I.E's DayS ArE NumbereD..(AtleasT 4 Me). Review on Mozilla Firefox

Introduction:

Firefox is the new browser from Mozilla ready to take-on Internet Explorer. It can be installed with Windows, MAC and Linux system. Firefox has several enhancements over IE. I will list those later. If u r really of sick of the troubles that IE gives(If at all..all are not as unlucky as me) or if u wanna try out any new browser then try out Firefox u wont regret. The download size is only 4.76 MB and the download link is specified at the end of my rvu.

First of all what made me switch to Firefox:

Since the last year or so I was using I.E. 5.5 as my default browser. I must say it was running fine and I wouldn?t have changed or upgraded ever. Since then I.E. 6 was available I wanted to keep pace and one fine day I upgraded to I.E.6 and then the problems started.

First all the first thing I.E. 6 did was it kept crashing whenever I opened multiple windows (or e.g. reading 2-3 rvu?s simultaneously). What resulted was I had to re-boot everytime and that was supposed to be a hard boot(data lost many times).

I installed Opera as an alternative but when I.E. 6 crashed it didn?t allow Opera to start then there was no point of using Opera. Then I went to my original I.E 5.5(un-installation that is) and thought all would be fine. But alas the problems in I.E.6 came to I.E.5.5 as well. So I was stuck to use bugged 5.5 since the last three months or so. I never liked the interface of Netscape so didn?t use it. Then one fine day at MS I read about Firefox and downloaded it to try it and (touchwood) it has been good going since then.

Interface of Firefox

Since the browser is to take-on the other browsers its interface is a mix-breed from all of them. The browser has the normal I.E. icons which are customizable. Then next to the address bar it has a search bar which is similar to the one found in Opera. At the top we see circle-bar rotations which suggest connectivity similar to the revolving world icon in I.E. At the bottom to the extreme right hand side we see the progress bar (I.E has it in middle). The icons are customizable as they are I.E. so it shouldn?t be really tough to switch over from I.E. to Firefox(if at all u wanna).

Coming to the useful features: (Note: I am not going into explaining the technical features here since this rvu is intended for general-purpose reading and all are not as familiar as techie-geeks with the technicalities here..Ofcourse that?s an excuse for me not knowing the technicalities?lol)

->Various themes can be used with the browser. The themes can be downloaded from the website for free. There are hundreds of them and it won?t take too much time to download. This facility is not there in I.E (I m not talking about external theme software like Hotbar).

->Firefox has a default download manager which I.E. lacks(u need to have download accelerator or any other for I.E.). This is very suitable since u click on download and it starts downloading by default.

->The install size is only 4.76 MB. Compare this to about 60 MB of I.E. or to mention any other browser. The small install size is becoz it installs only the browser and the enhancements like Flash player, QuickTime Player etc need to be downloaded from the website. Ofcourse without the enhancements u will not be able to view certain websites but overall w/o those most websites do work.

->Firefox supports Tabbed browsing. This feature is borrowed from Opera. By tabs means multiple windows in a single window similar to spreadsheets in MS Excel. When u right-click on a link u get an option to open it in a new tab or in a new window.

->If u are switching from I.E. u need not worry about the favorites and other stuff. After u install Firefox u get an option to import the bookmarks or Favorites and u can import all of them to Firefox.

->As u keep on browsing u can download more and more extensions and they keep on installing automatically,

->Firefox is not a memory hogger as I.E.

->By default the search bar has Goggle as its search engine. But they are variety of others and u can your own specific search-engine too.

->All the script errors that I was getting in I.E. have been removed in Firefox(Ofcourse they might be the bugs in my I.E. software but atleast I m free from them now).

->Firefox also has a inbuilt pop-up stopper which works similar to Google?s pop-up stopper.

->If u find difficulties working with Firefox an easy to use help is available.

->Firefox is an open-source browser and so all the techie-geeks can add their own source to Mozilla?s website and customize the browser in the way they like.

->All short-cuts for I.E. work for Firefox too.

->Best of all the browser and all its enhancements are free.

Coming to flip-side of this browser I have read about the bugs of script errors in Firefox too. But I haven?t yet experienced them in browsing the usual websites that I browsed in I.E. also in the multi-tab feature there is a single address bar present above all so u need to take care while u r browsing. But for those who have used Opera it won?t cause much of a problem (it didn?t to me). In any case u can always use the online help present.

Minimum System requirements: (For Windows)(from the website)

Operating Systems(any of these):

• Windows 98

  
  




• Windows 98SE

  
  




• Windows ME

  
  




• Windows NT 4.0

  
  




• Windows 2000

  
  




• Windows XP (Recommended)

  
  

Minimum Hardware:

• Pentium 233 MHz (Recommended: Pentium 500MHz or greater)

  
  




• 64 MB RAM (Recommended: 128 MB RAM or greater)

  
  




• 52 MB hard drive space

  
  

Download Link: