Firefox- Undisputed Winner Of Browser War
The Firefox brand of web browser is one that many Internet users both know and love. But what many don’t know is that the browser first got its roots in an entirely different browser altogether- Netscape Navigator. Because of the hot war between Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, Netscape eventually decided to release their source code as an open source item to be viewed and developed by any who wished. This decision led to the founding of the Mozilla Firefox project, previously know as Firebird, in 1998. Ever since the critical acclaim that Firefox obtained after its mainstream success, it seems that the browser has been outperforming each and every release of Internet Explorer that comes out in recent months. After all, the long development time and open source movement can be quite a powerful tool indeed.
Security is a very big issue with Internet browsers. After all, there is no reason in entrusting a browser that has multiple security risks in it that can lead to identity theft, ruin one’s computer, or otherwise damage an investment that goes into every computer. Mozilla Firefox recognizes this, and likewise does not allow Active X components that are largely attributed to spyware and security holes. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, on the other hand, has long been associated with security risks that are usually wide open for months at a time- compared to the mere hours or days that Firefox can fix their security holes.
Firefox browser is very light weight in terms of its installation setup which is just above 4.9MB as compared to IE which is around 80 MB. Firefox download is available for different platforms like Windows, Mac & Linux and hence is more versatile in usage.
Firefox derives its powerful rendering engine “Gecko” from its parent Mozilla products. Its rendering is precise and speedy though it fails Acid 2 test (a standard compliance test for webpage rendering) but still scores well above than IE, which lags at the bottom when rendering is considered.
Internet Explorer is commonly close to many types of invention and creativity that Mozilla Firefox lets its users enjoy. Internet explorers can’t enjoy open source plugins, themes, or other add-ons that Mozilla Firefox can. In many respects, such add-ons are what can make one browser more useful than another- as we all have specific needs in a browser that only open source developers can address on such a large basis.
Tabbed browsing is a sensation that can triple productivity many times over, simply due to the fact that there is better organization and record keeping to be done with tabbed browsing. Internet Explorer versions have accomplished offering the same thing, but it is less efficient on memory usage and will appear to be much more slow than that of Firefox.
A browser crash is something that is hated by many. After all, it’s extremely counter-productive to be browsing the Internet and have a browser completely stop responding. Even Firefox admits that browser crashes happen, but they implemented a session restore feature that gives URL data and other information to users, should they want to restore the URLs they were previously viewing. This is something Internet Explorer lacks, and is much less appealing as a result.
The future development of Firefox versions has already been started and version 3 which is likely to pass Acid 2 test is expected to release in June 2008. With this release Firefox is set to show doors to IE legacy.
Filed under: Computers & Technology