Browser Review: Firefox 0.8
It has been a very long time since I cared about a browser. For me, IE won out over all competitors about 3 years ago and it has been my de facto tool for surfing the net ever since.
Sure, there were times I felt compelled to switch to Mozilla, Netscape or Opera occasionally but they always let me down in one way or another.
One of the many browsers I have loaded on my system was Firebird, which was a flavour of the Mozilla platform. It features a leaner overhead and some changes to the UI. It was a decent browser, but it lacked some features I had become comfortable with, and didn't feel like abandoning that IE comfort zone.
So, while checking to see how a particular site looked in a few different browsers, I decided to see what the latest version was.
Lo and behold, Firebird (which was originally Phoenix) had been renamed to Firefox. There was also a new site, the UI was tidied up and there was a lot of customizability with Extensions.
I downloaded and installed the latest release and jumped over to the Extensions page. Once I started to read some of the descriptions, I realized this browser was more than your average net window. There are extensions that allow you to customize the UI far beyond any other browser on the market, as well as developer tools (browser sizing, validation assistance, etc), smart downloading, mouse gestures, custom navigation and menus, ad-blocking, multiple search tools and functions... even games.
Perhaps the coolest tool (for you web developers out there) is the Edit CSS Extension which will bring up a window-pane within the browser, with the current CSS information loaded.
That might be cool enough, but it also lets you edit it. On the fly! So you can bring up that troublesome CSS page and tinker with it while Firefox renders the whole thing live.
I haven't endorsed any browsers on my site since about 1998 or so. But this one, I feel pretty strongly about.
Sure, there were times I felt compelled to switch to Mozilla, Netscape or Opera occasionally but they always let me down in one way or another.
One of the many browsers I have loaded on my system was Firebird, which was a flavour of the Mozilla platform. It features a leaner overhead and some changes to the UI. It was a decent browser, but it lacked some features I had become comfortable with, and didn't feel like abandoning that IE comfort zone.
So, while checking to see how a particular site looked in a few different browsers, I decided to see what the latest version was.
Lo and behold, Firebird (which was originally Phoenix) had been renamed to Firefox. There was also a new site, the UI was tidied up and there was a lot of customizability with Extensions.I downloaded and installed the latest release and jumped over to the Extensions page. Once I started to read some of the descriptions, I realized this browser was more than your average net window. There are extensions that allow you to customize the UI far beyond any other browser on the market, as well as developer tools (browser sizing, validation assistance, etc), smart downloading, mouse gestures, custom navigation and menus, ad-blocking, multiple search tools and functions... even games.
Perhaps the coolest tool (for you web developers out there) is the Edit CSS Extension which will bring up a window-pane within the browser, with the current CSS information loaded.
That might be cool enough, but it also lets you edit it. On the fly! So you can bring up that troublesome CSS page and tinker with it while Firefox renders the whole thing live.
I haven't endorsed any browsers on my site since about 1998 or so. But this one, I feel pretty strongly about.
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