. It will vastly improve your browsing experience.
Sept. 27, 2004
I have been using a pre-release version (0.9.3) of Mozilla's new Firefox Internet Browser for about one month now. It has made a profound improvement in my browsing experience and is one of the best software packages that I have used. I am so impressed by Firefox that I felt compelled to write this review.
Before starting this review let me be clear that I am not a Microsoft basher or an open source evangelist. I use the best available products for the job be they open source or not. I am a long time user of Microsoft's Visual Studio and Office products because I have not found better alternatives for Windows. Also, I believe that Windows is still the best choice for most desktop users on the x86 platform.
On the other hand, I am also a long time user of open source products. In particular I am a satisfied user of one of the first open source products, the GNU compiler collection (the de facto standard in embedded systems today) for several years now. I also have a multi-boot test system loaded with Debian Linux.
Firefox is far superior to Internet Explorer in every meaningful way. It is safer, more secure, faster, easier to use, more powerful and provides greater standards compliance. All of this comes in an amazingly small 4.5 MB download. Bloatware be gone!
Firefox's Tabbed browsing feature allows the user to simultaneously load multiple web pages within the same browser. I believe that this feature alone has at least doubled my browsing efficiency. It makes my high speed light internet service much more usable.
Managing bookmarks is much easier and more powerful. The Bookmarks window can be easily expanded to full screen;
there are many ways to sort bookmarks; and bookmark columns can be configured. Firefox also provides separators
between bookmarks which can be convenient for large folders. I also find the ability to assign the same bookmark name to
different URLs to be very convenient since it saves time renaming bookmark names.
Firefox provides one option to clear all information stored while browsing. With Internet Explorer this requires several
steps and even then you still have to manually delete some temporary files. Firefox also provides the comfort of knowing that you are using
a browser below the radar screen of most malicious hackers.
Firefox also comes with integrated tools for software developers such as a
JavaScript console, and DOM inspector. As an HTML programmer,
I also find its built in tool to display detailed page information quite useful. The page information includes general information, and more
specific information about the forms, links, media, and security used for the page.
There are many other subtle improvements that contribute to a better browsing experience. The Options dialog is much simpler and easier to use. Also my browser no longer insists on saving all jpg and gif images as untitled.bmp (known Internet Explorer bug).
Firefox is a major victory for the open source community. It should serve as a model project for other developments. If the open source community can develop more products like Firefox that are faster, simpler and implement the core functions better, then Microsoft's dominance is in jeopardy. As a software developer I believe that Microsoft will need to show a major commitment to Internet Explorer including a significant redesign effort to compete with Firefox.
Download Mozilla's Firefox browser here:
. It will vastly improve your browsing experience.
