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There has been a large hype regarding Firefox, from your tech savvy friends, discussion boards etc. and with good reason too. Mozilla's Firefox browser has rekindled the browsers wars once started between Internet Explorer (IE) and Netscape Navigator (NN).
Outlined in this page is an unbiased article on Firefox and its dis/advantages, primarily in comparison to Internet Explorer. |
Table of Contents
- What sets Firefox apart?
- Security
- Why switch
- Writer's Recommendation
- Download now!
What sets Firefox apart?
Features, features and more features! Firefox has a great tabbed browsing interface which after 15 minutes or so of getting used to, becomes a very helpful feature with the ability to use the middle mouse button to open links in a new tab and so on.
Other features include a little search bar on the toolbars of your web browser and you can instantly search Google, eBay, Amazon and basically anything else as you can add your own things there.
Firefox has an in built popup blocker similar to the one on Internet Explorer when it is used with Windows XP's Service Pack 2 and includes a small bar at the top on pages that would normally contain popups that allows you to show the popup or allow that site to show popups in the future; a download manager allows you to have one window for all your downloads; and one of my favourite: Extensions and themes, the Mozilla site contains a massive resource of user submitted Firefox extensions and themes that allow to change the look and add features. These are installed with two clicks, a click on the link to install and a confirmation box. Extensions include a web developer extension that is perfect for anyone that is involved with the creation of web sites, then there is a live weather extension that has icons showing the current conditions and forecast for the following week. And it doesn't sacrifice features, Firefox works with Flash, Shockwave, RealPlayer and Java plugins.
Security
Firefox does not have support for ActiveX therefore it doesn't have the problems associated involving spyware and malicious code (eg. viruses) that can harm your computer and the data on it. Also, Firefox doesn't use digital signatures which provide a false sense of security as there are fraudulent signatures and there is the problem that a digital signature only means that the programmer has paid for one. Firefox also doesn't use security zones which can be tricked by specially crafted code. Another advantage of Firefox is that it is open source meaning the code for it is readily available. The benefit of this is that extensions are easy to make and security holes or bugs can be found and reported. Despite what you may be thinking, this is not a problem, there are more people who are finding bugs to help Mozilla than those looking for holes to exploit, and Mozilla's $500 reward for bug reports a while back was another incentive.
Why switch
To make this an unbiased article, I will tell you that IE (Internet Explorer) still has its advantages:
IE has plug-ins that can do the nifty things that Firefox does like a search toolbar and a plug-in for tabbed browing. IE also had a vast majority before Firefox became popular and lots of sites were designed for it and therefore there is the problem of some web sites not showing up properly on Firefox. Thankfully, Firefox is compatible with almost everything that other browsers are capable of and there are not many ActiveX dependant sites around.
Firefox is gaining market share and has risen to approximately 15% at time of adding this review (July 2005) and it is for the reason that it is not a target for virus writers and because of its ease of use.
There are also many little features in Firefox, such as View Page Info where you can view all files attached to the web site including flash files and download them. There is also the option of selecting content and searching for the word/phrase you highlighted or viewing the source code of the part you selected! There are more to find!
Writer's Recommendation
Firefox seems to have beneficial security advantages though there is still the consideration that Firefox is still a minority regarding the number of users compared to those who use IE so until virus writers try to target Firefox, it is unknown as to whether Firefox being more secure than IE. I use Firefox for its extensions and for its integrated tabbed browsing as well as bookmark management, web page tools and so on...
I recommend you try Firefox and use for about an hour of web surfing, look at all the features and decide for yourself.
Download now!
Download Firefox at http://mozilla.org/products/firefox/
