Firefox and the Internet

No, it's not the latest genetic experiment, it's an Internet web browser and it's changing the Internet as we speak.

Before Internet Explorer, which is the most widely-used browser today, most people paid for the Netscape web browser. It was popular, it was widely used, and it had many extensions of HTML (the coding in web pages).

Then Internet Explorer showed up. It was fast, it supported standard, and above all, it came with the popular Windows operating system. Slowly but surely, Netscape lost market share to Internet Explorer, until eventually AOL bought out Netscape and set up the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Foundation released the Netscape source code, used to create the software, and many independent developers were able to contribute to the Mozilla source.

However, there was a problem. Many people began to complain that Mozilla was too bloated. It contained a browser, e-mail, chat, web design and other functions, all in one program, and all ran whenever the program was started. In response, the Mozilla Foundation split them apart. The web design features went into a program called Nvu. Calendar features went into Sunbird and a calendar feature for the new e-mail client, Thunderbird. And the web browser, it was called...

Phoenix.

I'm sure a large group of you just asked "What about Firefox?" Well, at first, it was called Phoenix. After some legal issues arose, the name was changed to Firebird. More legal issues led to a renaming to Firefox. Now Firefox has almost 10% of web usage.

But what makes Firefox so great?

Well, for one thing, the browser is very secure. Internet Explorer is deeply integrated into the Windows operating system, so if something compromises the security of Internet Explorer, the entire computer is at risk. Firefox stands by itself, so if it was to be compromised, it would not pose a threat to the computer as a whole.

Further, Internet Explorer is set to run what are known as ActiveX controls. These were intended to allow the installation of software to improve the user experience, but is now mostly used to install spyware and viruses into the system. Firefox does not support ActiveX controls at all, and anything that does try to install requires you to wait three seconds and confirm, so nothing gets into your system without your knowledge.

But what about the experience for the end user? Well, the most noticeable thing that Firefox (and any other modern browser, for that matter) brings to the table is tabbed browsing. Why have 10 Internet windows open when you can have one window with 10 tabs? Tabs make it easier to organize your browsing experience. Plus, if you accidentally close a tab, you can get it back with our next reason to use Firefox.

Extensions, as the name implies, extend the browser's features. Extensions can be written by anybody and are almost limitless in what they can do. One of the most popular extensions, AdBlock, does exactly as the name implies--it blocks advertisements. Other extensions provide any number of features, and since you only add the ones you want, you can remove extensions if the browser becomes too bloated.

You can also add themes to your browser. With Internet Explorer, you're pretty much stuck with the same theme that Windows uses. But with Firefox, you can download a number of different themes and use the one that you like best.

(Added 11-30-2005) My favorite new feature in the newly-released Firefox 1.5 is integrated support for SVG. SVG is short for Scalable Vector Graphics. If you've ever seen a Flash animation, then you should have a general idea of what SVG is. I like it because it allows for coding of images by hand, and it uses open standards. No single company controls SVG, and as such, many different programs exist for making SVG with no restrictions. It is also useful in making images that don't look blocky or blurry when zoomed in. If you have Firefox 1.5, give SVG a try.

Despite all these things, Firefox is not the only alternative web browser, and some people may prefer other browsers. For example, AOL still releases Netscape, which at this point is little more than Firefox hacked to borrow the Internet Explorer rendering engine for web pages at certain times.

Opera has been around for a long time, and is very reminiscent of the old Mozilla browser in its features. It contains a browser, e-mail, chat, and other things, but unlike Mozilla, Opera manages to do it without using a lot of memory. It's not as customizable (at least, not as easily as Firefox is), and when I used it, I personally did not like the feel of it. But many people do like it and like it a lot, and I always recommend that people try as many things as they can to find what works for them.

At this point, Internet Explorer is unsafe and is behind in features, plus it is extremely difficult for web designers to make pages that look nice in it. While you may choose Firefox, Opera, Netscape, or any other browser you may find, I can't stress enough how much moving off of Internet Explorer can help you and the developers who build websites.