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Mozilla's Firefox web browser, which appeared nearly two years ago as the first real alternative to the domination of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, has been updated.
Firefox was built from the remains of the old Netscape internet browser, which gives it a good pedigree and means that it's actually older, in parts, than Internet Explorer.
Its chief claim to fame is that it's open-source and built almost entirely by volunteers. Mozilla, who owns the Firefox name, has some 70 paid staff, but the vast bulk of the program was written by an army of thousands of home programmers. The open-source tag means that it's not covered by strict copyrights, so anyone can use, copy and modify Firefox, as long as they don't make money from it.
So, what's it like to use? To be honest, Firefox 2 doesn't add that much to what already existed. That's mainly because Firefox 1.0 was such a leap from Internet Explorer that there's not much now to add.
The tabbed browsing that Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 now includes – the ability to browse multiple pages in one window – was already implemented in the first edition of Firefox, for instance. It has been enhanced, though, with the ability to save the current open tabs when you quit the program, and have it reopen the same tabs next time.
This feature used to be available as an add-on, but now it's been brought into the main program, and Firefox is all the better for it. Add-ons (previously called Extensions) are small programs written by other programmers, which add features to Firefox. A popular one is AdBlock Plus, which can cut out annoying pop-up ads, while Forecastfox displays local weather information in the browser.
That's the real strength of Firefox – the ability to fully customise the browser to your liking. It gets slow when there are lots (more than 10, say) of add-ons running, but it's still very useable. That's why it makes sense to bring the session management into the main browser, as it cuts down the number of add-ons a user needs.
The two other big new features are a phishing blocker, which keeps a regularly updated list of bad sites and warns when a user tries to visit them. There's also a spelling checker which automatically marks up spelling errors in a user's written text (when writing email, for instance).
Other than these, the browser is faster and, supposedly, less bug-prone. We had a few problems with crashes in the last edition, and none so far, so we'll continue to see whether that's the case.
It's hard to improve on a winning product, and that's what Firefox certainly is. The improvements are small but they add to the experience, which is already excellent. And since it's free, we certainly recommend giving Firefox a try.
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