Computers Advice

The Firefox brand of web browser is one that many Internet users both know and love. But what many don’t know is that the browser first got its roots in an entirely different browser altogether- Netscape Navigator. Because of the hot war between Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, Netscape eventually decided to release their source code as an open source item to be viewed and developed by any who wished. This decision led to the founding of the Mozilla Firefox project, previously know as Firebird, in 1998. Ever since the critical acclaim that Firefox obtained after its mainstream success, it seems that the browser has been outperforming each and every release of Internet Explorer that comes out in recent months. After all, the long development time and open source movement can be quite a powerful tool indeed.

Internet Explorer has a bad reputation for security holes that seem to persist, even after threats are made aware of by Microsoft. This is in comparison to Mozilla Firefox, which is considered to be one of the most secure browsers available. Part of this feat is attributed to the fact that Mozilla Firefox does not use Active X components, which have widely been known to create browser vulnerabilities in competitors such as Internet Explorer. But the security doesn’t stop there- as Firefox has been able to give updates as soon as security holes are found compared to the many months or years it would take Microsoft.

Those who are looking to save some disk space should also opt for Mozilla Firefox, as it comes it at a small 4.9 megabytes in size. This is compared to the 80 megabytes that Internet Explorer requires for its bulky code- of which is unnecessarily large.

Rendering is important in a browser, with much hype put around the Acid 2 test that measures how well a browser can display things correctly on a webpage. Firefox uses the Gecko engine, which is very precise and hasty, yet fails the Acid 2 test. But in comparison to Internet Explorer, Firefox does much better on the test in the end.

Internet Explorer is commonly close to many types of invention and creativity that Mozilla Firefox lets its users enjoy. Internet explorers can’t enjoy open source plugins, themes, or other add-ons that Mozilla Firefox can. In many respects, such add-ons are what can make one browser more useful than another- as we all have specific needs in a browser that only open source developers can address on such a large basis.

Another distinguishing feature of Firefox is the tabbed browsing. With Firefox 2 you can open any number of tabs, rearrange the order of tabs and save all the tabs as bookmarks for latter viewing. Firefox tabbed windows are much superior to IE 7 in terms of memory usage. However one feature which is still missing is the thumbnail preview of each tab as available in Opera browser.

A browser crash is something that is hated by many. After all, it’s extremely counter-productive to be browsing the Internet and have a browser completely stop responding. Even Firefox admits that browser crashes happen, but they implemented a session restore feature that gives URL data and other information to users, should they want to restore the URLs they were previously viewing. This is something Internet Explorer lacks, and is much less appealing as a result.

As we look to the future, we can only hope that browsers will continue to be competitive and see who can make the better product. Things such as the Acid 2 test are being worked on by both sides, and will make an interesting next couple of years in the very least.