SMJ Solutions

Switch to Firefox

December 15th, 2005

I have been using Firefox for about a year now, and now that 1.5 has been released, switching to an alternate browser for most of your web experience is definitely the way to go. At first, alternative browsers were well behind IE after it leapfrogged and then dominated Netscape. Because Internet Explorer (IE) dominated the browser market in recent years, some sites (although rare) are coded specifically for IE and might not look perfect in Firefox. I do keep a shortcut of IE handy for some IE-proprietary corporate software, but for all of my web-browsing, I use Firefox exclusively. Here are a few reasons why you should switch to Firefox.

• Separation

One scary thing about IE is how tightly integrated it is to the operating system (OS). To find out how tightly IE is woven into Windows, try uninstalling it — good luck! Web-based exploits therefore, can theoretically impact the OS, which is scary stuff. Firefox is totally separated from your OS, and doesn’t have the frightening capability of ruining your whole computer just because you visit a website with malicious intent. Firefox isn’t totally immune to bugs or exploits, but the good new is that any existing exploits aren’t going to mess up the operating system. Firefox is a much safer browser than Internet Explorer.

• Extension

Another great feature of Firefox is the ability to extend it in any way. Extensions are small add-on programs that you can use to customize your browsing experience. If you’re a weatherbug, add ForecastFox extension. If you’re a business traveler with clients in many time zones, try FoxClocks. If you’re a newshound, try Sage — an RSS reader. Flickr and del.icio.us plugins are also available if you use those services. Extensions for word of the day, random sites, and countless other diversions are easily added to your browser.

• Innovation

Tabbed browsing is another reason I love Firefox. This isn’t a totally unique feature, as many other browsers also use tabs — rumors are the next version of IE will have tabs. Tabs are integrated nicely in Firefox and while I thought at first that it wasn’t a newsworthy feature, now I can’t live without my tabs. The 1.5 release of Firefox allows you to reorder those tabs by clicking and dragging to reorder them, which makes for easy grouping of related pages. Tabs are one of those surprisingly simple ideas that will totally change the way you surf.

• Benefaction

The folks at the Mozilla project have been generous enough to give the browser away, no strings attached. Firefox is totally free of charge. It won’t cost you one red cent to switch to Firefox. You really don’t have anything to lose — you can always easily uninstall it (see Separation above).

• Intuition

It’s easy. My grandmother could install Firefox and get it running. As part of the normal install, it will offer to include all of your bookmarks and settings from Internet Explorer. After installation, Firefox is as easy to use and any other browser; in fact, it may be easier to use because the development team has given special attention to the whole user experience and made Firefox as user-friendly as possible.

Get Firefox, use it for a while, add some extensions, and thank me later. You’ll love it.

Entry Filed under: Web