Firefox is today's Web Browser

Abstract

This paper introduces the open-source web browser that everyone seems to be talking about called Firefox. Security issues with the very popular Microsoft Internet Explorer has led to the creation of this new modern browser that is safe, user-friendly, standards-compliant, clean, flexible and packed with great features.

Intended audience

This paper is intended for all Internet users and those interested in surfing the web.

Contents

• 1. History brief
• 2. Problems with IE
• 3. Why choose Firefox ?
• 4. Firefox features
• 5. Firefox downsides
• 6. Conclusion

1. History brief

Once upon a time, Netscape Navigator, the Internet portion of Netscape Communicator, dominated the web browser market. 1997 marked the rise of Internet Explorer (IE) when IE4 was released and the fall of Netscape, which was later, sold to AOL. Internet Explorer was faster, slicker, came installed on every new PC and was overall better than Netscape. In 1998, Netscape made the Communicator source code available to the public and renamed it Mozilla. A few talented coders, Blake Ross, Dave Hyatt and Ben Goodger hacked away at Mozilla and built a stand-alone browser, which later became Phoenix, then Firebird, then Firefox. Although the rise of Firefox may not necessarily mean the fall of IE, the stats sure seem to indicate so. In the first two weeks of its 1.0 release on November 9, 2004, 5.6 million copies of Firefox were downloaded. Firefox stole market share from Microsoft IE by climbing from nothing to nearly 5% in just a few months. For the first time since June 2004, the number of IE users have declined.

2. Problems with IE

Internet Explorer is perceived by many users as not secure and by many developers as seriously lacking in the CSS and W3C compliance department. IE has become a haven for hackers, con artists and pickpockets and people are simply frustrated and fed up. Part of why IE is targeted by so many criminals is due to the fact that it's the most popular browser and nearly 90% of the world's computers run Microsoft. Firefox is the alternate web browser Internet users, in particular IE users, have been searching for.

3. Why choose Firefox ?

Compared to IE, Firefox is easier to use, more flexible, more modern, easier on the eyes, smaller in download size, faster at displaying web pages and safer. Firefox is the preferred browser when compared against browsers such as IE, Netscape, Opera and Mozilla. Mozilla and Firefox have been credited with the browser's security successes. In addition to granting explicit approval to potentially hazardous operations such as downloads, Mozilla also interrupts automated attacks and prevents bad code from being executed. Every change made is first peer reviewed, studied and then tested by many.

It's also a free product of an open-source organization. This means that the product is continually made better by thousands of programmers all over the world. As a result, Firefox has earned brand loyalty by allowing and then crediting average people for contributing extensions, cool plug-ins and themes to its product. Because writing add-ons is easy, many people have contributed to Firefox; 356 extensions and 80 themes (aka browser skins) have been created as of April 22, 2005. Open source also means that there is effective teamwork in addressing critical problems like security. Here's an example taken from "The Firefox Explosion" article written in February 2005. In June 2004, Redmond took months to fix the hole in IE exploited by the .ject Trojan. Weeks later, a Firefox bug that allowed a website to spy on online forms was reported. Teams of open source programmers consulted and created a patch solution in less than 36 hours.

Firefox is available not only for Windows but also for Mac OS X and Linux. There are also talks about bringing it onto the mobile web. In comparison, IE is available only for Windows (IE5.2 for Mac is totally different) and any future version will only be for the latest version of Windows.

Firefox's user-friendly features are appealing and the fact that it's leading the pack when it comes to standards support is what is winning over many web developers. It has world beating support for W3C standards like CSS, DOM etc.

4. Firefox features

Firefox provides pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, privacy and security, hassle-free downloading, RSS integration, integrated toolbar adaptive search, browser skins (themes), browser add-ons (extensions) and full support for open-standard web specifications. Firefox protects your computer from spyware by not loading ActiveX controls. There are privacy tools that keep your online activities private. Downloads are preformed automatically and quickly onto your desktop or onto a pre-specified location with fewer prompts. When RSS sites are encountered, a special icon is displayed which allows you to create a "live" bookmark to it. The search box on the toolbar makes it convenient to search Google, Yahoo or any other search engine at any time while you surf.

Many browser themes and extensions are available for easy download and installation. Themes give your browser a different look whereas extensions add new functionality to your browser. For examples, there is an extension that will auto fill out forms for you and one that will display the weather forecast on your toolbar. Firefox is the most customizable browser in the market. Users can add buttons to the toolbar, install new extensions, permanently save multiple home pages, and much more.

One of its favorite features is tabbed browsing. Tabbed browsing allows you to view more than one page in the same window. You can easily switch between sites in an organized way. With just one click, one can open all sites contained in a folder into tabs in a single window.

You can also open links into background tabs. This allows you to finish reading your current site while your other sites load in the background; no waiting is involved.

Firefox is a web developer's best friend. Not only is it a standards compliant browser (meaning it follows the coding rules and gives predictable results) but there are extensions you can download to validate code such as XHTML and CSS. One of the best features of Firefox would have to be its user-friendliness; it's simple, clean and intuitive. Anyone can use it; it's as familiar as IE and as safe and fast as Netscape and Mozilla, its close cousins. At the same time, by customizing Firefox with useful extensions and buttons, advance users can use a fully featured and powerful browser.

Last, but not least, Firefox is small (only 4.7MB for Windows, compared to 80MB to download MIE6) and is easy to install and setup. It will only take minutes over a slow connection and seconds over a fast connection. After installation, one can optionally import settings from IE such as favorites, history and saved passwords. Basically, one can continue where they left off when they were surfing in IE.

5. Firefox downsides

Yes, Firefox is a great modern browser but it's not perfect. There are still many things that can be improved upon. Luckily, due to its open source nature, changes and improvements are made rather fast. One true downside to Firefox, however, is that some sites are designed specifically for IE and is not guaranteed to work on other browsers. For this reason, IE should still be kept around in case Firefox can't view a site properly. Luckily, Firefox does have an extension that allows you to view links or pages in IE.

6. Conclusion

Firefox is today's hot new browser that has gotten everyone talking. Unless IE gets their act together fast, they will continue to lose their users over to Firefox. The once dominated IE has now become the unreliable, unsafe and buggy web browser. Internet users want an easy to use, secure, fast browser and Firefox delivers just that.