Dan Price’s blog
Weblog of a cyber-geek

If you aren’t using Firefox, a free open source browser, you should be! Why? I’ll explain below:

1) Customizability. Firefox, unlike Internet Explorer, has a bewildering number of addons and plugins that are available to customize the browsing experience - from themes to security additions to media enhancements, it has it all. On my Windows PC, I’ve got add ons including FasterFox; designed to speed up the browser (even more than usual), Greasemonkey; allowing even further customization by enabling script installs for the browser and Flashblock; which as the name suggests blocks flash on web pages, only being enabled when you click to enable it. I’ve got several more, but these 3 are some of the best.

2) Security. You might think that an open source browser would be more susceptible to hacking since everyone can see exactly how it runs, but this strictly isn’t true. Firefox may or may not be a more secure browser if it had the same market share as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, but at the moment, it doesn’t so is generally far less targeted by hackers. When Firefox vulnerabilities are found, they are usually patched quite quickly, denying hackers the chance to exploit these.

3) Give web developers and designers an easier life! Firefox is one of the most standards compliant browsers on the market - Internet Explorer version 6 is actually one of the worst! My recent site redesign has already proved to me that Firefox is by far the easiest to code for - simply because it follows web standards very closely while Internet Explorer doesn’t. If you are a web designer/developer, you’ll know that IE6 is one of the most annoying browsers to try and code for, and if you aren’t, then just take my word for it!

4) Support the Open Source movement. Open source is the practice of making the code behind something such as an operating system, or in this case an application, available for everyone to see. But more than this, most Open Source projects are completely free! It goes on….you can hold your head high knowing that you’ve supported the underdog/the small guy, rather than the international profit-driven monopolizing corporations!

5) All the little changes. While Firefox holds the benefits I’ve just mentioned above as it’s main advantages, it’s the small differences that really add up to the overall Firefox effect. Faster loading times in general, less crashing, it works on different platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux), you can switch without the fuss as it imports everything you want, and importantly: it’s not produced by Microsoft! It lead the way in the browsing world and Microsoft as it often does these days simply followed - examples: tabbed browsing, integrated search engines, pop-up blocker and download manager.

Put Internet Explorer in the trash can today and wake up to what it really feels like to browse the internet!

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 7:02 am under Operating system wars, Ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed. You can also leave a response