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A
better browser emerges
Would
you switch to a new Web browser if it was safer, simpler, and more
secure? How about if it was also free? While it may sound too good
to be true, the Mozilla Foundation is offering just that with the
first official 1.0 release of the new Firefox Web browser.
In
recent months, early developmental releases of Firefox have received
rave reviews. Casual Web users enjoy the simple and elegant interface,
while higher end users appreciate the customizable features and
free extensions that provide added functionality. In short, Firefox
can be as basic or as complex as you like. Additionally, the installation
is fast and easy to run, and it automatically imports bookmarks
(favorites), cookies, and saved passwords from Internet Explorer
or Netscape.
Most
people, however, switch to Firefox not because of what it offers,
but because of what it doesn’t offer—the pop-up ad and
spyware headaches that have long plagued Internet Explorer users.
While Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been the dominant Web
browser for years, security issues have made it increasingly difficult
to use. Microsoft’s Active-X technology, built into Internet
Explorer, has been a frequent target for virus developers who exploit
security flaws within the code. Pop-up ads may be the most common
nuisance for Internet Explorer, but viruses and spyware increasingly
infect computers through the browser as well. Microsoft has responded
to these threats with security patches and, in the most recent version,
a pop-up blocker. Yet, even with the most recent updates, Internet
Explorer seems to have more vulnerabilities and fewer features than
other Web browsers.
On
the surface Firefox looks like any other Web browser. It has an
address bar for typing the URL of the Web site you would like to
visit; familiar “back,” “forward,” “home,”
and “refresh” buttons; a field for entering Web searches;
a bookmark menu; and automatic pop-up blocking.
Users
can also open additional Web pages in tabs instead of new browser
windows (a feature offered by all Web browsers except Internet Explorer).
Control-clicking on a link will open that link in another tab, so
a user can continue reading the original page without having to
click back to it. This feature is useful for research, because users
can bookmark an entire set of tabs and open them all at the same
time from the bookmark menu at a later date.
The
Mozilla Foundation is a nonprofit, open-source development group
dedicated to free and open Internet applications. The Help Desk,
which has been testing Firefox since the early developmental releases,
has found it to be fast, stable, secure, and compatible with almost
every Web site. While a few Web sites, which are developed for Microsoft’s
Active-X, will only work with Internet Explorer, Firefox users can
still launch Internet Explorer to access such sites or simply choose
a different Web site that supports other browsers.
Firefox
is available for Windows, Macintosh OS-X, and Linux. You can download
it for free from www.mozilla.org.
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