Mozilla.org, an open-source effort created by some of the original pre-AOL Netscape designers, has been working on Firefox, its Internet Explorer alternative, for several years now. The group has now released the much-anticipated preview of Firefox 1.0.
The so-called Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Prerelease (PR) is very stable -- unlike most betas -- and offers many advanced features that should put Microsoft on notice. But don't take our word for it, try it here and stay tuned for our review of the final browser, which we expect soon. Note: as with all beta products, Firefox 1.0 Prerelease is not intended to replace your full-time browser software, so please install with caution.
This free program has more features than the most recent version of Internet Explorer. For example, Firefox 1.0 PR includes Live Bookmarks -- a feature that allows you to receive RSS feeds within your browser -- and a built-in Google search toolbar. Firefox also lets you view more than one Web page within a single open browser and has the most customisation options of any browser available. Like Internet Explorer, Firefox also includes a built-in pop-up blocker.
Microsoft maintains its monopolistic hold on the Internet browser market: 95 percent of the audience uses Internet Explorer. Cracking into that will be hard. Not every Web site is optimised for non-Internet Explorer browsers, so some, such as banking sites, may require you to use Microsoft's browser rather than Mozilla. And although more media plug-ins are now available for Firefox, you might want to check here first to make sure the ones you use are listed.
The outlook for Firefox is very good. Recent security vulnerabilities within Internet Explorer have caused minor erosion of Microsoft's browser market dominance. Of all the credible alternatives, Firefox has the most positive buzz and offers the most advanced features.
Talkback
"Like Internet Explorer, Firefox also includes a built-in pop-up blocker."
Only the version of IE included with Windows XP Service Pack 2 contains a popup blocker.
"Like Internet Explorer, Firefox also includes a built-in pop-up blocker."
It has been years that Mozilla Suite and Mozilla Firefox have a pop-up blocker, so it's quite "Firefox also includes a built-in pop-up blocker that Microsoft has cloned in it's new version of Internet Explorer".
Try Fireofx, it's very easy to use and powerful, you won't regret it !
The browser market has definitely shown that a lack of competition is bad for the consumer. There have not been any major improvements to the browser user experience in IE for quite a long time. I recently started using Firefox and can say already that the tabbed pages it provides already make it worth the switch. The trickle of users switching will eventually become a flood as more users discover this gem.
This may eventually force microsoft to wake up and do more to enhance the browsing experience. Look at what happened to storage space provided by email providers once google announced it's pending 1GB offering. It may take some time, but eventually the market rewards innovation.
Been using for 6 wks .....it's great, faster than Int Exp
no problems.
You mean. Like FIREFOX, IE added a pop-up blocker!
Not to play who's first in incorporating a pop-up blocker, but IE added this feature until just recently. While we who have used Mozilla since the beginning saw this and tabbed browsing added to the milestones and there was no turning back.
It's taken MSIE a long time to catch up to these simple features. The author makes the reader believe it is the other way around which is incorrect or plainly put WRONG!
Also the author shows their lack of experience with the browser since there actually few sites that don't work with Firefox or Mozilla. I use it exclusivley and only use a Linux machine to do my online bill paying for security reasons.
Make sure you check your facts before publishing. You say IE has a 95% hold on the browser market? That data is old! From Slashdot.org, about research that was done recently:
"According to these stats posted from the Engadget logfiles, IE has dropped to 57% of all browsers used to visit the site, while Firefox is up to an amazing 18%!...Less than 2 years ago, IE had a 95% lock on the market."
I am a big fan of Firefox, and have been using it for many months, way before 1.0PR. It's a great browser, and definitely is a major competitor to Microsoft. Let's just hope they don't do to Firefox, what they did to Netscape...
Slashdot.org might have a much larger percentage of visitors using FIrefox because it is a site that is visited by many early adopters, aka: nerds :-)
For the average site, Firefox is used by a much smaller--but expanding--group of users.
I've been using Firefox since it was renamed from Firebird back in February 2004 and I haven't turned back. I used to be of the persuasion that Netscape should just "go away" so that developers wouldn't have to worry about cross-browser compatibility. Now if IE could just "go away", I'd be happy!
As a rebuttal to the author's comments: Please, replace your fulltime browser with Firefox! I've seen so many systems loaded down with spyware, malware, and adware as a result of IE's security holes, and people are still using it for online banking!
Wow.
Firefox incorporated a pop-up blocker before IE.
I've been using Firefox since 0.91 with no problems.
Ooooh. Bookmark features! Wow, two windows at once!
Lame. Proves, yet again, why Msft wiped Netscape off the map.
Robert, you're a moron.
You claim that " Firefox...has the most customisation options of any browser available." You're insane! Opera has many times more customization options! Just an example: you can customize what "ctrl+n" does in Opera, but not in Firefox. And that's just one of dozens of options not available in Firefox.
Actually, firefox does have more customization options than opera...you just have to download and add them to the base browser. I've been using firefox since it switched its name from Firebird, and before that, I used Opera. Don't get me wrong, both are great browsers, but the fact that firefox can block EVERY AD ON THE INTERNET (yup, even the ones that on most browswers would show up on the right and left of this page - banners) with its ad-block add in is astounding. Thats just one of many add-ins. For customizable key-ins and mouse-movements, download the "customizable mouse gestures" add-in. Oh, for noobs, mouse gestures are where you can hold down your right mouse button and move the mouse to the left, and it will go back, or to the right, and the page will go forward, etc...
Yeah, all in all, Firefox blows all other browsers away. Period. End of Story.
David - install Firefox and then in the address bar, type the following:
about:config
Then tell me any browser on the planet offers you more options than that.
Been a firefox user for many a month now... the betas are even stable.
Just wrote a driver to fix the real player intergration problem. Will be released on SF soon.
Simply put.. you can do more with Firefox... faster than you can with IE.
BTW... Both REAL and IE suck :)
I think your comment that FF is more customizable than Opera can only be justified if a clarification is made.
The majority of the customizations you speak of are 'extensions' which must be downloaded and installed- such as the mouse-gesture extension you mentioned.
I am confident that if an out-of-the-box copy of Firefox was compared with an out-of-the-box copy of Opera- with no extensions or add-ons applied to either browser, there would be absolutely no doubt that Opera would found to be far more customizable than Firefox.
Additionally, Opera has many features unique, as far as I know, to only it that are of incomparable value to people with special needs. The main one I am thinking of is the ability to apply custom style sheets to any website being viewed with the click of a button. Is the print on this website too small, or the color unreadable to you? If you are looking at it with Opera you can hit ctrl-g and a stylesheet either previously selected from a list of accessibility-minded choices, or one you created yourself will be applied to the site and the page will be presented in the way YOU want it to be.
Firefox is a good product, I like it and use it occasionally, but Opera (on it's own, out of the box) IS more customizable and presents useful features found nowhere else.
Oh, and though Opera does not yet implement 'live bookmarks' it has a had an RSS feed viewer built in for some time.
If you are gonna nit-pick about customizability out of the box vs. extensions, then you have to look at the reason behind the extensions. First of all, Mozilla made the decision to make Firefox easy and quick to download, so they made it as small and lean as possible. Second, not everyone wants to use every extension available - there are at least 100 of them. So it would make zero sense to include them all in the out of the box version of firefox. The fact is, the extensions to firefox are what make the customizability nice - you don't have to install it if you don't want it, and when you decide you do, install it. In that way, your browser takes up the least hard drive space possible, and while it may not be much space to begin with, if you are like me, you need all you can get - I have a 160 Gb hard drive which has less than a gig free. Oh, and can opera block banner ads? Oh wait, thats why its free, isn't it? That big ass banner ad right across the top. Yeah, have fun with that.
Opera, Firefox, whichever..so long as it isn't IE!
I've tried both, and stuck with Firefox.
Oh yea..Robert, Netscape wiped itself off the map. I'll make a note not to apply to a company that would hire you. :)
This has been the best browser for more than a year.
Blocking pop-ups has been in many versions along with many other features.
Browser - FireFox
Mail - Thunderbird
Calendar - SunBird
Now you have it all...
Gee, you guys are right, I should have qualified my statement with: MEANINGFUL options (unlike, say, "browser.chromeURL" (?!)) that COME RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX, not after having do download a bunch of plugins.
You're right.
You are lame.
Dear David Jenkins, Have fun with your banner ads, banner ad boy...
(Please note that Opera supports itself by allowing advertising right in its browser)
How is Tabbed MDI good? Please explain this concept to me.
Look, in order to switch to a page from another working app you have to do the following:
Tabbed MDI, standard OS interface:
1. Remember that the "Internet thingy" is shown in one window
2. Click on that window's button at the _bottom_ of the screen
3. Remember page name / tab location
4. Click on that tab at the _top_ or _possibly at the bottom_ (you have to remeber that, too) of the screen.
SDI (IE), standard OS interface:
1. Remember page name / window button location
2. Click on that window's button at the bottom of the screen
Now, how is Tabbed MDI good for browsing?
And tell me one more thing. Would you switch from your comfy WinWord 2k / XP interface back to WinWord 97 interface? I guessed you would say 'no'. So why is reverting back to old interface concepts is called a good thing?
If you need Tabbed browsing, most current OSes support grouping of similar taskbar items - there you go : )
Oh, on the final note. The 'built-in Google search'. Just in case you are wondering, I have it right here in my IE (and Firefox 0.9.7 for that matter). It's called 'tha Google Toolbar'. And what if I decide to use, say, alltheweb.com instead of Google? No way, Jose, you say?
I don't care about skins, tabbed interfaces or built-in searches.
Show me the real stuff. Fast page rendering. Standard plug-ins. _Non-intrusive_ error messages (_not_ message boxes). Compliance to standards _and_ non-standards that have a tendency to become standards de facto, like DHTML. Yes, DHTML!
Turkey boy, say you are browsing the internet and want to open a new page. In internet explorer, you have to go find your IE link on your desktop, or use the start menu, or your launch bar. With firefox, all you have to do is double click in the tab bar, and there you go, new browser page. And if you are running 7 applications at once, which is often the case, its nice to have all your internet eggs in one basket, as opposed to nine different IE windows. Thats how tabbed MDI is better. I don't think you will find many people that have used tabbing that are against it. Its like with dead-aim...you can just have more open at once, and have it not be confusing.
" Oh, and can opera block banner ads?"
Yes, actually it can by editing a configuration file telling the browser to reject them. Not only that, but this feature is not a brand new thing used for marketing hype.
I'm sorry it bothers you that I prefer Opera to Firefox. I'm also sorry that it seems you feel the need to react with my reasoned presentation of the facts with hostility.
I never said you were wrong, Man. I simply said you needed to qualify your statment. As he author of the article we are dicussing should have done.
Let me also add that the Firefox download is more than 4 Mbytes which does not include a mail client. The Opera download is less than 4 Mbytes and does include a mail client which, though maybe not everyone's cup of tea, is revolutionary and for those who get the concept light years beyond any other mail client
been using the beta build for almost a month now, Excellent !!! Fast , Easy to use, Cool interface + Tabbed Browsers, Download History !!! , Live Bookmarks .. and really Faast !!!
Some sites like photoacess which are damn slow on IE, really fast on FireFox ....
Hats off to Mozilla for such a wonderful product!
Opera isn't free...the full release of opera with all those nice customisable options (including the one blocking the big banner ad right across the top of the browser) is 39 USD. Firefox is free, and so are all the extensions.
I have been using Firefox since the early days when it was called Firebird. I have it installed on a Windows laptop I use for work and on my Linux machines at home. I find it to be an excellent browser for both platforms.
Regarding customization, I think the best feature of Firefox is the ability to customize the user files such as userchrome.css and user.js using the edit files extension. This feature, along with the other available extensions really allows the power user to build a browser that suits their needs without adding features they don't need.
I haven't touched IE in over two years and can tell you I dont miss it a bit. I have no problems with any on-line commerce/banking sites or with Citrix.
I think the arguement about "out of the box" features is moot because Firefox was designed from the ground up to be light out of the box and customized using extensions.
I can also tell you that by using the features of Firefox along with a hosts file I never see a pop-up and rarely see any type of ad on a web page. I certainly would never consider any browser that was ad supported or that was full of security holes.
BTW, holding Ctrl while using the scroll wheel changes font size. I doesn't get easier than that.
Tom
Though clearly Microsoft exerted its monopoly power on the desktop to gain a stranglehold on the browser market, they also did one thing they do best--start slow and steadily improve.
To give some historical perspective on the matter, Netscape did make some major missteps in the marketplace, including not giving away the browser. I used to work for a small ISP and I remember spending months going around and around with Netscape on browser pricing. When MS released the IEAK and ISPs could effectively bundle a setup package for nothing, the game was over for Netscape. Most ISPs, especially small ones, had a soft spot for Netscape and WANTED to bundle it, but Netscape should have given up on Navigator as a revenue stream at least 2 years before IE 2/3 came on the scene. They believed foolishly that the sleeping giant wouldn't awaken and they'd have their marketplace hegemony forever. Had they asked their customers they would have known how wrong they were.
Tabbed browsing is the best thing since sliced bread. If you set your preferences right, you can open a link in a new tab by command-clicking on it.
Firefox is also incredibly snappy, and the AdBlock plugin is simply awesome. It allows you to block ANY content from ANY url (including wildcard option) and basically means that you never have to see another ad on the web again.
Firefox is far and away the best browsing experience I've ever had since I started on the web in '94.
In response to Andrew from Atlanta.
In IE you would use Ctrl+N or File->New->Window in order to launch a new IE window. Same thing you would do in FireFox by the way.
This is called a 'fetaure'. If a user doen't know about it, it will go to a dektop/quicklaunch shortcut regardless of the browser he or she uses.
What I really don't understand is why this tabbed interface thing is being blown up so much? OK. I do agree that there are advantages to either way of browsing, but why push it as THE main thing, the main diference between browsers?
Shouldn't page rendering be a concern?
Shouldn't lack or availability of standard Extension APIs be a concern?
Shouldn't support for various standards be a concern?
Shouldn't integration with OSes be a concern?
Shouldn't performance be a concern?
Tabbed browsing is offered as the thing that IE lacks. Everybody in the 'IE sucks' camp jumped the bandwagon and proclaimed tabbed browsing to be the new religion and that makes me sick.
FireFox has its own issues to deal with (extensibility being just one of them). Instead, it seems, they follow the crowd and provide minor, mostly interface-related, 'improvements' instead of making major steps to beating IE (and yes, once again, you may hate IE's ActiveX, but FireFox and OSS for that matter are nowhere close to giving us a similar thing).
Pop-up blocking? Google search? GoogleBar for IE gives me much more power than what FireFox's extensions and FireFox itself give me.
Extensions? I still have to wait for a decent Flash plug-in for FireFox that wouldn't freeze up in a flash game I am currently playing.
Browsing experience? IE still gives me more tips on where I am going wrong than FF with ts message-boxes.
Give me a _user_ experience, not a developer experience (I use FF to debug JS), and I will tell you taht we have a winner. So far we have a competitor... Not even too strong.
I use Firefox, but... although IE is not a tabbed browser, if you want to open a link in a new window, you simply SHIFT+CLICK and it opens in a new window. You can also left click and choose the option from a window.
This is also the same for Firefox, except you have the added option of CTRL+CLICK which opens in a new tab, rather than a new window.
Firefox seems like a decent browser, but I had a heck of a time getting it up and running without crashing. I think I probably spent 4-5 hours on it before it finally worked right.
The problem arose from installing one of the themes from the Mozilla web site. Once it was installed, Firefox would no longer run, even after uninstalling and reinstalling. I had to search my hard drive and the Internet multiple times to figure out where the file was that needed to be deleted. It was a mess.
Though it is touted as being more secure than IE, there was also several news stories detailing several security holes in earlier versions. More secure than IE? Probably. But not 100% secure. If you use Firefox, you may be getting a false sense of security.
I can see why it is still in Beta. It does seem fast, and highly compatible with most web sites. And I like the extensibility of it. But for me it has not been reliable enough to make it my primary browser.
It just keeps getting better and better. Although there are several browsers (as well as separate programs) now that offer this useful feature, the most effective one that I've tried so far is in Firefox.
This browser is also less susceptible to viruses, etc., that clog up IE. If people knew what a browser does, and what it's supposed to do, they would've switched to Mozilla much sooner. As it is, most people just go along with Microsoft because they don't know what's going on :)
As a developer, I have used most non-IE browsers and celebrate the many user-centered features of both. The one feature I do love about Opera (and why it stays regardless) is the zoom feature. Changing the font size (ctrl + mouse wheel) is a lame way to accommodate for the visually impaired - the same short cut in Opera re-renders the page including graphics and set fonts. Far better then breaking the flow and design us developers intended. For the rest of us … if you so lucky as to be working at super high resolutions, how much nicer is it to zoom in on a page rather then having to a) have half a screen of white space or b) a paragraph in one long line in a liquid site? I’m quite disappointed none of the others have integrated this simple concept.
As for ads – I don’t actually mind paying for something I like. The truly annoying pop ups are all but gone in all browsers now with minimal effort so seeing a banner at the top is a pretty cheap price for the experience.
First of all, IE is the predominant browser in the market. Some poster quoted Slashdot.org, which is very biased IMO. I work for an IT company that develop web site for major US toy company. There are indeed more than 90% of users using IE in our web log.
The problem with IE is that MS's monopoly. MS is used to use the strategy of 'stealing' others market share by wielding it. History repeat itself, be it Borland C++ IDE, be it Netscape, now MS is using so called .Net to kill java. Very sad, this is all happening. When MS first comes into a new market, they will produce some good products. However, once they reach monopoly status, development halts, literally.
First of all, IE is the predominant browser in the market. Some poster quoted Slashdot.org, which is very biased IMO. I work for an IT company that develop web site for major US toy company. There are indeed more than 90% of users using IE in our web log.
The problem with IE is that MS's monopoly. MS is used to use the strategy of 'stealing' others market share by wielding it. History repeat itself, be it Borland C++ IDE, be it Netscape, now MS is using so called .Net to kill java. Very sad, this is all happening. When MS first comes into a new market, they will produce some good products. However, once they reach monopoly status, development halts, literally.
Ignore the Microsoft zombies. FF is great. Opera is fantastic if you like ads.
The reason IE is so popular is because it was developed for the casual user (not the geek/developer) MS makes it easy. You won't convert the people that want plug and play. The majority of people don't have time to play around and tweak a browser. (the majority of people reading this do, i know) Make it simple to use and you have a winner for the majority. Same reason people buy new cars every 36 months... they don't want to mess with them out of warranty....
Once you get Firefox, make sure you get the All-In-One gestures extension. It is the single best browser tool I have ever used. Mouse gestures rule me!
THE BEST EVER BROWSER ON THE MARKE!!. TELL ME I AM WRONG..and I'm sorry for you.( I've been using it sins FireBird)
I've been using Firefox for a long time and wouldn't consider using IE. Of course since I use Linux, that isn't a likely choice anyway...
What amazes me is the occasional site that doesn't support Firefox, and actively locks it out. I was trying to look at Fidelity's website for info on their funds and was locked out. I bought Oppenheimer's fund instead. (Why would a website actually block access?)
Jim W
Time for new management: http://www.regimechange04.com/
Beta, not intended to replace current browser?
Heck, I've been using it to replace IE (and previous Mozillas) since version 0.8 in an enterprise environment. I'm also replacing Outlook and Eudora with Thunderbird. We have sensitive financial data we send across the 'net and I can't let it get hijacked due to the vulnerabilities in that POS Internet Explorer.
Mamut, I really can't understand where you are coming from. Its rebuttal time:
> Tabbed MDI, standard OS interface:
> 1. Remember that the "Internet thingy" is shown in one window
If this is hard to remember, then you have bigger problems. Better to have 1 internet thingy to jump to than 100, each displayed in the ALT+TAB widget as the exact same icon
> 2. Click on that window's button at the _bottom_ of the screen
Or ALT+TAB
> 3. Remember page name / tab location
Page title is in the tab, again, not much required here
> 4. Click on that tab at the _top_ or _possibly at the bottom_ (you have to remeber that, too) of the screen.
Or CTRL+TAB to cycle FireFox tabs the same way you would cycle applications with ALT+TAB. OR, CTRL+<tab number>. I don't even see this one in your SDI (IE), standard OS interface.
> And tell me one more thing. Would you switch from your comfy WinWord 2k / XP interface back to WinWord 97 interface? I guessed you would say 'no'. So why is reverting back to old interface concepts is called a good thing?
Again, not sure where you're going with this one. How is FireFox an "old interface"
On the Google bar in FireFox - you CAN add multiple search engines to use (see the "Add Engines" menu item from the search bar drop-down)
> Show me the real stuff.
> Fast page rendering.
Yup, faster than IE
> Standard plug-ins.
Show me the non-standard ones?
> _Non-intrusive_ error messages (_not_ message boxes).
Its called the JavaScript console and it doesn't even open unless you open it. Doesn't get much more "non-intrusive" than that.
On that matter, its not only non-intrusive, its actually helpful, especially if you're a developer. Messages like "Object Required on line 1233874" in IE mean nothing.
> Compliance to standards _and_ non-standards that have a tendency to become standards de facto, like DHTML. Yes, DHTML!
What are you smoking?
Well, I have to say Firefox is by far the best web compliant browser out there today. I am a developer and I am tired of having to patch and write work around code just to accomodate the crappy handling of html, dhtml and css in IE. And even Opera has it's issues. And worse yet, that crap that M$ put out for Apple.
Any compliant code will always work correctly in a Mozilla based or Safari/Konquerer browser.
I have noticed on my site averaging over .5 mill hits a month, the stats show IE at 77% and falling with FF at 13% and growing, the rest is mostly Safari which is rising as well. Opera, netscape, and webtv are tied at less than 1% each...
"Like Internet Explorer, Firefox also includes a built-in pop-up blocker."
Since when IE has a built-in pop-up blocker??? I think the author meant to day UNLIKE Internet Explorer.
Please change it before everyone would think you are a moran.
Firefox is great and mozilla is great too! I don't think it's fair to call firefox the "Internet Explorer alternative".
The reason IE is popular is that it was bundled "For Free" with pretty well every PC sold. You have to work really hard to compete with that. Microsoft also made using another browser difficult. For the average user - even if they'd heard of the possibility of a non-IE browser, its a fair effort to change from something thats "just good enough". Its only because IE is not "just good enough" that people are changing.
Microsoft also have this amazing attraction which I don't understand. People just believe in their software and seem to follow like sheep - no matter how bad it is. I got my first play with Microsoft Analysis Services yesterday - and its pretty dire. Its metadata system has gapingly huge conceptual holes in it that stop it handlnig the non-trivial. Its full of bugs, and even what it claims to do is quite simplistic.
Amazingly it has apparently 40odd percent of the market share. OK - its bundled for free with MS SQL Server, which may be boosting that number even if its shelfware in most cases, but its typical Microsoft and typically dire. Perhaps Microsoft Analysis Services is "just good enough".