Well everyone wants me to run Firefox as my browser.
Here is my assessment so far:
I can’t seem to find much that is good about the browser but here goes.
For one, it seems to load pages faster than IE.
That is a good thing.
It also claims to be less prone to security flaws, that may be more because of its 6% market share compared to IE’s 92%.
Who is going to write an exploit that can only reach 6%?
Also good, it is much more strict to HTML standards than IE, although, a lot of pages out there break the rules and Firefox messes them up.
Finally, there is tabbed browsing, its just nice.
Now, for the bad, it seems to take forever for this program to load.
IE normally takes less than a second on my 3ghz 1gb system.
Firefox can take up to two, this isn’t scientific, just me counting.
Also, when it is minimized, it seems to take longer to restore than IE.
Who knows why.
The worst part, I can’t exactly uninstall Internet Explorer now that I have Firefox, even if I wanted too.
Problem one, pages that require IE, problem two, IE simply can’t be uninstalled.
I ran into another issue at work today, it stores its temporary files in your profile, different than where IE stores them, since our windows XP profiles are network based, they are limited to twenty-five megabytes.
Needless to say I filled that up pretty quickly.
When I went to change the location, I couldn’t find it.
A quick google search didn’t help much.
Is it really better?
I would say, no.
Believe me, if I were running Linux or a MAC, I Firefox would probably be my browser, but on Windows, IE will probably win out.
I plan to use Firefox daily for a while to get a better feel for it.
4 comments:
I felt the same way as you... but now, I use firefox 99% of the time. With all the extensions and whatnot available for it, it does become a better browser.
Dustin
It "becomes" a better browser? Why isn't it a better browser in it's default setting? If you have to look around for plugins and tweaks to get it to run properly, it'll never catch on in a major-market way. IE is the dominant browser not only because it's bundled with Windows, but also because you don't have to mess with it -- it works right off the bat, with no need for adjustments. All the excitement over IE getting knocked down to "only" 92% market share is ludicrous. Mozilla isn't likely to grab any more market share than it now has.
CT
I surfed over to your blog through Blog Explosion, couldn't help but notice this post. :)
I've used Mozilla/Firefox for years. Regarding the previous comments on the plugins, you don't NEED the plugins to make Firefox work, the initial install is just fine. But plugins give you many extras that IE just doesn't offer.
My point is, those things are extras, and not essentials. :)
Rivkah
I'm a Firefox user and I think IE pales in comparison to it. For me, IE takes longer to start up than Firefox, AND it's slower. But to each his own, I guess.
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