Mozilla Firefox

[JimH]

Mozilla Firefox is a new Internet Browser that is very secure - and very sharp to use.
IT IS ALSO FREE.
Has anybody else tried it - and if so how did you get on with it?

[Niall Fernie]

Its hardly new :)

But yes a very good browser, I switch between it and Internet Explorer hundreds of times a day due to my work and could not say which I prefer. As for security, its much like beauty, in the eye of the beholder.

[JimH]

I was given to understand that it became available towards the end of July - If that is not so - It's not often I'm right - I'm wrong again!

[Niall Fernie]

All the info here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox

[DrSzin]

We had a discussion about browsers here (http://forum.caithness.org/showthread.php?t=6875) about six months ago.

I've been using Firefox since version 1.0 was launched in Jan 2005. (I didn't try the previous 0.x versions.) It's still my browser of choice - partly because it runs on all of Windows XP, Linux and MacOS X.

[j4bberw0ck]

There was an update release end July. IE suffers security issues in part because it used to have 99.9% of the browser market, so hackers and script kiddies didn't really have an alternative target. Now Firefox is taking up to around 15% of the market, they're targeting it so Mozilla are forced to issue security updates.

I've used Firefox since its release and found it very, very good. Tabbed browsing is superb - you can have several websites open simultaneously and jump instantly between them, which until Microsoft improved IE to include tabbed browsing, meant opening multiple instances of IE.

You might also look at Opera 9.0 (http://forum.caithness.org/www.opera.com) which I also use from time to time. Superb, very fast, browser, now free, including an email client and IM client too. And because it only has a fractional % of the market, tends to be ignored by the people who like to find security holes.

You may find a very few websites don't work properly with Firefox and Opera, because they're written in accordance with the official W3C web guidelines. IE is written to Microsoft's own interpretation of W3C (a cynic might think they wanted to use IE's dominance to hijack the setting of web standards :lol: ) and many websites are written to Microsoft's standard. The gap is closing, though, and I can't remember the last website I had a problem with. It's usually in reading menus or finding buttons that don't work - switch to IE and it's fine, then switch back to Firefox or Opera.

[JimH]

I've checked out the info and changed my signature accordingly - Thanks again for your info.
I was going to ask why you switched between the two but the previous post by j4bberw0ck has answered that - I think.

[pultneytooner]

Mozilla Firefox is a new Internet Browser that is very secure - and very sharp to use.
IT IS ALSO FREE.
Has anybody else tried it - and if so how did you get on with it?
Firefox is an excellent browser but everytime it updates itself it wipes my bookmark folder clean, nada, now I have to have a seperate folder on my desktop with my webpage addresses.
Bit of a pain but I wouldn't go back to I.E.

[2little2late]

Firefox is an excellent browser but everytime it updates itself it wipes my bookmark folder clean, nada, now I have to have a seperate folder on my desktop with my webpage addresses.
Bit of a pain but I wouldn't go back to I.E.


Never had this problem myself with firefox.

[Dreadnought]

I have been using Firefox for about two years or so, it is a superb browser. In particular I like the tabbed browsing feature, where I can have multiple 'home' pages open simultaneously. I notice IE7 has tabbed browsing, in fact it is near identical to Firefox, Microsoft feeling threatened perhaps? :evil

[sjwahwah]

I've used Firefox since.. well.. a long time ago.. can't remember how long...

Pultneytooner... could it be that when you downloaded your version you downloaded a beta or trial version.. and it's been fixed since?

Jim H... welcome to firefox... IE blows.

[r.rackstraw]

I have used firefox for the last year. No problems so far.