Tobiasly’s Blog

If you’re like most computer users, you view the web with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (”IE”) browser. You probably do this not because you compared it with other browsers and found it to be better, but because it’s what comes with your computer, and it works well enough. In fact, you may be unaware that there are even any other worthwhile browsers you can choose from.

Well, I’m here to tell you that you do indeed have a choice of which browser to use, and if it weren’t for the fact that IE came with your computer, I seriously doubt you would choose it for its merits. Keep reading and I’ll try to convince you to change the way you browse the web.

For several years, IE was the best browser out there. It certainly beat its only significant competition, which was Netscape’s Navigator browser. But after Microsoft won the “browser war”, successfully establishing IE as the de facto standard, they all but gave up on making it any better.

The result is that today, Internet Explorer 6.0 has numerous bugs in the way it formats pages; its user interface does not reflect the way people want to interact with the web; and it puts far too much control over how pages are opened and displayed in the hands of the people who write web pages instead of the people who view them (in other words, you!).

In my opinion, the best browser out there right now is Mozilla Firefox. The Mozilla Project is made up of a bunch of programmers who write software to make their lives and the lives of others better, not to make money or gain market share. The Firefox browser is one of Mozilla’s products, all of which are completely free to use. In fact, not only are they free to use, they are licensed under a license which ensures that it will always be free. So you’re not in danger of a “bait-and-switch” where you get hooked on a free product one day and then are asked to pay for it the next day.

For an explanation of the many features that make Firefox better, see this site. In my opinion, its best feature is tabbed browsing. This lets you open additional pages, while you keep reading the one you’re on. Then, after the other pages finish loading, you can switch over to another one by clicking on its tab. You can have as many tabs as you want, and switch back and forth easily. I don’t know how I ever used a browser without tabbed windows, but I do know I’ll never switch back!

Another benefit of Firefox is its built-in popup blocking. Microsoft did not build this feature into IE, because they want to sell these ads on their online MSN service. Sure, you can download or pay for add-on software for IE that catches most popups, but it never works as well as when the feature is built into the browser to begin with. The browser can tell the difference between a page that tries to open annoying unwanted popups (usually containing ads), versus pages with features such as online help that open popups to perform some needed function.

Not only is it a great product from the start, you can customize it in many ways to work just how you want. There are over a hundred extensions that people have written to change the way Firefox works, or that add new features such as additional search engines, mouse gestures, and accessibility options.

The biggest downfall to using Firefox is that sometimes you’ll run into a poorly-designed web page that is written specifically for IE, and will load incorrectly (or not at all) in other browsers. You may be wondering what those logos are on the bottom of my menu that say “XHTML” and “CSS”. These are two standards for writing web pages that the worldwide community agreed on so that pages will load correctly in all browsers, and which I take great care in adhering to.

These two standards are supported very well by Firefox, but unfortunately Microsoft cannot say the same about IE. It may be years before Microsoft catches up. In the meantime, many people who write web pages are less likely to make sure they follow these standards. So even if you agree with me that Firefox blows IE out of the water, you’ll still want to keep IE around for those “broken” pages that don’t follow the rules. (On the flip side, pages like mine that do follow standards will look much closer to what the author intended in Firefox than they do in IE).

Anyhoo, if you want to give Firefox a try, you have nothing to lose. Try it out, and if you don’t like it, remove it and go back to IE. Firefox will even import all of your favorites, home page, and many other settings so you can be up and running right away. If you’re ready to give it a try, head here.

If you like some of the features of Firefox, but still feel more comfortable with IE, give Avant Browser a try. Instead of rewriting a browser from scratch, these guys built lots of new features on top of IE. It includes many of the features of Firefox, including tabbed browsing, popup blocking, built-in search, and more. And since it uses IE to actually display the pages, I keep it around for sites that don’t look quite right in Firefox (although these are getting fewer all the time).

And, if after all this, you still decide IE is for you, that’s fine. But at least don’t make the mistake of using an inferior program, simply because you didn’t know there were others out there!

[Update] I have updated this post several times as Phoenix Firebird Firefox has gone through several name changes and reached its 1.0 release.