CHRON: FireFox browser easy, fun, fast, safe, free...

Just more reason to switch to Mozilla Firefox, and drop that POS IE.

Firefox browser easy, fun, fast, safe, free
By DWIGHT SILVERMAN
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle

Microsoft's decision to make the Internet Explorer Web browser part of its operating system starting with Windows 98 created a killer app — in more ways than one.

It almost killed Netscape, the company that pioneered the Web browser and had the early market share lead. If it hadn't been for tech behemoth America Online, Netscape would have gone the way of most other dot-com flesh.

Internet Explorer's dominance also killed innovation in the development of Web browsers — at least as far as Microsoft is concerned.

No longer compelled by competition to innovate, IE's development cycle is now linked to that of Windows. And because Microsoft updates its operating system less frequently than Bruce Springsteen releases new CDs, updated versions of IE are rare things indeed.

This doesn't mean, of course, that rigor mortis has set in for the Web browsing genre. If you want fresh and exciting signs of life, take a look at a free, simple and powerful Web browser called Firefox.

I've been using Firefox for several months, beginning with earlier releases under the name Firebird. Here's how good it is: If it weren't for incompatibilities with some Web pages designed only for Internet Explorer, I'd probably use this as my only Web browser.

Where IE is bloated and intrusive, Firefox is nimble and elegant. Firefox has many features you'd expect in a modern browser that are missing in Internet Explorer, including a downloads manager and a pop-up ad blocker. It also displays pages faster than IE.

It's also relatively more secure than Internet Explorer. You can worry less about your browser being a gateway for malicious code or hackers.

Firefox is a product of the Mozilla Foundation, a coalition of open-source software developers. Among their other projects is Mozilla, the free browser that is also the basis for America Online's Netscape browser, which is at version 7.1.

Firefox is the foundation's next-generation browser, a rewrite of the software with an emphasis on speed, convenience, security, simplicity and expendability. The software is free and available for Windows, Linux and Macintosh computers at www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/.

The software is still in development and is considered a beta version. The most recent offering is version 0.8, with 0.9 imminent. However, it's pretty stable — it has not crashed once on me.

You'll notice the difference from the moment you download Firefox. The Windows version installer is half the size of an upgrade for Internet Explorer — a little over 6 megabytes. If you've got a broadband connection, you'll have it in a snap.

You'll also find that it's not presumptuous. It doesn't try to make itself your default browser, nor make any other changes to your system. About the only annoying thing it does on installation is to insist on putting icons on your desktop and the Windows quick-start bar without asking. (Software developers: Always ask before doing this. Unsolicited icon droppings are rude.)

If you have the Netscape browser loaded on your system, the Firefox installer will pick up its settings, including your designated startup Web page. It won't pick these up from Internet Explorer, but it will import your IE Favorites.

It also won't grab any plug-ins — for example, the popular Flash animation player — that you've already installed for IE. You'll have to redownload them when you first visit with Firefox sites that require them.

Here are some of the cool things Firefox will do:

• Block popup ads. Can I get a "hallelujah" and a couple of "amens!" The ability to block annoying Web-based pop-ups is built into Firefox — no need to download third-party software to streamline your surfing sessions. It comes with a "whitelist" feature that lets you allow pop-ups from sites you designate.

• Tabbed browsing. Rather than clutter your desktop with pages in multiple windows, you can opt to have Firefox display different sites using a single tabbed window. Do a Control-Click to open a new site as a tab, and then easily navigate the pages using the tab bar that appears. Firefox can even be set to open multiple pages as tabs on startup, instead of a single Web page.

• Google built-in. There's a built-in search field right next to the address field atop Firefox. This can be set either to search for words on the current page, or to go directly to the Google search engine. Want to use a different search engine? Then you'll need to take advantage of another cool Firefox feature:

• Extensions. Firefox has the ability to expand its capabilities through the use of extensions, plug-ins that add new features to the browser. For example, you may be a fan of the Google Toolbar that's available only for Internet Explorer. Although Google searching is built into Firefox, there's a clone of the IE version that's been created as a Firefox extension. You can then use it to search Google's images and Usenet archive. At this writing, there are over 150 extensions, with more posted all the time.

• Download manager. Do you download software and forget where you saved the file? The download manager keeps a record of what you've grabbed and where you put it. Click on the Show link next to the item, and Firefox opens the folder where the file was placed

• Speedier browsing. Well, maybe. In general, Firefox seems to load pages faster than Internet Explorer. Timed tests were inconclusive: some sites loaded faster, others didn't. But the way Firefox handles its display makes it seem as though sites are loading much quicker than on IE. Overall, browsing — at least on a broadband connection — is a more pleasant experience.

• Better privacy management. Internet Explorer makes it difficult to manage things like cookies, stored passwords and auto-completed Web addresses. But Firefox has a simple control panel that lets you work with all these aspects. For example, if you misspelled a Web site you've entered into the address field and it keeps displaying as a suggested auto-completion, you can easily edit it. (You can remove these from IE, too, simply by highlighting the entry in the drop-down suggested address menu that appears as you enter Web sites and hitting delete.)

For those who like to browse with bookmarks or the history window open in IE, Firefox has a similar feature called the Sidebar. And it matches many other convenient IE features, including auto-filling of forms and Web addresses.

In fact, other than the occasional Web-page incompatibilities mentioned earlier, my only beef with Firefox is that it doesn't detect how you are connecting to the Internet and adjust its proxy settings accordingly, as IE does.

For example, if you need to have a certain proxy setting when you connect to a business network, but normally don't use it for nonwork surfing, you must make the change manually. But I suspect this feature will be added in future versions — or may even appear as an extension.

Both frequent and casual Web users should rush to give Firefox a try — it is a delight to use.

Send e-mail to dwight.silverman@chron.com. His Web site is www.dwightsilverman.com.

 

FireFox rules. It is by far my most favorite browser. I still use IE too, but when I am surfing I use FireFox since it is much more reliable, and safer.