Enter the revolution. Enter Mozilla Firefox. Firefox is a web browser that has received enormous media attention and accolades recently. Developed as an Open Source project, Firefox serves as a reminder of what a community of dedicated individuals can accomplish. After countless hours and eyes looking at it, Firefox has become something for the mainstream. It is well worth checking out. Not only is it an alternative to IE, but there are numerous extensions that add on functionality. (Everything from popup blockers to tools that manage tabbed browsing.)
Firefox is currently at version 1.0.7, a polished, stable program.
Why switch?
From the official site: (Features)
Mozilla Firefox presents a fast and convenient way to browse the web - now you can open several pages in one window in separate browser tabs. Open links in the background while you read a web page, then continue to the links when you're done - pages are available when you need them, making the web feel faster even over slow connections. Read more...
Popup advertising is one of the most annoying things to hit the web in recent years. Mozilla Firefox shields you from unwanted popup advertising. It also gives you control to allow certain sites to open popup windows, if required to operate.
Mozilla Firefox makes finding things easy. The built in Google bar provides convenient access to the best search engine on the web. Simply click in the Google bar or press Ctrl+K, type some words and press Enter.
Details are important to us. Sometimes it really is easier to navigate with the keyboard. Mozilla Firefox lets you open links by simply typing some of the text in the link - no mouse necessary.
Automatically download files to your Desktop or another location with the new AutoDownload feature. Downloading becomes much simpler without windows popping up asking you where to save, etc.
As mentioned by "the lurker" here, Firefox is better because:
1. Popup Blocking
Internet Explorer users are constantly harassed by popup advertisements. This is especially a problem when someone has accidentally accessed a pornographic site (it's pretty hard to get out of there when new windows are being created faster than you can close them). Mozilla includes a popup blocker that disallows web sites from opening unrequested windows, and notifies you (by displaying an unobtrusive icon in the status bar) when popups have been blocked. If, for some reason, you want to receive popups for a particular site, you can do that, too.
2. Tabbed Browsing
With Internet Explorer, if you want to have multiple pages open at once, you must have multiple windows open, which can get cumbersome. Mozilla has a feature called Tabbed Browsing, in which you can have multiple pages open in the same window and switch between them with a small toolbar. A person's home page can even be a group of tabbed pages.
3. Standards-Compliance
The languages used for Web content are written by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Unfortunately, Internet Explorer's implementations of those standards are generally bad and are far inferior to those of Mozilla. As a result, many correctly written pages look bad on Internet Explorer but look great in Mozilla.
4. No ActiveX
Internet Explorer supports a Microsoft-developed technology called ActiveX. While ActiveX can be useful, it poses major security risks (such as allowing spyware to install itself by you visiting a page) in comparison to other texhnologies such as Java, which are advocated by the W3C (for more information, see http://www.webdeveloper.com/security/security_java_activex.html). Mozilla does not support ActiveX, and therefore is much more secure.
5. Open-Source
Mozilla is open-source, meaning that anyone can modify it. This means that within hours after any security issue is discovered (which is uncommon), a patch is available, and will be incorporated into the next release.
6. Intelligent Cookie-Blocking
Mozilla features blocking of cookies based on sites' privacy policies. For example, it will by default flag both first-party and third-party cookies set by sites that may be collecting personally identifiable information without your consent.
7. Actively Being Improved
Because Internet Explorer has a near-monopoly on the browser market, Microsoft does not actively improve it. Mozilla, on the other hand, is actively being updated, with new releases occuring every month or two.
8. Extensibility
For those who like special features, there are a wide variety of add-ons available at http://www.mozdev.org. These can be installed for a particular user with the click of a button.
9. MathML Support
Mozilla supports MathML, a W3C recommmendation that is used for representing math. MathML is much better than PDF for representing math, since MathML includes the semantics of the math rather than just its presentation, and can therefore be read by a screen reader for blind people, or interpreted by a computer, and because just the math-related parts can be done in MathML without the need to convert the entire document into PDF.
10. XHTML Support
Mozilla supports XHTML, which replaced HTML as a W3C recommendation in 1999. Despite it being around for over four years, Internet Explorer does not support XHTML. XHTML has several advantages over HTML, including easy integration with other XML-based languages, such as MathML, SVG (a vector graphics language), and RDF (Resource Description Framework, a Semantic Web language).
11. Correct content-type Support
Mozilla correctly implements the HTTP content-type header, which is used to tell user agents what type of file the server is sending. Internet Explorer incorrectly ignores the content-type, and instead tries to guess what type things are, which breaks a lot of documents.
12. Text Zooming
Mozilla supports zooming text to any size and has a keyboard shortcut for doing so, unlike Internet Explorer, which only supports five sizes, has no keyboard shortcut, and won't let you zoom at all if fixed pixel sizes are used. This is very useful for those with bad vision.
13. Alternate Style Sheets
When a page provides multiple or alternate stylesheets, you can select between them. This is required by the W3C CSS specification, but is ignored by Internet Explorer.
14. View Source
You can view the source of a page with syntax coloring, instead of having to open it in a standard text editor like in Internet Explorer.
For support, try here, here, or here.
By the way, the system requirements are as follows (from this site)
Windows
Operating Systems
- * Windows 98
* Windows 98SE
* Windows ME
* Windows NT 4.0
* Windows 2000
* Windows XP (Recommended)
Minimum Hardware
- * Pentium 233 MHz (Recommended: Pentium 500MHz or greater)
* 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 128 MB RAM or greater)
* 52 MB hard drive space
Linux
Operating Systems
- * Linux kernel - 2.2.14 with the following libraries or packages minimums:
- o # glibc 2.2.4
o gtk+ - 1.2.0 ( 1.2.5 or greater preferred)
o XFree86-3.3.6
* Firefox has been tested on Red Hat Linux 7.0 and later
Minimum Hardware
- * Pentium 233 MHz (Recommended: Pentium 500MHz or greater)
* 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 128 MB RAM or greater)
* 52 MB hard drive space
Mac
Operating Systems
- * Mac OS X 10.1.x
* Mac OS X 10.2.x and later
Minimum Hardware
- * PowerPC 604e 266 MHz (Recommended: PowerPC G4 667MHz or greater)
* G3, G4, 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 256 MB RAM or greater)
* 72 MB hard drive space
Surf away!
My Extensions:
As of 12/16/04:
Here is a list of the extensions I currently use:
Adblock 0.5.2.039 - Filters ads from web-pages
All-in-One Gestures 0.12.4 - This extension allows you to execute common commands using mouse gestures, rocker navigation, scroll wheel navigation and page scrolling.
BBCode 0.3.7 - Adds BBCode to the context menu for forums like Mozillazine (PHPBB and others). Based on Cussers pastequote extension.
BugMeNot 0.6.1 - Bypass compulsory web registration with the context menu via www.bugmenot.com.
ColorZilla 0.6.5 - Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies.
Copy Plain Text 0.2.1 - Copies text without formatting
Delicious Delicacies 0.4.1 - Restores cookie placeholder text.
DictionarySearch 0.7 - Looks up selected word in an online dictionary
Disable Targets For Downloads 0.8 - Prevents download links opening a blank window.
Download Manager Tweak 0.6.3 - A modification of the Firefox download manager that changes its appearance and allows it to be opened in a separate window, a new tab, or the sidebar.
Download Statusbar 0.9.0 - View downloads in an auto-hide statusbar.
ForecastFox 0.5.8 - Get international weather forecasts from weather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable extension.
FoxyTunes 1.0 - Control any media player from Firefox and more...
GooglePreview 0.8 - Inserts web site previews in google and yahoo search results.
Image Zoom 0.1.7 - Adds zoom functionality for images
Linkification 0.9.19 - Converts text links into genuine, clickable links.
Magpie 3.1.2 - Media Collection Tools
Paste and Go 0.4.1 - Lets you paste an URL from the clipboard and directly load it.
Tabbrowser Extensions 1.12.2004120802 - Improves tabbed browsing. It's been suggested I put a warning on this, so here it is: Warning: This may cause a few problems, it is only recommended if you are familiar with Firefox and are confident in adjusting settings.
User Agent Switcher 0.6.1 - Adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of the browser.
ListZilla 0.5.1 - Outputs an alphabetical list of either extensions or themes to a text, vB code, or HTML file.
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.6) Gecko/20050225 Firefox/1.0.4
.
