Why use Firefox?

• it's more secure than Internet Explorer
• it's more standards-compliant*
• it's open source**
• it's highly configurable by the user
• and it's free!

Most people wouldn't dream of driving down the highway without wearing a seat belt, or driving at night with no headlights. You wouldn't let complete strangers mess with the engine without asking you, or let them sit in the back seat with you and take note of everywhere you go. And you certainly wouldn't leave your car unlocked and wide open on a busy street while you went and did your shopping, would you?

Of course you wouldn't. Yet, that is exactly how most people drive their computers!

The typical mass marketed computer is full of security holes in it's standard "out of the box" setup, and many of these holes are found in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) and Outlook Express. While some of these holes are due to poor programming others are deliberately designed into the program (e.g. ActiveX) to make it easier and more 'fun' to use. These holes are easily exploited by hackers and the like and Microsoft is constantly publishing security updates on its websites.

Additionally, IE's position as the most commonly used browser on the internet makes it an obvious target for attack, and you will find that most viruses are written specifically to exploit weaknesses in Microsoft software.

Enter Firefox. This is a free browser from the Mozilla Foundation and lately it has been making large inroads into the virtual monopoly held by IE. Firefox is an open source program, which means that anyone in the world can contribute to the writing of its code, and thousands do! The program is highly configurable, and there is a multitude of themes (skins) and extensions (extra features) available from the Firefox update site, free! The interface is similar enough to IE for a new user to feel comfortable with it, and when you install Firefox on your system it will import from IE all your history, passwords, cookies, and most importantly those treasured Favorites (called Bookmarks in Firefox).

But best of all, Firefox is immune to the majority of the security holes that plague the Microsoft programs. Of course, no program is perfect and Firefox also has its security issues, but they are far fewer than IE, and perhaps one day when Firefox becomes as popular as IE, it may also become a target for hackers. But somehow I doubt that it will ever be as vulnerable - the fact that there are literally thousands of people around the world reviewing the code means that security issues will be recognised early and dealt with efficiently.

If you want to try Firefox (or it's sister application, the email client Thunderbird) you can download them now by clicking on the icons just under the menu on the left of this page.

Go on! Get Firefox! I promise you won't look back!

 

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Notes:
*Standards Complience: Firefox displays web pages with far more conformity to the W3C standards than IE does. More information.

**Open Source: Open source software is computer software whose source code is available under a license (or arrangement such as the public domain) that permits users to use, change, and improve the software, and to redistribute it in modified or unmodified form. More information.