<p>Let me just confess that I’m not computer savvy. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be asking thsi question in the first place. I’ve heard from my kids and nephews that Mozilla Firefox is better than Internet Explorer because it’s more secure and less prone to viruses. Is that really true? I tend to stick with things I’m familiar with, and I’d like to hear what all of you wise CC parents think before I make my switch! I thank you in advance for educating me on this subject!!</p>
<p>I LOVE firefox. Would never go back to IE. my online billing for my cell phone was not working in IE and I downloaded firefox about a year and a half ago and would never go back.</p>
<p>Both Browsers have bugs, including security bugs. In security, two things that you want to be concerned with are architectural issues, the number of security issues, and how long it takes for security bugs to get fixed and distributed.</p>
<p>In general, security researchers send security bug reports to the browser vendors to give them some time to fix the problem before announcing it. I believe that Mozilla pays a bounty for new security problems. Things are more open in Mozilla because it is open source. They don’t publish security bug reports until they are fixed. But you can view their source code base at any time along with ongoing changes. The process at Microsoft is private so what you can learn is basically what the company wants to release (in addition to what’s communicated informally).</p>
<p>Netscape was the first browser to make a splash and they certainly got Microsoft’s attention when they talked about the browser replacing the desktop. Microsoft’s initial moves into the browser market weren’t very good but they put in a massive effort throwing a huge number of employees into Internet Explorer and eventually came up with a product that killed off Netscape (as being financially viable). They spun off Mozilla as an open source project which worked to come up with a plan to be viable.</p>
<p>Microsoft had over 90% marketshare and didn’t put in much, if any, efforts to improve their browser. Web programmers programmed to Microsoft’s implementation, even if it wasn’t secure or standards-compliant and they did this because Microsoft was everywhere. If you were running on Linux or Solaris, and your bank was Internet Explorer only, you couldn’t do your internet banking unless you went out and bought a Windows machine and used internet explorer. Security holes in the browser were well-known but the level of malware wasn’t high. Many were attacking Windows instead of the browser. Of course attacks today are far more numerous and sophisticated. It’s the weight of being a monopoly resulting in complacency that has resulted in Microsoft’s security problems in the browser.</p>
<p>One other advantage that Mozilla Firefox has in the security area is that security researchers have access to the source code. One way to look for bugs is to simply read the source code. With Internet Explorer, you can disassemble the code to see what machine instructions it is running but reading assembler code without comments is difficult (for most) and very time consuming as one line of source code can translate to many lines of assembler code.</p>
<p>I listen to my kid who is majoring in Computer Science - he says Firefox, so that’s what I use. Sometimes I use the AOL browser (a particularly bad version of IE) and he yells at me.</p>
<p>LOL, I could have written the OP! And yes, my CS son just changed mine from IE to Firefox this week (but I think H changed it back - I’m so confused!). S doesn’t waste words saying why, probably since I wouldn’t understand anyway :). He just says Firefox is better.</p>
<p>I use Safari mostly, sometimes Flock.</p>
<p>I have IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Mozilla. My preference is for Firefox. I use another browser only if the idiot who wrote whatever website I’m trying to get to/use and can’t didn’t write compliant code, which means said idiot probably wrote the code to work in IE. </p>
<p>Fortunately, IE 7 fixes some of the compliance issues. Not that I’ll use it unless I have to, however; I’ll stick with Firefox!</p>
<p>They’re really not that different. Firefox copied many of the features in IE initially and IE since then has copied many of the features of Firefox. They both address security issues on an ongoing basis. I use both but IE somewhat more than Firefox for no particular reason.</p>
<p>IMO there’s no compelling reason to use one versus the other.</p>
<p>Firefox lover here. I like the add ons.</p>
<p>Actually, they ARE different, ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad. Sure, they both render (most) web pages, but start coding for IE, then look at the page in Firefox, and you’ll see!</p>
<p>I’ve been a Firefox fan, but the latest version is the buggiest ever. Almost makes me want to go back to IE.</p>
<p>“They’re really not that different. Firefox copied many of the features in IE initially”</p>
<p>They are both descendants of NCSA Mosaic.</p>
<p>Netscape spun off Mozilla as an open source project and the Mozilla Suite was their main product. The code name was SeaMonkey and it’s a suite of browser, email client, webpage editor, and a few other applications. Netscape, from time to time, used to do a sync back up with the Mozilla code base to deliver their Netscape product which was essentially Mozilla with a different graphical appearance.</p>
<p>There were complaints about code bloat with Mozilla and Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross started the Phoenix project to come up with a browser-only product. As an aside, Blake Ross was in his mid-teens and I suspect that his development of the browser helped him get into Stanford. He dropped out after a short time there to do industry work. So there already was a browser engine to build an interface on top of to produce a product. The Mozilla folks continued to do work on the Mozilla base code while the small Phoenix team could work on user interface aspects in a browser-only project. The name of the project and product changed to Firebird and then Firefox due to trademark issues. Along the way, the decision was made to do an email-client only product and this was called Thunderbird.</p>
<p>The code is still common to Firefox and Thunderbird (to my knowledge). I believe that Seamonkey has forked and that they reintegrate code changes to their own code base but I haven’t done anything on Seamonkey for years so I don’t know their current status.</p>
<p>I don’t think that it is accurate to say that Firefox copied IE features. They are quite different in look and feel and a lot of the functionality was already in Mozilla. Firefox just had to take advantage of that with a user interface. The code underneath Firefox could be considered a browser development kit. There are loads of pieces that allow you to assemble a browser. This is why it is so easy to customize Firefox with themes and extensions. Camino and K-Meleon are examples of derived browsers based on the Mozilla code base.</p>
<p>“and IE since then has copied many of the features of Firefox.”</p>
<p>There have clearly been features grabbed from the various browser development platforms and used in others. Opera has been pretty innovative but marketshare continues to elude them. Safari is the native browser on Mac OSX and enjoys the same advantage that Internet Explorer does on Windows.</p>
<p>“They both address security issues on an ongoing basis. I use both but IE somewhat more than Firefox for no particular reason.”</p>
<p>I work in a multiplatform environment and it’s nice to be able to use the same product from system to system.</p>
<p>“IMO there’s no compelling reason to use one versus the other.”</p>
<p>Performance, memory consumption, extensibility, customizability, platform independence are the main reasons why Firefox is my primary browser. That and the ability to change the browser if there’s something that I don’t like about it.</p>
<p>
I code for use with both. Obviously it causes problems when one codes for features and rendering of a particular browser and then they don’t check how it works with the other browser. If one’s target audience might use both browsers, they should make sure they code so it’ll work on at least these two. IE still has the majority of the market so if one doesn’t make their website work with it then they just don’t have a very viable website.</p>
<p>But for most users, it doesn’t really matter which browser they use.</p>
<p>Not a computer expert by any means but I much prefer Firefox. I first changed to it years ago when I was having terrible problems with ad ware and multiple pop ups on IE to where my computer would become almost unusable. Had much less of a problem on Firefox. IE may have improved in that area but I still much prefer the way Firefox works. Occasionally I will use IE when I run into the odd site that is not compatible with Firefox and I find IE less easy to navigate. (though that may be largely because I am so used to Firefox now).</p>
<p>Anyway another vote for Firefox.</p>
<p>
I say this because IE diverged from Mozilla with extra features and sometimes ‘their own standards’ and Netscape and the subsequent Firefox were pretty much forced to adopt those changes. As time goes on both browsers seem to be adopting the better features of the other such that they aren’t so different to most users. Firefox had tabs, now IE has tabs, Firefox made it easier to delete the tracks, now IE is doing the same, etc.</p>
<p>I have no doubt that most people would have a preference of one over the other but again, I just don’t think the differences are that significant for the majority of users.</p>
<p>I tend to work both with multiple browsers open and also multiple tabs- for instance, one browser just for CC, I can open a tab of everything I want to read, first thing in the AM, then when I am on the phone on hold, I read one item at a time and close that tab. I also run streaming audio of radio stations.</p>
<p>I switched a few weeks ago to using Firefox, I had it for ages, but never used it. The things i like:
A} It crashes and shuts down less than IE
B} If your computer freezes it saves your open browser places so you lose nothing
C} It seems to have spell check in the CC reply box so I look less careless!!
D} It opens a new tab faster, it just feels like is runs faster and slow speeds for Windows things bug me, I really prefer DOS without the pretty pictures and with the faster speeds, so I notice Firefox is faster</p>
<p>“IE still has the majority of the market so if one doesn’t make their website work with it then they just don’t have a very viable website.”</p>
<p>Firefox has much better penetration on Mac OSX compared to Internet Explorer and who doesn’t want Apple customers buying their products? So I think that coding to standards is a good idea for web programmers.</p>
<p>“But for most users, it doesn’t really matter which browser they use.”</p>
<p>I’ve been following Intel’s Atom initiative and things are pretty interesting on that product at the current process node. They should be even more interesting in terms of getting hardware costs down at the 32 nm process node.</p>
<p>The Asus Eee-PC has had remarkable market success and I think that Intel would like to sell huge numbers of cheap laptops to emerging markets at prices that we’d find hard to believe. The machines mainly run Linux. They should be able to run Windows XP but Microsoft would have to make XP really cheap to appeal to the target market of these devices.</p>
<p>Firefox has come a long ways from two guys hacking around to make a better browser competing against a well-capitalized competitor with 96% marketshare.</p>
<p>I use Firefox because I prefer open source programs to Microsoft. Both Firefox and Internet Explorer have pros and cons, but it’s mostly personal preference.</p>
<p>“I say this because IE diverged from Mozilla with extra features and sometimes ‘their own standards’ and Netscape and the subsequent Firefox were pretty much forced to adopt those changes.”</p>
<p>One of the biggest liabilities that Microsoft added was ActiveX. Fortunately Mozilla did not copy this as it’s been responsible for a lot of compromised system. In fact it was a selling point of Mozilla.</p>
<p>“As time goes on both browsers seem to be adopting the better features of the other such that they aren’t so different to most users. Firefox had tabs, now IE has tabs, Firefox made it easier to delete the tracks, now IE is doing the same, etc.”</p>
<p>Opera came up with tabs first. Phoenix didn’t have tab support. There was a guy that ran a project that provided tab support. Then a Japanese guy named Piro developed the swiss-army-knife of tab support with well over 100 tabbing features. But it was slow. Tab support was added later on to Phoneix/Firebird/Firefox. It is good but it is much better with TabMix Plus which again provides an amazing amount of tab functionality but this time, at a very lightweight cost. Internet Explorer had tabs available early on via a product called Crazy Browser. This was a kind of shell with Internet Explorer as the rendering engine. There were a bunch of similar products that came out similar to Crazy Browser.</p>
<p>Silverlight is another differentiator. I think that Mozilla won’t adopt it. It should be interesting to see what kind of penetration it gets.</p>
<p>“I have no doubt that most people would have a preference of one over the other but again, I just don’t think the differences are that significant for the majority of users.”</p>
<p>I would suggest reading the recent benchmarks comparing Firefox 3 to other browsers. Perhaps many don’t care about performance. But there are a lot of people that do prefer to get their tasks done in less time.</p>
<p>I think others may have mentioned that they use more than one browser simultaneously, but I just wanted the OP, and others who have talked about “making the switch”, to know that you do NOT have to make a choice.</p>
<p>I use both Firefox and Explorer on the Windows “side” of my MacBook; I use both Safari and Firefox on the Mac “side.” I frequently (almost always?) have both open at once.</p>
<p>I prefer Firefox for reasons B and D that somemom mentioned. But in my business there are a number of proprietary programs that are “optimized” for Internet Explorer (translation: you really can’t use them AT ALL on other browsers), so I have to use IE for them.</p>
<p>So, for those hesitant to “give up” IE in favor of Firefox… just download and try Firefox. See how you like it. You can keep both.</p>