Web Browsers: Part 5: Mozilla Firefox
And finally, we arrive at the most used web browser (behind Internet Explorer). Many people consider this the best web browser bandwidth can download.
There are actually two different realms within the Firefox world, that is, with and without add-ons.
While many users use Firefox for the speed and enhanced security it offers over Internet Explorer even without add-ons, other users are more concerned with the huge customization potential of the browser.
Without Add-ons
The browser without add-ons is very similar to every other web browser. Obviously it has it’s own look, vastly different from that of Internet Explorer 7 and 8, and much less scatterbrained. To me, the browser is logical. Buttons do not seem to be haphazardly placed. The back button is larger than the forward button, I imagine because it used quite frequently.
It is relatively fast, faster than IE and Opera but slower than Safari and Chrome.
Safety precautions built into the browser are nice for the average user, but can be a nuisance for more advanced persons. If you attempt to access a webpage suspected of phishing, the browser will come up with a page stating exactly that. The website is suspected of phishing, and you should not proceed. It then has a button to go back to the previous page. Unfortunately, the continue button is hidden, and rather difficult to find (which I suppose may be a good thing so that some users that do not read error messages and such do not click right past the warning).
Stability, stability, stability. For the most part Firefox is incredibly stable. Very rarely do I see a Firefox without add-ons crash.
Firefox also does an excellent job of showing you webpages, but because of this, it partially promotes laziness on the webpage developers.
Verdict
What it really comes down to is that Mozilla’s Firefox is a great browser. It does what it needs to do, and for the most part, it does it very well.
EDIT: I did completely forget about this. With the recent versions of Firefox (>3.0) the browser seems to have a massive memory leak. It will continually eat up your RAM more and more until it just crashes out, and often when it crashes you cannot restore your tabs. While not a major concern for most people who just browse the internet for a few minutes at a time, people that leave their browsers on almost all the time, and often have 10+ tabs open will find it very frustrating. If you are one of these people I highly recommend Opera instead.
Some Changes
I decided to remove all of the html pages I had worked on, and replace everything with the blog for now. This is all just a temporary solution. I never liked the way that the html pages looked, but I don’t currently have the html/css/photoshop skills to make it look pretty, so I am using the blog. I also picked out a new theme I really liked. I might stick with this, or I might keep looking for an even better one. We’ll see if I get sick of this one or not.
I have also been very lax in updating this regularly. That is going to change, I will try to update this at LEAST once a week.
I will also add a bunch of pages to replace some of the deleted html ones.
What to look forward to in the future:
- Some software reviews
- Hardware reviews (just built me a new computer)