Posted on 12/18/2004 6:19:26 AM PST by mathprof
FIREFOX is a classic overnight success, many years in the making.
Published by the Mozilla Foundation, a nonprofit group supporting open-source software that draws upon the skills of hundreds of volunteer programmers, Firefox is a Web browser that is fast and filled with features that Microsoft's stodgy Internet Explorer lacks. Firefox installs in a snap, and it's free.
Firefox 1.0 was released on Nov. 9. Just over a month later, the foundation celebrated a remarkable milestone: 10 million downloads. Donations from Firefox's appreciative fans paid for a two-page advertisement in The New York Times on Thursday.
Until now, the Linux operating system was the best-known success among the hundreds of open-source projects that challenge Microsoft with technically strong, free software that improves as the population of bug-reporting and bug-fixing users grows. But unless you oversee purchases for a corporate data center, it's unlikely that you've felt the need to try Linux yourself.
With Firefox, open-source software moves from back-office obscurity to your home, and to your parents', too. (Your children in college are already using it.) It is polished, as easy to use as Internet Explorer and, most compelling, much better defended against viruses, worms and snoops.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Firefox is the App of the year! In my opinion.
An interesting note Firefox is basically Netscape with a few more bells and whistles. They both use the same source code.
Neither have I, but I use Windows XP SP2. It has a pop-up blocker built in.
bookmark
Mr. Schare of Microsoft does have one suggestion for those who cannot use the latest patches in Service Pack 2: buy a new personal computer. By the same reasoning, the security problems created by a car's broken door lock could be solved by buying an entirely new automobile. The analogy comes straight from Mr. Schare. "It's like buying a car," he said. "If you want to get the latest safety features, you have to buy the latest model."
Using Firefox right now!
FireFox's 'IE killer' qualties are its security and control features. I'm now paranoid to even open up IE to test one of my Web sites. It's a beautiful thing to run virus scan, Spybot, AdWare, et al and not get a single hit. Use IE for 10 minutes and look out!
IE is ultimately doomed by its original design and incorporation of MS active elements. If MS were to completely re-design IE to respond to FF, then it wouldn't even be IE any more - MS would have to eleminate every internal/back-end link.
Spyware on my PCs is way, waaaay down since the switch to Firefox.
If you want airbags and crumple zones, sell the VW bug and buy a car.
I love XP, but you couldn't pay me enough to use IE. Firefox is what I have been using for the past year or so. I hear that some on this board really like a few of the others out there too.
Using foxfire for almost a month...(frankly I don't see that much difference)
i've got CompuServe 2000 version of IE, now at 5.5 level-all on Win 95 OS-should i risk the dwnld?
When using Firefox, is there a way to set the font size so it will stay at the size you want?
Yep. Tool > Options > General > Fonts & Colors
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