Mozilla Firefox
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April 10, 2005 11:20
4.5/5
Betrayed by MS, 'puter nearly crippled in 6/04 by browser hijack and spyware installation--took me 3 weeks to get it under control. In cruising the so-called "geek boards" to find utilities to clean out my poor, abused computer, I came across mention of both Opera and Mozilla. I downloaded both, but found that Opera's ads took up more room than my husband could tolerate (great little browser, though). We downloaded Firefox at 0.8, I think, and have eventually put it on all four of our computers. We love how we can customize the skin for each of us (our daughter's is "Pimped Out", our son's is "Scribblies for Kids" and ours changes weekly). The favorites toolbar is very handy for us, and the extensions are just a gold-mine of functionality. The kids have Foxy Tunes installed, for toolbar-like management of their media players; I have become very dependent upon Forecast Fox and Chrome-Edit; I have recommended Accessibar to our elderly neighbor who is computer-savvy but suffers from macular degeneration and needs to sometimes listen to his web content, or enlarge his text and alter colors for greater visual processing for his poor eyes. My "I hate change" husband has really come to enjoy it, to the extent of installing it on his boss' computer, and we've put it on at least 5 of our friends' computers as well. The security is amazing; I haven't had a single piece of spyware installed in all the time I've used this browser, and we check frequently with Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D. I can't thank the folks who work on the software enough, and pledge our family's loyalty to the Fox! -
April 8, 2005 10:59
4.5/5
Firefox is the first real alternative to IE. I use it as my primary browser and it works flawlessly on 99% of web sites I visit.
I switched from IE because of security concerns - either I locked IE down so tight it didn't work on many web sites, or I left the door wide open for malware. Firefox manages to be secure without losing all its functionality.
The tabbed browsing feature is great. So is the built-in download manager. But you can make both of those (and a lot else) even better by installing some of the numerous extensions available on the Firefox web site.
Contrary to what the review below says, you can view PDF just fine in this browser. -
March 7, 2005 12:45
4.5/5
I really like it. Will never go back. Password manager is easy to use and always works. -
March 9, 2005 10:57
5.0/5
I'm using Firefox for about 6 months now and it has never let me down like Internet Explorer has done many times.
What I first noticed about Firefox is how clean and simple the interface is. But behind this clean interface is a lot of power. All the features that one can't live without while browsing are here: tabs, popup-blocking, quick search (it can also highlight all the words you search for on the page), security and the best support for all new and old internet standards (like (X)HTML, CSS, JavaScrip, DHTML and so on). It looks like Firefox is also very quick to display web pages, even on the same speed internet connection. Support for RSS and Atom feeds is also here in form of LiveBookmarks. This makes it a lot easier to subscribe to blogs and news pages. Although there are a lot of very nice features already in Firefox you can easily add new ones by using extensions. So make sure you check them out and get things like mouse gestures and advanced ad blocking.
What I also like about Firefox a lot is that it is very quickly translated into my mother language. I can't say this for other browsers (well except for Konqueror in KDE). The only thing I miss is the interface language selection tool like in Mozilla Suite.
It is also important that your computer is safe when you browse. And here Firefox is also in the lead. If bugs are found they are usually not critical like in IE and they are fixed extremely quickly and you don't have to wait for months (or even years) to get extremely critical bugs fixed like with IE.
Themes are another very nice thing about Firefox (especially important if you ask my sister
). With them you can make Firefox look exactly as you like. There are also special themes for kids.
All in all Firefox is an almost perfect browser. It just need a little polish in some places. If you still use old and insecure browsers like Internet Explorer be sure to check out Mozilla Firefox. You will never go back. -
July 27, 2005 07:02
4.5/5
I have always been an IE user; mainly because almost everything on the net is IE compatible. But I have gotten so SICK (SICK, SICK SICK!!!) of all the problems with IE 6 that I decided to really give the new version of Firefox a try. I love the tabbed browsing, but aside from that, I'm finding it to be fast (unlike IE), reliable (unlike IE), pictures load quickly (unlike IE) and compatible with all the places I normally surf. I had tried an earlier version, but there were too many sites I frequent that didn't display correctly. That no longer seems to be an issue. I'm thrilled with the performance of Firefox and have happily made it my default browser. I was so angry at the lack of performance IE offered, I was about to start beating my head against the wall! But with Foxfire, I can now spend as much time on the web as I want without elevating my blood pressure or sacrificing my sanity! -
July 12, 2005 08:05
4.5/5
My suggestion is, Keep 3 web browsers installed in your PC.
(1) IE 6.0 SP1 (only for Windows update purpose!!)
(2) Mozile Firefox v1.0.4 (for everything,)
(3) Opera, In case Firefox fails to work with some sites (very few).
I didn't experience Netscape yet, so Opera is listed at number 3. -
May 25, 2005 11:13
4.5/5
Very nice browser, very stable, rarely crashes on any of my machines. Just don't try to run it for long periods on older processors (PIII). All the features the browser offers need more processing power. -
July 9, 2005 09:24
5.0/5
I have gladly made Mozilla Firefox my default browser since the very end of 2003. I love the standards support, stability and security. I've also gotten into customizing it and using extensions within the last year. There are quite a few really cool extensions available, and new ones are being developed every day. Firefox is one of the few open source apps that just works.
While Firefox critics may point out that its lack of ActiveX support is a major negative, ActiveX isn't really a browser feature, let alone a web standard. True, if you aren't using Internet Explorer 6, you can't access MSN Video, or MTV Video, or other media rich sites. However, the vast majority of sites now realize that tying their website so closely to a specific browser (even if that browser is Firefox) is foolish in a world where ther are four prominent browser types. (Mozilla Based [Gecko], Internet Explorer [Trident], Safari (KHTML), and Opera)
I've rated Firefox 10/10, "Perfect," with the understanding that no peice of software is perfect. However, in my usage, Firefox is the application that gets the closest to that. Firefox is both the most used, and best loved application I have on my computer. Therefore, if we are going to have a 10/10, Firefox completely deserves that title, in my humble opinion.
Since Firefox is free, I urge you to try it out. If you don't like it, it uninstalls very easily, and doesn't include any spyware or lingering malware. I suspect, however, that it will replace Internet Explorer as your "day to day" browser. You'll occasionally need to return to Internet Explorer for a select few sites, but this practice is becoming less and less common. Join the nearly 70 million who have tried out Firefox. Happy Browsing! -
March 4, 2005 12:06
5.0/5
If you are not using Firefox to view this web page then you should now go directly to www.getfirefox.com and download it. It is out of Beta so there is no excuse. I like so much I already have three versions of it: v0.9, v1.0pr, and I am writing this opinion with Firefox version 1.0. If you do not know what tabbed browsing is, it is the ability to organize multiple web pages on one window (think of the tabs on hanging folders).Updated
If you do not know wat skins are, they are little files that alow you to chaange the look of the browser, much like the backround picture on the Windows or Mac desktop. Extensions are also small files, but they alow you to do something special. One example is the bandwith tester which tells you the speed of your internet conection. The Mozilla website has many skins and extencions for free to download. -
August 3, 2005 07:05
5.0/5
I have no complaints about Firefox. I switched about 1 year ago, and have since never looked back. I've even wrote my own extensions to customize Firefox to fit my needs, its just perfect.
The nightly builds are great too, you get to use and submit feedback on all the development that goes on.
Firefox also has a great, friendly support community. In case you ever have problems, there are people around 24/7 with solutions.
A+ Job!
