FireFox Web Browser

After hearing about it more and more recently, I decided to try out FireFox for the first time.

Firefox is a web browser, like Internet Explorer and Netscape. The difference is that it is open source, meaning a community ofvolunteer programmers and developers create the software, and it is available for free. It is also legal to modify or improve open source software.

So far this browser puts Internet Explorer to shame, and I am converted. I find it faster to use, and with many more useful features. It also offers more flexibility in page viewing, such as the ability to enable or disable various JavaScript functions individually. There are many plugins (called extensions), which offer added functionality.

The look and feel of Firefox is also completely customisable, icons and toolbars can be manupulated to suit the user, and various skins can be downloaded and installed. This is useful for things like putting a print icon in a prominent place on the browser I use to access my e-commerce application.

As a web developer, I still have to have IE installed (and Netscape) mainly for the purposes of testing sites to make sure they work with everything.

The only issue I have run into so far is a slight difference in how FireFox executes some JavaScript applications, specifically the HTMLArea progam (A web based WYSIWYG HTML editor). I use this program to edit text descriptions for products on one of my shopping carts. Version 1 and 2 of HTMLArea don't work at all with FireFox, and version 3 does work with it, but does some wierd things like adding blank lines and carriage returns at the end of a block of text. So unfortunately I still have to use IE to edit my products, just for the purpose of convenience. When I get the time I will find an editor that works perfectly with both browsers, as I'm sure there is one.

FireFox can be downloaded from www.getfirefox.com for free. I highly recommend it. All the extensions and documentation can be found at www.mozilla.org.