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Firefox vs. other browsers

Blake Ross, the creator of Firefox once wrote a post titled ‘The Firefox religion’. Given below is an extract from that post:

“ Firefox observers often ask me: “What’s all the fuss about? It just surfs the web.”

You’d think this would be frustrating—I did surrender any semblance of a normal adolescent life to work on Firefox, after all—but few people understand that this is actually the highest compliment they could offer. Building “just a browser” that “just surfs the web” was the original intent. These were the same people sighing that Google just searched the web 7 years ago. ”

That’s the beauty of it. It all lies in the simplicity of the whole deal; after all, simplicity is beauty. The best piece of software isn’t the one with the maximum number of features, but it’s the one which is able to deliver all its features well. As he explains later in the post, during the development process, they would work on a feature and discuss if his mother would be able to use it, if not her than would her fifteen year old son be able to use it. This is the philosophy with which they worked. They created software that could browse the internet, but in a bug free and secure manner, oh and, yes, it could be used by just about anyone.

For Firefox users it's not about features, it's all about compatibility, customizability and convenience. This is where Firefox gets an upper hand over all its competitors, including major ones like Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari. It’s also the third party customizations and add-ons which give Firefox the edge unlike Internet Explorer which can barely be tweaked. Certain innovative features that can be found in Firefox include but are not limited to tabs, inline spell check within the browser, restoring sessions and RSS support.

Opera on the other hand has a lot of features, but sadly it goes with a clunky interface, which is quite clustered with all its features, most of which are not even used as often as they’re meant to be. It’s only true advantages are the small size and the great performance.

Coming down to size, Firefox 2 wins hands down with a 5.7 MB installation while Opera 9.2 (international) weighs about 7 MB. On the other hand, a hefty internet explorer comes at nearly 14.78 MB.

The excellent security that comes with Firefox is not just something which is a fact, but almost legend. Unlike Internet Explorer, Firefox goes very well even without anti-malware software. There are hardly any phishing related complaints against Firefox, which doesn’t really seem to be the case for IE. Firefox, Opera and Safari have disabled support for ActiveX because of the malware associated with it. Though easier to code, it lacks certain essential security features. Being a Microsoft product, Internet Explorer has full support for ActiveX which ultimately, brings about a lot of security problems.

In the truest sense, Firefox is the only browser development effort that is focused on the user, instead of on the needs of the company building the software. Though Internet Explorer has a serious monopoly in the market, it is estimated that Firefox will ultimately hold the larger share in the browser market. Currently, nearly 15% of the users are running Firefox and nearly 80% have been using Internet Explorer. These figures are changing everyday and will go on to change as long as people keep realizing the power and potential of open source software. It’s not a dream anymore, it’s reality. Oh and even if it is, dreams do come true. Firefox is here, and it’s already changing the web. Not just changing it, Firefox is recreating it.

Firefox, the open source browser, you know.

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