November 18, 2004

Mozilla Firefox 1.0
Could this new open-source browser threaten Internet Explorer?

By Rick Dexter
Special to the Times

Since Microsoft took the browser market from Netscape years ago, Internet Explorer (IE) has been the standard Web viewing application for more than 90 percent of the computing world. This month, a potential contender to that role has been released, and this software is ironically rooted in the same browser that Microsoft buried with IE.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is based in part on the software source code made public by Netscape in 1998. The first version of the Netscape browser was based on the early Mozilla browser, bringing it full circle with Firefox. Windows, Mac, and Linux versions are available as free downloads, and the multi-language support is phenomenal.

There are many things about this browser that I like. The popup blocker works as good as the popup blocker in XP Service Pack 2, and a technology called “RSS” allows you to pull down changing Web content like news feeds so you don’t have to constantly check for updates. My favorite feature is tabbed browsing, which displays new pages in a single window with tabs instead of popping up new browser windows. As an open source project put together by hundreds of volunteer software developers, the browser is surprisingly good for an initial release. Industry buzz and newness are giving it quite a bit of forward momentum, something Netscape has not seen in years. This momentum has some people speculating about Firefox knocking Microsoft from its throne. In just a few short weeks it has already made several percentage points worth of difference in overall market share.

Considering all the great features, it is no surprise that many people have considered replacing IE on their system. I decided to try it myself and see if the hype was justified. Unfortunately, after running Firefox pre-releases for a month or so, I ran into many incompatibilities, particularly with Web sites that are dependent on Microsoft’s ActiveX technology. Embedded multimedia has also been problematic for me, and Windows Update doesn’t work at all. Many specific functions (Google’s desktop search, for example) are not compatible. I have had pre-releases crash on me periodically, and although the final release seems quite a bit more stable, I’ve experienced a couple of crashes already. I had trouble with my favorite browser toolbars because they didn’t have Firefox-compatible replacements. In spite of all the positive hype, I think a full-time switch to this browser would be quite painful for most people. Fortunately, Firefox co-exists with Internet Explorer so as long as you don’t mind switching when you run into compatibility issues, you can get away with running both. Personally, I found switching browsers based on the Web sites I needed to access was quite annoying. I know of a network consultant in Southern California who is removing IE from all his customers’ desktops and putting on Firefox, and the screams from users have been deafening.

Reviews have primarily focused on Firefox being superior to IE in the area of browser security. It is true that many of the security flaws in IE are not present in Firefox. However, running Firefox as your sole browser will not prevent you from becoming infected with viruses or picking up spyware. It will just prevent software that exploits specific IE security flaws from hopping into your system, which is a relatively small percentage of the overall problem. If you are running Firefox to solve a spyware problem, be careful. It reduces the risk, but does not eliminate it.

I think the biggest thing this browser has going for it is the hype. I would not discount it just yet, but the 1.0 release has a way to go before it becomes a serious replacement for IE. I am putting it into the category of “has potential, make sure and look at version 2.0.” If you are a die-hard Microsoft hater, you’re probably going to find Firefox refreshing. If you’re more concerned about productivity and compatibility, I would recommend hanging on to IE for a while longer.

Rick Dexter, founder and CEO of NDYNAMICS Network Professionals in Campbell, lives in Almaden. Dexter has over 25 years of experience designing and supporting computer networks, particularly for small businesses and startups seeking reliable and scalable IT infrastructure. If you have a computer question that you would like to have answered in a future column, e-mail it to computerconnection@ndynamics.com.