Firefox

It suprises me that people still use Internet Explorer. I have been using the open source browser Firefox for about a year now and its finally reached the version 1.0 milestone. A good reason I think to write about why its slowly replacing IE and why I hope everyone who reads this will at least give it a try.

One of the first things you notice using Firefox is its speed, it has a clean interface and uses few resources. Also, it has tabbed browsing - all your browser windows actually live inside a single window, each demarcated by tabs that you can click in and out of easily, which allow you to keep track of them. If you haven't used this feature before, try it. You'll wonder how you ever lived without it.

Searching via Google is built into a search box in the upper right hand corner. Nothing special you may say, but the "add more search engines" option lets you do so much more. This allows you to search many sites/engines directly (eg. Dictionary.com, Wickipedia, Amazon, Pubmed, etc.; you can get a full list here) from your browser.

Firefox also has a number of themes that change the way your browser looks, very important if screen space is at a premium and you are looking for a minimalistic user-interface. My personal favorite is Pinball. Pop-up ads are also easily blocked and all this is very customizable, which brings me to another really cool feature - Extentions.

Extentions are basically add-ons that different users and groups have created that add functionality - extend Firefox. Not all the extentions are useful to everyone but I use 4 extensively:

Ad-block - very powerful ad-blocker, can block flash ads too
Foxy Tunes - allows you to control your music player (supports most of the major players) from within firefox, adds a small control bar to the status-bar
WeatherFox - weather updates from weather.com, again built into the status-bar
Fire-FTP - add on FTP engine
QuickNote - a Post-it like note-taking extention

Another new feature that I have just begun to use is called live-bookmarks, which cuts down on time spent checking sites you read regularly. Its based on using RSS feeds that many websites are now serving up as a way to give frequent readers an easy way to keep track of new stuff they've just published.

So if you're reading this in IE, give Firefox a spin for a day.