Asymmetrical Information

Another thing I really like about Firefox is using CTRL-Scrollwheel to scale the fonts on a page. IE has this ability, too, but it's much more limited (it will scale only if the web page has specified font sizes). Firefox will scale pretty much everything.

An alternative (besides the obvious recommendation of Safari to Mac users) to Firefox is the standard Mozilla browser, on which Firefox is based. It lacks some of of Firefox's bells and whistles but I find its overall interface more comfortable.

I use Firefox on my home computer and love it. In addition to the points you stated, it's also MUCH more stable than IE.

You don't need to use Firefox for PDF downloads. Just delete the Acrobat plugin for whatever browser you use.

I don't understand the point of the Acrobat plugin. I think the original idea was to allow you to click on hyperlinks from a PDF and have a page come up; Windows 95 didn't have the ability to open web links from an external application, so this was Adobe's way around that. But now it's just this bloated app that opens inside your browser and won't go away.

I agree that Firefox is much better than IE and has some great features.

I used to use Netcaptor (IE-based and as a result equally vulnerable as IE). Netcaptor had some cool features that Firefox sorta replicates. For example, Netcapitor allowed you to close out of the program with multiple tabs still open, and when you re-launched, it automatically took you back to the same pages. While Firefox doesn't have this feature (as far as I know), it does allow you to bookmark all open tabs simultaneously. To replicate the Netcaptor feature, you need only save these bookmarks in a designated folder (e.g., "pending"), and when you relaunch, go to the "pending" folder and click "Open in tabs", which will open all the bookmarks in that folder. It's not quite as easy or as effective, but it helps.

To your list of plugins that rock, I would add WikiPedia lookup, dictionary lookup and gTranslate which all do basically the same thing - right click on a word or phrase and look it up on the appropriate reference site.

I know ForecastFox and ReminderFox have their detractors, but I like them too.

Also: do not forget themes. I once got a female friend to start using Firefox when I told her she could get a cat theme or a bunny theme.

Firefox rocks, straight up.

It's not perfect though. First of all, with due respect to Peter above, it is not "much more stable than IE". In fact it is a pig compared to IE. Don't believe me? Try browsing around for 10 minutes or so with both Firefox and IE. Next open Task Manager and find the programs in the list. Firefox generally snarfs up 3-5 times as much memory as IE, especially when you have plenty of extensions. Firefox is also considerably slower than IE (again, if you don't believe me use a stopwatch and time loading, page rendering, etc.)

But I forgive all these flaws for all the reasons Jane states, along with plenty others.

Basically Firefox just "feels" right to me. Opera is also a superb browser (better than FF in many ways) but has its own set of glitches.

For those who hate having ads shoved in their face, the Adblock extension is a godsend. SnapBack is also wonderful for those times when you accidentally close a tab but then realize you still needed it. You can get it back with a few clicks.

For those of you with Gmail or Bloglines accounts, there are notifier plugins that integrate those with the browser too. Very handy.

Is it vulnerable to any other intruders? Is it any LESS safe than IE? I just bought a couple new PCs for my home, and might download it this week to chekitowt.

Firefox is indeed better than IE but I prefer Opera.

I used Firefox for several months and then went back to IE. Part of it was the comfort factor and part of it was that Firefox just didn't do what I was used to doing in IE, but that could have been entirely my fault. But having one browser that worked well for me (IE), I didn't want to invest in the learning curve that Firefox required.

I think Firefox is going to be much safer than IE just for two little words: "Active X".

The speed aspect of Firefox has been discussed a lot, insofar as initial load goes, IE is faster because a lot of IE is loaded as part of Windows. If you install the launcher/agent/systray thingie in Firefox I think that speeds it up.

To Jane (a tip): You don't need an extension to close Firefox tabs quickly, just middle click on the tab and that'll close it for you.

You really don't need Tab X if you have a scroll wheel on your mouse. Go up to the tab and click on the scroll wheel as a button and it'll close the tab.

For anybody on the fence, Firefox is free and it won't break your computer, so give it a shot.

Another tip: if you middle click a link it will open in a new tab.

There are all sorts of keyboard and mouse shortcuts for Firefox that make browsing much faster.

Jane, ever thought about writing about the economics of free open source software? It seems counterintuitive that the open source model can compete with billion dollar software companies.

Middlebrowser, the extension you want is called SessionSaver.

Brian, Firefox is definitely safer than IE. There are some pretty scary IE security holes out there that haven't been patched yet. For example, this site will attempt to launch Calculator on your machine. It won't do any damage, but if it succeeds, you'll know you're vulnerable. Firefox is less susceptible to this kind of thing because it's less widely used, so hackers spend less time looking for flaws in it. More importantly, when a security breach is discovered, the Firefox folks get the update out right away.

Rex, I did the same thing a while back, but then I gave Firefox another try and there had been a ton of improvements. Back and Forward are now lightning-fast, for example. If you haven't tried Firefox 1.5 you might give it another shot.

"I open one window for research, another for ... It allows me to easily flip between different types of work without getting lost."

Stupid question: How do you switch windows in Firefox? I still use Mozilla because it's got a button at the bottom that cycles through the three or four windows I use.

I second NathanB's request that Jane weigh in on the Open Source movement/economic model.

It is a complex and fascianting topic. Nobody seems to be able to articulate clearly what the real long-term implications are of this model--which has many features that seem to be inspired by Karl Marx.

I read somewhere recently that the value of things will approach 100% of their information content. IOW, the raw materials, manufacturing costs, etc. will come to represent a decreasing fraction of the value of many goods, while the "software" (design, specifications, etc.) will become all important.

Given all this it seems to me much borader discussion of Open Source is warranted.

I'm an Opera user, and Opera has many of those features built in -- tabbed browsing, "Tab X" by default (I disable it, heh), easy zooming with Ctrl-Mousewheel (fonts and images), easy tab switching, and fantastic mouse-gestures.

Compatibility with IE-webpages is quite high, but occasionally you'll get a page that'll refuse to load for you but will load for firefox-- I keep both FF and Opera around, and IE for the last-ditch stuff.

Bill, if FF is like Opera, try holding RMB and using the mousewheel-- that'll switch between tabs.

"Bill, if FF is like Opera, try holding RMB and using the mousewheel-- that'll switch between tabs."

I'm, on a Mac, and don't have a right button or mousewheel. Holding down the mouse just gets me the choices of Back, Forward, Reload, etc. within one tab.

I'm sure there's a Preference or extension that'll do this; I just haven't found it.

I've been using Firefox at home since the .9x betas. I prefer using it at home via dialup to using IE at work, even tho I typically contract at locations served by an OC-192 and actually get some speed benefit thereby. I'm still using 1.06, waiting for 1.51 before I upgrade, and I'm using plain without plugins so one or two pop-ups a day actually get thru. I installed it on my nephew's computer and he's contemplating getting the Firefox as his next tattoo.

Bill, if you don't have a right mouse button this may not help you, but the All-in-one gestures extension is a great little navigation tool. Lets you do back, forward, new tab, new window, close tab, reload, and anything else you could want just with mouse gestures.

Other cool trick: you can use bookmarks to create text shortcuts. When you create a new bookmark, you can give it a keyword, so if I bookmart www.janegalt.net and give it a keyword 'jane,' I just type 'jane' into my URL bar and it goes there. But the bookmark URLs also take wildcards; I have one bookmark with keyword wk that links to "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s". If I type "wk X" into my url bar, Firefox loads the search page for X on Wikipedia. It's a really cool tool.

Almost all of the above is misguided, but one fact is true: tabbed browsing is excellent, and saves a lot of time. Problem is, the best tabbed browsing is that which is added to IE6 by installing the free MSN Desktop Search Toolbar, which installs tabbed browsing in your IE6 (http://toolbar.msn.com). You can forget the toolbar functions if you like, and just use the integrated tabs.

FireFox (including the new 1.5) is NOT as stable as IE6, no "safer" than a fully updated IE6, and FF renders MANY websites differently than their authors intended. There's no reason to give up IE6 to get tabbed browsing: just download the free MS update to add tabbed browsing to IE6.

...and FF renders MANY websites differently than their authors intended.

Seems like a pretty grotesque verbal evasion to me. I think what you really mean is "Firefox makes a credible attempt to conform to documented web standards, which Microsoft will occasionally ignore or redefine."

Or more transparently "IE is the browser you should use because it's the browser everybody else uses. And that goes for everybody. So there is no conceivable reason for anyone not to use IE. Ever. Now we'll have a moment of silence while watching a video of His Billness in the middle of one of his autistic rocking fits."

I mean, do they pay you to troll the web spreading doubleplus goodthink brandedness, or did you just pass your Turing test?

Thanks, Katherine. I downloaded SessionSaver. It's working well.

MB

Anonymous Coward: I find that most of the websites I read are designed to be viewed in Firefox, although they may also be decipherable in IE. The people who run the sites use Firefox, and recommend it to viewers who want the best experience possible from the website.

Besides, even if Firefox isn't actually more stable than IE, sessionsaver makes it effectively more stable: if it crashes, you just open it again and you're right back where you were. Even better, the memory it'd been consuming is back; once Firefox starts taking too much memory, I just close it and open it again, and have all my RAM back without losing any of my tabs.

But if someone finds a way to build Mouse Gestures, sessionsaver, and adblock into IE, as well as tabs, and preferably the DownloadThemAll utility, I'll consider going back. Til then—sorry, but no sale.

Katherine,

Thank you for the info. I'll try Firefox this weekend.

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