Software: Firefox and extensions

Mozilla Firefox is a free, open-source, cross-platform web browser developed by the Mozilla Corp and many, many volunteers. Firefox began life as a fork of the Navigator component of the Mozilla Application Suite that was meant to provide a lean, mean browser only option for users who didn't need the full web suite. The Mozilla Foundation was created after AOL dropped development of the software a few years after purchasing Netscape Navigator (a very popular browser from the early days of the internet).

Firefox includes innovative features such as an integrated pop-up blocker, tabbed-browsing, live bookmarks, support for open web standards and an extension mechanism for adding functionality. Firefox has achieved widespread success and offers users a very stable, very secure, very functional option to Internet Explorer.

I have used Firefox since it was called Firebird (specifically version 0.6) and I can say it has become not only a valid option, but very much the standard by which other browsers are judged (well, ok, at least it's how I judge other browsers). Firefox is an open-source application which means the source code is available for anyone to view. This means Firefox uses sound security methods instead of security through obscurity. Any flaws that are found can be seen by everyone, openly discussed and fixed quickly by the community. No hidden code, no backdoors possible.

There are some criticisms of Firefox. Some users note Firefox takes longer to launch than other web browsers on Windows. The non-Windows-native XUL implementation of the user interface may be the cause of this delay. Internet Explorer has the advantage of being a built-in component of windows and much of it's functionality is loaded at Windows startup, but Firefox is still slower than other browsers such as Opera and K-Meleon. Another complaint is that Firefox uses more memory than other browsers, but developers claim this is at least partially an effect of the fast backwards and forwards features of Firefox (moving between pages that have already been loaded, the browser takes more advantage of the cache, causing memory usage to spike). Some memory leaks may also be caused by poorly implemented extensions.

Overall however, Firefox provides a highly stable and functional web browser that is much more secure and adheres to web standards. I highly recommend at least trying it out, once you understand the power of tabs and extensions I doubt you'll want to use anything else.

Lastly, here is a list of the extensions I normally have loaded with Firefox.