The Firefox brand of web browser is one that many Internet users both know and love. But what many don't know is that the browser first got its roots in an entirely different browser altogether- Netscape Navigator. Because of the hot war between Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, Netscape eventually decided to release their source code as an open source item to be viewed and developed by any who wished. This decision led to the founding of the Mozilla Firefox project, previously know as Firebird, in 1998. Ever since the critical acclaim that Firefox obtained after its mainstream success, it seems that the browser has been outperforming each and every release of Internet Explorer that comes out in recent months. After all, the long development time and open source movement can be quite a powerful tool indeed.
Internet Explorer has a bad reputation for security holes that seem to persist, even after threats are made aware of by Microsoft. This is in comparison to Mozilla Firefox, which is considered to be one of the most secure browsers available. Part of this feat is attributed to the fact that Mozilla Firefox does not use Active X components, which have widely been known to create browser vulnerabilities in competitors such as Internet Explorer. But the security doesn't stop there- as Firefox has been able to give updates as soon as security holes are found compared to the many months or years it would take Microsoft.
Those who are looking to save some disk space should also opt for Mozilla Firefox, as it comes it at a small 4.9 megabytes in size. This is compared to the 80 megabytes that Internet Explorer requires for its bulky code- of which is unnecessarily large.
Firefox derives its powerful rendering engine "Gecko" from its parent Mozilla products. Its rendering is precise and speedy though it fails Acid 2 test (a standard compliance test for webpage rendering) but still scores well above than IE, which lags at the bottom when rendering is considered.
Any Firefox user is proud to brag to Internet Explorer users that they have access to colorful themes, helpful plug-ins, and powerful add-ons that help extend the functionality of the Firefox browser. Internet Explorer lags behind in this respect, as they are much more close ended in the ability to let browser users express themselves and their needs. Thus, Firefox is far more functional as a browser.
Tabbed browsing is a sensation that can triple productivity many times over, simply due to the fact that there is better organization and record keeping to be done with tabbed browsing. Internet Explorer versions have accomplished offering the same thing, but it is less efficient on memory usage and will appear to be much more slow than that of Firefox.
The latest addition in the inventory of Firefox 2 is the session restore. If you are in the middle of typing a long e-mail and suddenly your system hangs or crashes, then Firefox latest "session restore" feature comes to your aid. It restores all your tabs that were there before the system crashed with all your work intact! Also, spell check feature, derived from word processor, gives you ability to correct your spelling mistakes online with a click of mouse.
The future development of Firefox versions has already been started and version 3 which is likely to pass Acid 2 test is expected to release in June 2008. With this release Firefox is set to show doors to IE legacy.
By Chris Channing
Nice Article..
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