Fire Foxy

Well, I’ve been saying that I’m going to do this, so here goes:

If you’re still using Internet Explorer to read this, its time to move on up to the east side. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) is old and busted. The new hotness: Firefox.

I switched from IE to Firefox a little more than a year ago. I’m not going to lie, I was extremely skeptical at first. I’d been using IE since Windows 95 and it was all I knew. Think of it as an old, holey security blanket (pun intended) that I had grown up with. I didn’t have any reason to try something else. Why? Because ignorance is bliss. I was in my comfort zone.

Then one day I figured I would give Firefox a try. Seriously, I hated it. I was out of my element on the WWW. It was like trying to drive with a manual transmission when you’re used to an automatic. But I slowly realized that driving with a manual is more fun…as is surfing the net with Firefox. Here’s why:

1. Firefox has a ton of built-in security features. Out of the box, Firefox has pop-up blocking, anti-phishing detection, and isn’t based on VB Script and ActiveX controls. That means that Firefox won’t execute code on about 90% of the websites that installs spyware. In the event that a website does try to install something, Firefox will ask you for your permission.
2. Firefox has tabbed browsing. Its a little hard to explain…definitely something you have to see for yourself…but I’ll try. In IE, if you want to view two sites at the same time, you have to have two different windows open. With Firefox, you can open multiple sites in one window. Each site is represented by a tab that resides under the address bar at the top of the window. All you have to do is click on a different tab and that site is displayed. This means you don’t have umpteen million windows open on your taskbar (or groups in XP).
3. Firefox is open source. Basically this means that a group of people are developing software for the masses for free. It also means that security holes are fixed faster (updates are automatic) and the technology driving the browser is more current. And the best part: Add-ons. Add-ons are small additions to Firefox that add cool features. I’ll list my favorite add-ons at the bottom of this post.
4. If you visit a site that uses embedded media like Flash, Shockwave, Quicktime, etc…and you don’t have it installed, Firefox will tell you exactly what you are missing and where to get it.
5. The latest version of Firefox, 2.0, has built-in spell checking. So if you’re typing an email on the web, Firefox will underline any misspelled words in red (like Word) on the fly. Its that cool.

There are some drawbacks to using Firefox. Since Firefox doesn’t support ActiveX or VB Script, some sites won’t work correctly and you have no choice but to use Internet Explorer. In the last few weeks, Microsoft finally gave in and Hotmail now works with Firefox. On the other hand, you can’t use Firefox to download any Microsoft updates. I can say that most, if not all, of the major sites like Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Bank of America (online banking), CNN, and so on work great. Also, some embedding media players, like Windows Media, work only half the time (again, depends on the site).

Now, just to be fair, Microsoft just released Internet Explorer v7.0 a few weeks ago that features tabbed browsing. As of this writing I haven’t tried IE7 but I’m planning to. However, working in the nerd world, I haven’t heard too many good things about it.

So I ask you to give it a shot and let me know what you think. I think you’ll like it. You can download it here. Plus Firefox will give you the option of importing your history and bookmarks from IE when you install it.

Here’s a list of the add-ons I use to pimp out my Firefox:

• Adblock Plus – Enhances ad blocking to include visual adds on pages. Basically Adblock hides all of the visual, get your attention adds you see on Yahoo and CNN. Plus, if you see an ad that Adblock missed, you right-click on the ad and select the Adblock option. Poof! The ad is gone!
• Adblock Filterset.G Updater – This feeds Adblock with a list of sites that host pop-ups and ads. It keeps your list of sites to block up-to-date.
• Forecastfox – Adds a set of icons to the bottom right corner of the Firefox window which tells you the current weather conditions and what’s the weather like for the rest of the day and tomorrow. It also adds a little radar icon that displays a mini radar image when you park your mouse over it. Plus, a little window pops-up if there’s a severe weather warning in the area.
• Foxytunes – Adds a set of controls to the bottom of the Firefox window that allows you to control media players like iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player, and so on. This means you don’t have to bring up another window to change songs.
• Gmail Notifier – Adds a small icon to the bottom of the Firefox window that checks for new Gmail messages every X minutes. If you get a new email in your Gmail account, a little window pops-up to tell you.
• Hyperwords – See a word or phrase on a webpage that you want some more info about? Just highlight the word/phrase, right-click on it, and select the Hyperwords option. You’re given a ton of options such as: search Google for that word, search Wikipedia, search Amazon, and so on.
• IE Tab – This adds a small Internet Explorer to the bottom of the Firefox window. If you visit a page that doesn’t work with Firefox, you just click that icon and it opens that page in IE and in the current tab within Firefox. It’s that awesome. I will say that its a little buggy at times. A good alternative is IE View. It adds the option to open a link in a new IE window when you right-click on a link in Firefox.
• PDF Download – When you click on a link that goes to a PDF, it gives you the option to download it, view it in an external viewer, or open it in Firefox.
• Tab Mix Plus – This add-on increases the functionality of the tabs. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows. A must if you use tabs at all.

As with Firefox, add-ons are automatically updated.

And I’m spent. Have a great weekend everyone!!

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