?

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

I can see it with Firefox 1.0.6 on XP with no problems.
But I see they have updated their site just recently. Maybe they are using some new fancy feature and
you need to update your Java engine or something like that ?

I have Firefox 1.07

[jamescanvin]

I have Firefox 1.07

The Linux version of v1.0.7 works fine for me.

[elakdawalla]

I'm unable to use the planetary society new website, it crashes firefox everytime I visit it.  Anyone else with this problem? 

Hi Sunspot, what OS / Browser version are you using? We know the new site does not work with IE for Mac but it should have no problems with Firefox.

--Emily

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Windows ME !!! Firefox 1.07

- do you have a list of which OS/Browsers you know it works with?

[djellison]

Firefox 1.0.7 and XP here - works great

Doug

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

.....I guess it could be a problem with my computer then. I have the Firefox extensions adblock and flashblock installed - flashblock has caused problems on a couple of sites before.

[TheChemist]

At work, I have WinMe and Firefox 1.0.7, just like you sunspot, and no problems with planetary.org
I also have the "adblock" extension installed. I will additionally install "flashblock", and let you know what happened

[TheChemist]

Sunspot,
I was able to duplicate your problem. Firefox 1.0.7 on WinMe with the flashblock extension crashes while attempting to connect to planetary.org

However, I also have found the solution for you : Install the NoScript extension for Firefox. It blocks all javascript, AND flash (see advanced options menu), without crashing with planetary.org, and a couple of other flash sites I checked.
You can either get rid of flashblock, or have both extensions run together.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Thanks TheChemist, that worked, much better than flashblock.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

You block Javascript, you block flash, and you are astonished you cannot visit the sites?

You know the finest is to block the http: protocol, sure you have no viruses, no porn, no adds, etc.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

99% of flash content on websites seems to be annoying FLASHING ads Flashblock had worked ok for months.... it replaces flash content with an icon you can click on to view it if you wish ... although there was a bug with it, it wouldn't allow you to add websites you wanted to allow flash to load - such as the flash based "What time on Mars" on the Mars rover homepage. NoSript is much better... webpages seem to load faster too.

[Guest_Richard Trigaux_*]

99% of flash content on websites seems to be annoying FLASHING ads         

This is not false, and it is not the fault of any browser design or team. Some (many) sites look like trash bins, with adds everywhere and all the same links shopping-entertainment-business-games-dating. Blinking things and lot of links and thingummies do not make sites better. To be noted that most blinking add banners are not flash, but simply animated gifs.

Flashblock had worked ok for months.... it replaces flash content with an icon you can click on to view it if you wish ... although there was a bug with it, it wouldn't allow you to add websites you wanted to allow flash to load - such as the flash based "What time on Mars" on the Mars rover homepage.  NoSript is much better... webpages seem to load faster too. 

I hope Flashblock is much smarter than that. If you visit a series of pages with all a flash as main relevant content (for instance a comics on line) if you have to click on the icon at each time, you are done.

Firefox does not like proprietary flash and it fosters Web3C's SVG instead. Good idea, but when the advertisers will notice that SVG is more widespread than flash, they will switch to SVG and there will be bl ing th ings and a dds eve rywhe re and we sh all be a t the sa me point that before.

[elakdawalla]

Sunspot,
I was able to duplicate your problem. Firefox 1.0.7 on WinMe with the flashblock extension crashes while attempting to connect to planetary.org

However, I also have found the solution for you : Install the NoScript extension for Firefox. It blocks all javascript, AND flash (see advanced options menu), without crashing with planetary.org, and a couple of other flash sites I checked.
You can either get rid of flashblock, or have both extensions run together.

Phew, I am relieved that you all were able to work out this problem. The new website does use Flash to do some of the particularly pretty text rendering but as far as we understood it, it was supposed to "break nicely" for older browsers that could not use Flash. The site was developed using Firefox and Netscape on both PC and Mac, Safari on the Mac, IE on the PC, and something I don't remember on linux/solaris. Because of the use of PHP and CSS it may require some users of older versions of Netscape and IE to upgrade but there's only so far backward compatible our developer could go. I am told (not being a Mac person) that Microsoft has completely given up on upgrading IE for the Mac; it can't handle the PHP and CSS so IE for the Mac chokes on our new site. But that should be the only browser compatibility problem.

Speaking of thingummies, several of the proposals we received for the design of our new site wanted to put one of those super-annoying lengthy Flash animations in front of the whole site. Ridiculous. Our site is all about content, and the thingummies are just supposed to help you access the content and otherwise leave you alone.

I hope others will post here or email me if they have any other problems. The redesign was supposed to make our site more useable, not less Thank you very much, TheChemist, for diagnosing and treating Sunspot's problem!

--Emily