Mozilla Firefox started out as the stable, lightweight, extensible answer to the two main web browsers at the time. The somewhat buggy Internet Explorer, which was seriously lacking in features, and Opera which was suffering from troublesome bloat, incorporating many functions unneeded and unwanted for many web browser users.
Internet Explorer has matured and has integrated some of the best features first seen in Mozilla Firefox and Opera seems to be back on track to being a decent web browser as well. But meanwhile Mozilla Firefox has grown to be the second biggest web browser in the world, with ca. 15% of web users using it. One reason to prefer it over the competition is its excellent add-on feature. Other perks include better standards compliance than IE, lighter footprint than Opera and good customization.
But the available extensions are what really sell this browser. Unmissable add-ons for developers like Firebug to debug just about anything on your pages and the Web Developer Toolbar, but also great features for regular users like StumbleUpon integration, Piclens for impressive live slide shows and FireFTP, the FTP client in your browser window. You can also greatly improve security with add-ons like Flashblock to selectively start Flash applications and Secure Login to keep all your passwords safe.
Check the Firefox add-ons pages for more details on the add-ons I’m using.
pro: free, open, customizable, standards compliance, availability of essential add-ons.
con: memory hog, slow startup with many add-ons.
verdict: [rate 5]
