Thoughts on Firefox

I've been trying out Firefox for about a month or so now.

I've got to say that it's a pretty good browser. Certainly seems to have less problems with spyware, popups and the like than IE.

But lately, I've been reminded about why I switched to using IE after 5 came out in the first place. When I use IE, that's all I need to use. When I use Firefox, there's plenty of websites out there that I still need IE to use properly. Some examples are Windows Updates, the web interface of our Netscreen firewall, the Trend Micro online virus scanner, and Yahoo Games.

So while Firefox is in many ways the better browser, it certainly isn't the more standard browser. Everyone makes sure that their sites work for IE (if you don't you shouldn't be building web sites, unless you want most of the people of the world to NOT visit your site) but not so for Firefox.

Having said that, I will continue to use Firefox where I can, but anyone who makes it out to be the end all-be all web browser is smoking some good stuff and needs to look at the facts instead of just wallowing in their emotional response to Microsoft.

Comments

[Dave]

But more and more companies (including mine) are making sure their websites work with Firefox.

[Alexander Scoble]

Like I said, most sites are compatible with Firefox.

However, there are enough sites that I use on a regular basis (such as Windows Updates) that don't work with Firefox that it's an issue.

Also I've noticed that the downloader for Firefox is pretty good when compared to IE's downloader, but IE's downloader will remember where it left off downloading something if you cancel it and restart. Firefox's downloader won't. It starts back from the beginning again. Ran into this today while trying to download the 4.0 handheld software from T-Mobile.

[pbinder]

I have always liked MSIE because it was fast, but I love a lot of the features in Firefox (maybe MSIE 7 will solve this, but probably not unless they have a grease monkey like add in). Isn't the reason Firefox sucks for a lot of those websites is because they were coded outside of standards and use non-standards-compliant code that only MSIE can render?

I am just seaching on how to make Outlook keep my toolbars in the same position every time I open a new e-mail and read this ;)

[Dustin]

Why would Microsoft allow other browsers to use their update services? Internet Explorer is embedded into Windows. You can't not have it if you have a Windows system.

As a full-time web developer, building pages for Internet Explorer *is* the hard part. Firefox is one of the best browsers available when it comes to standards support. However, if I did not build websites to work in Internet Explorer, I would be losing like 75% to, what, 90% of all users? On top of that, there are many different issues with the many different versions of Internet Explorer. I have to keep in mind Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5, 6.0 and the new IE 7. And then on top of that, Internet Explorer for the Mac (which supports better standards, but has its own unique issues).

Another way to look at it - if you look at a web page in Firefox and it's broke, it's probably because of incorrect (or not according to standards) design.

The future doesn't look to bright either - IE 7 doesn't seem like it's going to fix much, sadly to say.