Software I like #2: Mozilla Firefox

(NOTE: this is part of the “Software I like” series)

This was an obvious one, right?

After Netscape opened their old browser’s code, work started on creating a new open source web suite. Years later, the Mozilla suite was born, and was a viable alternative to Internet Explorer (and, at the time, virtually the only option for non-Microsoft Windows systems). However, the suite was often criticized for being too slow and bloated, and many people had no need for an email client and only desired a browser. Due to that, some Mozilla developers began work on a fork of the suite, which was going to be simply a quick, efficient, lightweight browser.

After being called “Phoenix” and “Firebird” for some time, it was finally re-christened “Mozilla Firefox” (often simply called “Firefox”).

You’ve probably heard all the reasons for using Firefox a million times, so I won’t repeat them here. It’s a great browser, and you should certainly try it, if you haven’t done so already, or if you haven’t done so since some pre-historic version such as 0.6.

If you’re using Internet Explorer, please change immediately - IE is a terrible, insecure, non-standards compliant browser. If you’re using Opera, Konqueror or Safari, you’re OK, but why not test Firefox for a while, anyway? It’s free, after all. (Conversely, if you’ve used just Firefox for a while, why not try one of the 3 I’ve just mentioned? You may find that it is more to your liking. Browsers, after all, aren’t a religion…)

A great, unique feature of Firefox are extensions. There are so many that I don’t know most of them, but it seems that each day I learn about a new, interesting one. For instance:

logging in automatically to “registration-only” sites like the New York Times
weather information
integration with sites like del.icio.us
Google Pagerank level for the page you’re browsing
a new one I discovered yesterday: it shows your AdSense click rates, and money earned for the day, in real time

and many, many more.

Pros: probably the best browser in the world. Very much supported everywhere, these days - IE-only sites are becoming rarer and rarer. Extensions. Great tabs support. Fast (especially the new 1.5 version, now in beta). Open source. Multi-platform (Windows, Linux/Unix, Mac). Secure. Stable. Easy to use.
Cons: still not as blazingly fast as Opera, especially in old computers. The gestures extension can’t compete with Opera’s gestures.

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