standard model - The Higgs field a new Luminiferous aether?

As of this writing it has been made clear to me that classical physics' Luminiferous aether was a terriblly poor discriptor of space. With the advent of Special Relativity and General Relativity, that aether ceased to be applicable. Today I began reading on the Higgs boson, and the Higgs field. How are those theories different from or similar to the seemingly irrational Luminiferous aether?

P.S. I am a first year student at Bakersfield Community College. If this question seems naive, you now have an explanation.

(EDIT) To me the similarity rests upon their fundamental influences regarding static positions in space. I currently only accept models in which static spacial positions are impossible. Contrastingly relative positions seem quite reasonable. In my humble opinion my naivatisms inhibit me from absorbing and understanding the Higgs boson. If they actually are similar, public protest would probably be more apparant. However, I have put forth my best effort to pose an direct question here.

P.S. The questions Where does space go when it falls? and What happens to time lost when matter accelerates? come much earlier in my studies, and they seem relevant.

Answer

Here comes a simple minded answer by an experimentalist.

The luminiferous ether was discarded because it violated special relativity. It presupposed a fixed reference frame of the ether against which everything moved. In special relativity there exists no absolute frame of reference, and special relativity has been vindicated many times experimentally.

The Higgs field, as also the vacuum sea in general, comes from quantum field theory formulations of the interactions of elementary particles. All quantum field theories are consistent with special relativity , and thus the Higgs field is also consistent with special relativity. It therefore cannot play the role of the luminiferous ether, and also the same holds for the vacuum sea, which is seething with virtual pairs of particle/antiparticle.

At the level of your studies this should suffice.