Monday, December 10, 2007

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a fast, full-featured web browser that's easy to use. It has lots of great features including popup-blocking, tabbed-browsing, integrated search, improved privacy features, automatic updating and more. Plus, thanks to the PortableApps.com launcher bundled in the Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition, it leaves no personal information behind on the machine you run it on, so you can take your favorite browser along with all your favorite bookmarks and extensions with you wherever you go.


Some Advantages of Firefox over Other Web Browsers

Popup Blocking
In this day in age, an internet browser without a popup blocker is like having a broadband connection without a fireball. “Firefox stops annoying popup windows dead in their tracks”, according to Mozilla.org, and that’s exactly what it does. Visiting a popup blocker test page, Firefox’s built in popup blocker was able to close all popup windows while the page loaded and during the page's onload() event. At http://www.popup-blocker.info’s test page, several test can be ran to prove your popup blocker’s power. Mozilla Firefox’s built in popup blocker was able to handle the “Stress Test”, which according to pop-upblocker.info… “[Stress tests] attempts to overcome your pop-up killer by trying to spawn large numbers of windows as quickly as possible.” Firefox’s popup blocker was able to close all 200 popup windows without even breaking a sweat. Trying this with IE and no popup blocker would probably bring your pc to its knee’s. You can also easily access the list of websites that the popup blocker blocks and altering it’s state by a simple click.


Download Manager
A feature which I thought was going to be integrated in Internet Explorer 6 was a download manager. Download managers allow you to manipulate and take control of your downloaded files. Mozilla Firefox’s download manager contains just the essentials to allow you to control your downloads. You can pause your download and continue it a later time, something which is not possible with IE’s download manager. Apart from sporting a nice look, the download manager stores the information such as size and location of your downloaded file. When the download is complete, a small notification is displayed in the lower right side of the screen.



Tabbed Browsing
Because having too many windows open at a time can be a bit annoying, not to mention time consuming, Firefox features tab browsing. Here’s more on tab browsing from Mozilla’s homepage…”Tab-Browsing changes the way you use the internet by allowing you to open links on a page in background "Tabs" and then read them when you're ready. No confusing new windows, no need for context menus, just hold down Ctrl when clicking a link, or use your middle mouse button (if you have one).”


Integrated Search Engine
Now why didn’t the IE programmers think of this? Mozilla Firefox comes with a built in search engine. The default search engine is Google’s, of course, with the ability to add others. The search entry takes up a very small space, which is a plus when compared to those huge toolbars out there.

No comments: