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You might have heard about a "new" web browser out
there called
Mozilla Firefox (or just "Firefox" for short). It's the new Wünderkind of the "alternative browser" market. You
see, most people - around 85 - 90% of you folks out there - use
Microsoft's Internet Explorer to browse the web. But the remaining
10% use something else. There are a few programs out there -
Maxthon for
one - that use IE's "guts" but have different "front ends" than Internet
Explorer. In fact, Maxthon can be be made to look nothing like
Internet Explorer, although the inside is all running IE. On the
other side of the spectrum, you've got different browsers
altogether. The Opera
web browser has been around for years, but never became all that
popular. Firefox is an open-source project that uses code that is based
on the old Netscape browser. But don't mistake comparing
"Netscape" to "Netscape 4.7" (a truly awful suite of web software). The Firefox code has been given a good scrubbing by
many programmers and has much, much to offer. And while most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about which web
browser they use, perhaps they ought to. Spyware, adware and
malware are out there, and it's possible to accidentally install some
pretty nasty software on your system if you're not careful. But even
more than security issues, a different browser offers a different
experience using the web.
It's more secure than Internet Explorer - Firefox does not use Microsoft's ActiveX "plug-in" technology. "Plug-ins" are a method
all web browsers use to install needed
software on your computer when visiting a particular website. Normally
this isn't a bad thing; in fact, it's required to take advantage
of a lot of the advanced websites on the 'Net. For instance,
Microsoft's
Windows
Update website uses a plug-in to update your computer. In
fact, if you've ever gotten the prompt "Microsoft needs to install some
new software to make Windows Update work" or "Your Windows Update
software is out of date. Click OK to install a required update"...
then you've installed a plug-in! Now, Microsoft being the company
that it is, it created its own version of plug-ins called "ActiveX". This is a technology that allows website operators to install software
on your system. But because the software is... how do I put
this... full of holes, it's easy to cause mischief with ActiveX. Spyware and adware companies began to flourish, and new means of
exploiting IE began to appear way too often. Partly this is Microsoft's
fault for writing buggy code. To defend Microsoft though, "spyware"
or "adware" didn't exist when most of the IE code was written, and
Microsoft had a stunning vision of companies all across the world using
Internet Explorer to access a company's internal web server (running
Windows 2000 Server, of course) with legitimate ActiveX plug-ins
creating cheap business applications. I have seen many, many
companies do this. Instead of paying $20,000 (or more) for a help
desk program, a company's IT department would be more than happy
to use a cheap web server connected to a free
MySQL database
and using an in-house programmer to write an ActiveX control. That way,
they don't have to install a "client" program on 5000 desktop machines. Anyone with Windows and Internet Explorer - be they sitting at the desk
at the company headquarters or a salesman dialing-in from the
Crown Room at
Hartsfield
Airport - would be able to access the company's help desk or
sales lead system or be able to take care of basic HR needs with just a
web browser.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, it
didn't take long for virus writers and spyware companies to figure out
what a goldmine this was. Over 95% of the people that surfed the 'Net at
that time used some flavor of Internet Explorer. IE is a huge
target for hackers and advertising people of similar ilk. Because Firefox doesn't use ActiveX, this means that
many of the spyware and virus exploits on the 'Net will not affect you in Firefox. But another (very real) part of Firefox's security comes from the old
"security through obscurity" IT maxim. Far more people use IE than
Firefox, so virus and spyware writers have spent most of their time in
the past few years writing software
that exploits IE. As the numbers of Firefox users grow, more and more exploits for Firefox
will appear as well. In a
very real sense, it's similar to the old "Linux is more secure"
argument. A few years ago, Linux was
considered "secure" in part because few people - if any - wrote viruses or trojans for it. However, as more and more people began to use Linux, the
number of Linux exploits increased... in fact, there have been more
exploits for Linux the past couple of years than Windows! And to be fair
to Microsoft, they have a much better system for delivering patches than
Firefox (whose programmers are still working very hard on an "automatic
update" feature). Also, the default Internet Explorer settings in
Service Pack 2 for Windows XP are pretty decent. But still, you're
much safer "out of the box" with Firefox than you are with Internet
Explorer.
Firefox uses tabs! - If you want to have more than
one web page open at a time, IE will use multiple windows. Firefox uses a single window with multiple tabs, so each
page stays in one handy window. If you visit Internet message
boards often, you'll love being able to hold down the CTRL key
and click on a bunch of thread links and have them open in a new
tab automagically. Tabbed browsing has been a feature with some
browsers (like Opera) for ages, but I never really got into it until I
started using Firefox a few months ago. I promise that if you try tabbed
browsing for just one week, you'll never go back to IE's "multiple
window" browsing again. Tabbing is something that just fits web
browsing naturally.
Tabs + Bookmarks are Cool! - One cool thing
about using tabs is that Firefox allows you to save all of the
currently open
tabs to your bookmarks as a group. Just select one of the currently open
pages and select Bookmarks > Bookmark this page > Bookmark all tabs in a
folder. You'll then have a folder in your bookmarks named after
the page that was active when you selected "Bookmark this page". To open the pages individually, just click on their bookmarks like
normal. To
open all of the bookmarks as tabs in a single window, select "Open in
tabs". Unfortunately, Firefox's Bookmarks Manager is about as bad
as Internet Explorer's and with Firefox you don't have the
option of moving your bookmarks around using Windows Explorer either.
It's small... and has cool features! - Firefox
is only around 4.5MB, so downloading it is super-quick, even on dial-up. By itself, the Firefox browser is a compact, limber little thing that's
perfect for computer lab or office desktop computers. But that small download
does pack a punch! Firefox comes with a
built-in Google toolbar - which can also search Yahoo!, Dictionary.com,
Amazon and eBay too - as well as a built-in pop-up blocker. Firefox also
has a "Live Bookmarks" feature that allows you to bookmark RSS feeds and
blogs and view them as web pages within Firefox. I'm not a huge
fan of the "RSS feed as a webpage" paradigm, but, like IE's FTP client,
it'll work in a pinch. It's easy to setup! -
Firefox is dead-simple to install. When you run it for the
first time it gives you the option of importing all of
your Internet Explorer bookmarks, cookies and history, so the transition
is as close to painless as possible. All of your data is kept in a
"profile" which is not touched after an uninstall or upgrade. Upgrades
affect actual Firefox program files only, so troubleshooting on a
company level would be much easier IMHO.
It has themes! - Firefox's interface is
fully customizable. You can tweak it to your heart's content by
downloading themes. The default Firefox theme is OK, but there
are many more snazzy ones out there. Like
this site for instance.There's even a skin that will make
Firefox look like Internet Explorer (see the picture below), which could
come in handy for company-wide upgrades or for those who just "refuse to
switch". It has
extensions! - Although Firefox ships with lots of
features, it also has a extensible plug-in capability. These plug-ins -
called extensions - should not be confused with the "plug-ins"
mentioned in my anti-MS rant at the top of the page. Extensions
are completely voluntary and optional to install - indeed,
you'd gotta go to a website and download them yourself - but they won't
install any spyware, I promise! They add additional features to Firefox or fix
some of its eccentricities. Here's a list of the extensions I'm
currently using, just to get an idea of what these extensions can do. Click on any of the links below to go to a website where you can learn
more about them... or install them on your computer if you're already
running Firefox!
Adblock - Firefox has a built-in pop-up blocker, but it's
becoming less and less useful as more and more people use the browser
and more and more websites write code to get around Firefox's blocker. Adblock not only stops pop-ups, it can actually remove banner ads
and other types of advertising from web pages! One feature I wish
Adblock had would be the ability to allow advertising from
certain specified websites. Blocking ads at
Ars Technica
is frowned upon by the mods there, so I have to remember to turn Adblock
off manually when I visit Ars.
Allow Right-Click - Some websites disable right-clicking on
their web pages in a lame attempt to prevent people from stealing images
or written content from their site. For example,
awfulplasticsurgery.com does this. This extension disables
the JavaScript that causes this.
Bandwidth Tester - As the name implies, this adds a internet
speed test to Firefox's "Tools" menu. Sometimes it works,
sometimes it doesn't. But it's still nice to have.
Bookmark Backup - Backs up your bookmarks to a different drive
or server every time you close Firefox. An awesome "set it and forget"
extension for those of us too lazy to do backups manually.
ChromEdit - For the advanced class only. It allows the
user to easily modify arcane user settings in Firefox's userChrome.css,
user.js, etc. files. If you don't know what I'm talking about, skip
this. If you do know what I'm talking about, this extension allows you
to tweak Firefox's internal settings by clicking on Tools > Edit User
Files instead of navigating 15 levels deep in Windows Explorer
and opening the file(s) with Notepad.
Clone Window - When you click File > New Tab in Firefox, the new
tab will appear as a blank web page. This is a mighty
annoyance to Internet Explorer users who are used to new windows being
opened as "clones" of the current page. This extension forces
Firefox to open new tabs as clones of the current active tab. This comes
in handy in lots of ways. If you're surfing Amazon in a single
window or tab for a particular type of product (like an clock radio),
when you find a clock you want to come back to, you can just click File
> New Tab (or press CTRL+T) to clone the current window, instead of
going back to the previous page and opening the selected link in a new
tab.
Download Manager Tweak - Firefox has a download manager, which
is something that is sorely lacking in Internet Explorer. However,
the default behavior of Firefox's manager is kind of annoying - it
appears with every download as a small window, not unlike your average
pop-up ad. Download manager allows you to tweak how it behaves. You can make the manager appear in a separate window, the sidebar or - my
personal fave - as a regular tabbed window. You can make it close
automatically when downloads complete. You can trick it out any way
you'd like.
downTHEMall! - How many times have you been to a celebrity
fansite and wanted to download every picture of Angelina Jolie
they offered, but didn't want to open and save each picture
individually? If you're like me, it's actually pretty often. downTHEMall adds an option to Firefox's context menu so that you can
download every picture on a page - or every picture linked from
the current page - with two mouse clicks. It even comes with a "turbo"
option that retains the last settings you used so that you only need to
right-click on the page and select "turbo d-T-a" to download all the
pictures to the same folder on your local system.
FirefoxView - Adds an option to Internet Explorer to view the
current IE page in Firefox. Just right-click a whitespace on the IE page
and select "View page in Firefox" to have Firefox open to the current
page.
ForecastFox - My favorite extension! Adds your local forecast to
Firefox's status bar. ForecastFox - which is made by a guy from
Ars Technica
- is highly configurable, allowing you to display several day's worth of
forecasts, just daytime forecasts, just nighttime forecasts, use icons
or text to display the same, to have (or not have) "pop-up"
notifications appear in Firefox... and much more! ForecastFox pulls its
data from weather.com, so if you're happy with your local forecast from
those folks, it's easy have it in Firefox!
FoxyTunes - This is a remote control program for your media
player. You can select the specific media player that you use - be it
iTunes, WinAMP, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, Music Match, what have
you - and control the program within Firefox using a tiny toolbar in a
location you choose.
ieview - Does the same thing as FirefoxView, only in reverse.
Just right-click a whitespace on the Firefox page and select "View page
in IE" to have Internet Explorer open to the current Firefox page. This
comes in handy for those few sites - like online banking sites -
that absolutely require Internet Explorer.
ListZilla - Exports a list of your currently installed
extensions and themes to an HTML, plain text or vB code file, as well as
links to the websites and the currently install extension's version
number. In fact, ListZilla is how I made this list! Good
for posting on Internet message boards or for re-installs.
Session Saver - Saves all of your currently open pages to a
"session" when you close Firefox, or manually by clicking on File >
Store Session. This is nice for those times when you have to reboot
unexpectedly or if you have 20 tabs open and need to restart Firefox to
install a new extension or theme. Just reboot or restart Firefox and
click File > Restore Session and you're back where you were. The default
settings - to create a session every time you close Firefox and to
restore it every time you open Firefox are a bit much. It's
not that difficult to do this manually whenever I need to use it.
Tweak Network - As the name implies, this extension allows you
to tweak Firefox's network settings to allow for faster performance in
certain situations. It's kind of pointless if you're good at tweaking
the user.js file, but it's handy for those people that aren't. |
