According to spreadfirefox.com there have been nearly 15 million, Firefox 3 downloads and 8 million of them being on one day. This must say something about Mozilla’s latest, faster, more secure browser. Firefox builds on 15,000 improvements since Firefox 2 launched in October 2005. Some of them being Smart Location Bar, which tries to guess where you are trying to go, based on where you have been. Also improved download manager, improved Add-ons box for extensions and themes and a new bookmarks manager.

So with this new version only 7.8mb in size (and Internet Explorer 8 at a bigger 14.8mb, with far less features) why not add to this world record and download Mozilla Firefox 3?

With Internet Explorer 6 I was very comfortable but also unaware. I decided to upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 later and it become very buggy, insecure (I used to get A LOT of spyware) and was prone to crashing. Instead of down grading back to Internet Explorer 6 I decided to try out the other web browsers out there. First Opera, which was not friends with my operating system so after 30 minutes it was in the recycle bin. Second Firefox, I was very impressed, what got me hooked was the ability to have add-ons and tabbed browsing. I loved it, I was always sick of cycling through many open browser windows, and the ability to customize your experience was great. Next when Apple launched Safari I decided to give it a go but the spellchecker didn’t work with my computer, so again it was back into the recycle bin. After that I had made up my mind from my experience and have stuck with Firefox 2.0 to 3.0 including the many betas.

So why change? Internet Explorer has been around for 13 years (since 1995) and has built itself an honest and reputable reputation (yeah right). Here I will list my top 5 points to make the change today. (Hopefully you already have).

1. Tabbed Browsing

Tabbed browsing changes the way we surf the Internet. It’s very simple yet highly effective. It allows you to go to a webpage when you’re ready. For example let’s say you are searching for something on Google and you see three or four options you would like to investigate. Instead of clicking on the first one reading it and having to remember to go back or you might click on another link on that website which will lose your search results. This can all be quite messy but if you just hold down the “ctrl” key and click it will automatically load them in different tabs so you can view them when you want.

You’re probably thinking well Internet Explorer has this so why should I switch to Firefox? Well firstly Firefox has had this for ages, Internet Explorer just released it with Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox allows for easy of adjusting between tabs. All you have to do is “ctrl” “click”.

2. Improved Download Manager

For many years we have been struggling with the woes of not being able to pause downloads. Firefox comes with a great, modern and stylish download manager which gives you the ability to pause a download, store key information about the file and give you realistic estimated download time left. You also don’t have to check the download every minute to check if it’s done; a small notification will come on your right bottom window notifying that it has finished its download.

3. Open Source

Mozilla, the parent of Firefox, prides itself on its free and open software. That means you can change Firefox and improve it. This great idea means that thousands of developers can add mini applications called add-ons which can improve the user experience. This will be discussed in due course. If you have made improvements you think will benefit the Firefox community send it off to Mozilla and it could be included in the next release.

4. Customization

With add-ons, themes and extensions Firefox gives you the power to personalise Firefox anyway you want. Thousands of developers have created little add-ons to improve your experience. Mozilla lists their most popular add-on as AdBlock Plus created by Wladimir Palant. AdBlock Plus is a very effective way to stop 99.99% of all unwanted pop-ups. Users can add just about anything, from email notifies to the current weather around the world. Firefox also gives users the opportunity to customize the look of Firefox by adding themes. Let’s say if I loved the look of Safari but loved the reliability of Firefox I could download a theme to have the best of both worlds.

5. Fast

One of the most complained problems with the Internet and people accessing it is speed. If you can only reach a certain download speed limit you would want your browser to get to the maximum download speed allocated to you. Firefox successfully does that, which is great. No more loading a page then going to get your coffee then come back and it still hasn’t loaded. Firefox will load pages before you know it.

Stay tuned for more information regarding Firefox, soon I will list what’s new about Firefox 3 and how you can make the best out of it.

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