Firefox more secure than Explorer

PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY

Reams have already been written on what the newest internet browser on the block, the Mozilla Firefox, means for market leader Microsoft and for the domination that its product Internet Explorer enjoys. But here's what Firefox could mean for you:

For starters, more security. The fact that Mozilla has been able to go out and tell the whole world "" and it is the truth "" that its internet browser is far more secure, is also at some levels an indictment of Microsoft's efforts in making the Internet Explorer (IE) more secure.

While Microsoft did add security patches to its internet explorer when it released the service pack 2 for Windows XP computers in August, these improvements are not available for more archaic Windows systems.

But here is what is in store for you if you were to download the hottest thing going on the internet from www.mozilla.org.

No more irritating pop-up windows when you open a page. The Firefox browser allows the user for once to take a decision on whether to experience the irritation of pop-windows or not. There is an integrated pop-up window blocker. This of course is available with the IE Service Pack 2.

This feature is very interesting indeed in a low bandwidth atmosphere like India. The Firefox browser allows you to open multiple websites in a single window. This would mean that you do not have to open new windows and actually speed up your entire browsing experience.

Well, this is not all that great advantage. But nevertheless, Firefox allows the user to search the web more easily, courtesy the browser has integrated in its toolbar, support for leading search engines like Google and Yahoo and even www.dictionary.com.

There is even built-in fraud protection . The browser helps users carve out a safe wall against cyber crimes like phishing and spoofing.

For the news hungry Firefox is good news because the browser supports Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, a technology for culling out headlines from news sites and web journals so that one is spared the hassles.

This apart Mozilla promises to do away with a headache when you change browsers. The migration as it is called helps to jump from IE to Firefox as the browswer can import existing bookmarks, passwords, cookies and other data. Also, it is available for Linux and Apple Macintosh computers.

Finally "" this is the best of the lot "" Firefox is free.


So while the pluses have been listed out, one of the major negatives could be that the browser will not open websites that are specifically designed for IE.

But with eight million downloads since the announcement by Mozilla of the availability of Firefox, web site designers would do well to kind of start ensuring that their sites do open.