It Started Innocently Enough With Netscape 3.0
When I first started messing around with this "In-ter-web" thingy, I shared a computer with a roommate. It was his computer and I was merely a guest. So updating and customizing Internet Explorer would have been in poor form. So I downloaded and installed Netscape Navigator. And ever since I have had a warm spot for Netscape. They say you never forget about your first time. Well, IE 6.0 came out. It seemed so much more stable than iterations of the past. I had since bought my own box by then and wasn't constrained by Guest status any longer. So I gave IE 6.0 a try. And it was ok. I guess. And since most folks are MS inclined, I stuck, more or less, with IE. But after a spell I missed Netscape's browser. I tried Opera. If you think the talk of this being a fast, bug free browser are true, try it yourself. I found it slow and buggy and unable to load many IE-centric pages. Then, a few months back I went to Mozilla. It is the open source version of Netscape and I liked. I liked it a lot. Although it was still a bit of a resource hog. As time went on, I got accustomed once once again to the beauty of the Netscape web browser interface. And I kept getting emails and alerts about yet another security hole and security hack in IE. So, Mozilla became the default browser. A few months back, Mozilla introduced its cleaner, faster, crisper version of Mozilla of the future. Introducing Mozilla Firebird. Free, open source, extendable, and useable with 99 percent of every web page I visit (Including those generated from Redmond, WA.) With 1.6% of the global market. share based on guerilla marketing alone, it's use is growing by about a half a percent in the last six months. There still is along way to go to beat Microsoft's Internet Explorer, with 96% of the global market. But it is based on summer 2001 technology and no major news that they plan on updating it anytime soon. Why drive an Edsel, just because every one else is driving an Edsel. Mozilla Firebird really is all they say. Easy to install. (scroll down to the setup.exe download) Very expandable with lots of extensions and skins and themes. Tabbed browsing (once you have used tabbed browsing, you frown at any old school browser supplied by a major software provider headquartered in the pacific northwest.) Mouse Gestures (once you have used mouse gestures, you frown at any old school browser supplied by a major software provider headquartered in the pacific northwest.) A very good pop up stopper. The ability to stop annoying flash animation banner ads. Automatically configured to search with Google. And loads more. And fast. Did I mention it seems to be much faster than IE? Here are some reviews if you don't believe me: Mozilla pitch Joel on software DEVx Review A collection of reviews A Fighting Dragon So, go forth, download and install Mozilla Firebird, pop over and download and install some extensions and get cruising along the web.
Mozilla Firebird extensions you must have!
Pick and install from the list. Installation is as easy as clicking the mouse. Mozilla does the rest. trvial mouse gestures linky xui msn messenger smooth wheel close other tabs tab scroller tab browser extensions text links (Total time to download, install and configure extensions and themes, about 25 minutes with a broadband connection.)
posted by majikwah @ 8/02/2003 07:04:00 PM
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