Why everyone should use Mozilla Firefox

This articles purpose is to introduce users of Microsoft® Internet Explorer and Outlook Express to the new world of Mozilla Firefox & Thunderbird. With the aim to educate and excite the countless millions of users out there who are still using the default Internet applications that come with Microsoft® Windows®. Most users out there don’t even know there is an alternative, they complain about Spyware, Viruses, and Spam not knowing that there are simple and free ways to avoid those Internet threats.

14-04-2005

Introduction:

Please note that this is an opinion piece, which is based from my own experiences and what I have read in other articles on the Internet. I work for one of Australia’s largest Internet Service Providers; my job is to provide technical support and customer service for Dial Up and Broadband Internet to the general consumer public and small business customers around Australia. Throughout my experiences providing technical support one issue has caused more calls into our support department then any other and that is problems browsing or e-mailing with the default Internet applications that come with Microsoft® Windows®. The issues I speak of are not due to connection problems but rather faulty applications that often just do not work the way they should.

The company I work for has a list of officially supported Internet Connectivity Applications, they are Microsoft®, Netscape, & Apple Macintosh products. So when I have calls where the customer’s issue is due to one of the above products I am currently not allowed to recommend those customers install Mozilla Firefox or Thunderbird. However, I often hint to people that there are alternatives that would resolve their issues and they only need to search in Google. I’m writing this article out of frustration due to this, so I’m going to write down what I would like to say to all those customers. Don’t worry I have suggested to management that we should be supporting all Mozilla applications.

According to WebSideStory 92.7 percent of all Internet users currently use Microsoft® Internet Explorer while Mozilla Firefox has captured a massive 4.78 percent as of January 2005. That’s interesting, however, browser statistics are very different… In total DesktopOS.com had received only 16.73 percent of users on Microsoft® Internet Explorer while Mozilla Firefox has 36.51 percent, Netscape has 5.028 percent, Opera has 2.861 percent, and Konqueror has 2.177 percent. So obviously the statistics will differ according to the type of users and type of web site that is being measured. My point was not to debunk the WebSideStory statistics but rather point out that most people still use Microsoft® Internet Explorer and because of this most if not all of the programmers who write virus’s and Spyware write them for Microsoft® products including Internet Explorer and Outlook Express.

I have read many other articles on the Internet that have touted how spy-ware in particular mainly affect users of Internet Explorer and this is because most types of Spyware use what is called ActiveX which is only available in Internet Explorer. The thing is most web sites do not use ActiveX, typically the sites that do are Microsoft web sites or some Banks. ActiveX is a programming language for creating interactive web sites, similar to Java. So by not running a web browser that supports ActiveX users are able to avoid most Spyware threats.

Most if not all e-mail viruses where a user can be infected just by viewing the e-mail only affect Microsoft® Outlook and Outlook Express, so by using Mozilla Thunderbird you can avoid them. However, if a user executed an attachment in e-mail they could be infected with a virus regardless of what type of e-mail client they are using.

I love using Mozilla Firefox for my web browsing, one of the best things for me about using Firefox is that it does not matter which Operating System I have booted into, be it Windows® XP or Xandros 3.0 both are running Mozilla Firefox as the default web browser on my two computer systems and both work exactly the same under all systems. Mozilla Firefox represents a good way to migrate users from Windows® to other alternative Operating Systems such as Linux, because a user would not be able to tell the difference when online in either Operating System when running Mozilla Firefox.

Support for Java, Macromedia® Flash, Apple QuickTime, and others is not a problem in Firefox and if a user does not have the required plug-in then Firefox will prompt him or her to install it.

Users can stop annoying pop-up advertisements by using Mozilla Firefox, this feature has been around for some time now with alternative browsers and Microsoft® has just introduced it in Service Pack 2 on Windows XP. Still though for the users who are running an older version of Windows® or another Operating System then Mozilla Firefox is a good choice for a web browser with built-in pop-up blocker.

My challenge to users who are running Microsoft® Windows® is to give Mozilla Firefox www.mozilla.org a test run and see how you like it. For protection against Spyware and other malicious Internet threats I personally recommended using a free open source program called SpyBot Search & Destroy, which can be obtained from www.spybot.info After installing Spybot run the 'Check For Updates' then install all the available updates, after that do the 'Check for Problems' and then clean out your infections. You will be able to see for yourself over time that when you run Mozilla Firefox and avoid using Internet Explorer on your PC that you should find that less Spyware infections will find there way into your system.

Conclusion:

I honestly believe that Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is the best Web Browser I have ever used on a computer. I can honestly say it has replaced Microsoft® Internet Explorer on my home computer. I believe that 99% of Internet users would also prefer Mozilla Firefox if they gave it a try, so if your reading this and have not yet used Mozilla Firefox then what are you waiting for, it's completely free.

My background:

I studied 'Information Technology' at University and I currently work in the Telecommunications industry providing technical support and customer service for Dial-up and DSL Internet. I am also the creator of the site that's hosting this review, DesktopOS.com. I created DesktopOS.com in an effort to promote the alternatives to Microsoft Windows and provide a melting pot of other communities.

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P.S. This is an old article I will update it oneday to make it new again... DesktopOS.com was the first version of this website but the domain name was lost.

Comments

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Jeff	\|Registered \|2008-04-28 02:43:28

Firefox is my favorite browser. As if it wasn't perfect enough right "out of
the box" but all the way down to the built-in search bar it is fully
customizable.

The best part about Firefox, Mozilla, Linux, and other
open-source projects is the way they are finally offering computer users the
ability to take back their machine. I'm not a big hater of Bill Gates but we all
know that his profitable monopoly has got to end and the sooner the better!

The
open-source philosophy is the perfect checks and balances for creating
corporate/social balance as far as software goes. Perhaps we can learn from this
in ways that will someday help us to take back countless other imbalances, or at
least give us hope that it is possible.

Enough about my philosophy. Heres a
list of my favorite Firefox add-ons and why. I will not link them as this part
of Mozilla's site is constantly changing. Feel free to browse and install as
many ad...

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