February 11, 2004

Mozilla Firefox

There has been a flood of browser releases lately (a flood being relative). Two weeks ago Apple released Safari 1.2, last week the Omni Group released OmniWeb Public Beta 5.0, and this week Mozilla jumps back into the pool with Firefox 0.8, a renamed update to Mozilla Firebird due to trademark issues.

Firefox is a terrific update to the lightweight, speedy Firebird bringing welcome enhancements like an actually useful Download Manager (hey Apple!) a la Internet Explorer 5.x, Bookmark addition improvements and folder destination selection, and a lovely new theme just for OS X. It also goes without saying that Mozilla is steadfast in their support of Web Standards, Firefox being no exception. Although I don’t agree with the branding selection (the original logo/icon idea was much stronger and reduces much more successfully), the detail of the process is nice to see, and what’s more, cheers to Mozilla for investing time and money in this little thing we call design. Let’s also not forget the Web Developer Extension, essential for any and all web hopefuls, which is basically a free toolbox for web development.

Safari is still my browser of choice for my Macs, with Firefox for debugging/testing/and all-round make-up-for-what Safari-lacks usage. You might say, why not just use Firefox full-time then? Well, I can’t help but support Apple. They are making strides with each release to integrate Safari better, and by supporting Apple making all of their own OS software (unlike the polluted PC gene pool) I am helping to make owning a Mac an enjoyable experience. Thankfully, there is room for more than one browser on this World Wide Web. My PC at work is happily maxin’ and relaxin’ with Firefox.

With the recent release of these three browsers, people can treat themselves to a wonderful new standards progressive browser and bask in the knowledge that you are helping to turn the web into a better place, so that future generations of children can find porn much more quickly. Go download one today.

Commentary (1):

1. Jon Hicks says… feb 11, 2004 | 5:16 pm

I know how you feel. Features like the javascript console in Firefox are really handy, but at the end of the day, it isn’t Cocoa. I like Safari and Camino’s integration into the OS.

Its also nice using something thats been built especially for Mac users. I have high hopes for Camino once its gets past 0.8, I think it’ll be worth watching.

Love your site BTW - I jealousy linked to it last week.