In the past week the release of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7 and following that the final version of The Mozilla project’s Firefox 2 release have given the Internet user a choice of two similar but under the hood very different browsers.
First a little history, most users I am sure still use IE6 that was bundled with Windows XP and has been with us for too many years and was due for an update a week after it was released. Many of the security patches Microsoft has pushed out were to plug gapping security holes that were present in this dinosaur. Microsoft ” white Knight ” IE7 is their answer to falling market share and time will tell, a more secure browsing experience for users.
Having used both browsers here’s my brief lowdown on them.
Starting in no particular order:
Internet Explorer 7: New to some users, Tabbed browser windows allowing you to have more than one web page open at a time. This is not new to users of Firefox, Opera ( another fine browser with a small but loyal following) and other browsers. But Microsoft raves as if it is the next best thing to Windows. It is welcome however late it is, it just makes the WEB easier to navigate. One little item I like is you can open a new tab by clicking on the little box on the default tab. Nice. Microsoft tells us it is more secure. Against what? their own IE6. Yes I hope it is BUT only time will tell. When it is pushed out via Windows Update, that day is coming, more and I mean many more user will be using it than when this was written. Time is the litmus test for any web enabled application. The user experience is nice if only because one is so tired of using IE6.
My score is whopping 6 out of 10. Please Microsoft live up to your marketing hype. Let it be secure.
Firefox 2: Favored by the more ” computer-savvy ” user Ff2 is an quasi-open source project maintained by the earlier mentioned Mozilla Project which also develops another browser that part of an Complete Package I guess you could call it with an e-mail client , calendar and browser writely named Mozilla. I believe it is a spinoff of the Netscape project. Ff2 has always had tabbed window browsing and added in version 2 the ability to close a tab by clicking the x in the corner. A little pet peeve of mine. One thing that’s cool about Firefox is the many add-ons that you can download for free that enhance the Firefox experience. If security flaws are found they seem to be patched must quicker than Microsoft and it’s browser. Only if it is a ” VERY CRITICAL ” flaw will Microsoft stray from it’s 2nd Tuesday of the month patch cycle: Patch Tuesday, as it has become to be known.
In the spirit of fair play I will end my critque of the two browsers and stop right here giving
Firefox 2 a score of 8 out of 10.
Don’t take my word for it, download Firefox and either wait for IE7 or download it and do your own comparision.
jf
