Mozilla FireFox is probably the most popular open source internet browser. It's developed by the Mozilla Corporation. Although it was originally one of the components of the Mozilla Application Suite of Internet related software it's now distributed as stand alone product.

The most notable features of Mozilla FireFox are the following

• Tabbed document interface. You can open multiple websites at the same time and quickly navigate from one to another switching by clicking tabs at the top of the main browser window.
• Integrated pop up blocker. A helpful feature to get rid of unwanted and annoying ads often displayed by the websites you visit.
• Support for Extensions (or plugins). These are particular applications designed to integrate with FireFox and extend its functionality. Many are available as open source products.
• Integrated search. A built-in search bar gives you access to the most popular search engines, but you can also personalize it adding your favorite search engine.
• Privacy protection. A Clear Private Data tool allows you to easily delete sensitive informations such as browsing history, cookies and saved passwords.

Mozilla FireFox can be downloaded and used completely free of charge. Source code is also available.

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Comments

My Favorite Web Browser

Posted by LinuxLover on 06 January 2007 22:29

I believe Mozilla Firefox developers deserve all the support we can give them. This is by far my favorite web browser.

The tabbed browsing is a genial concept, it makes surfing multiple sites so easy.

I've tons of bookmarks and Firefox allows me to manage backup and export them very quickly.

Other things I like are the customizable search bar and the possibility to clear cookies and other private data every time I exit the program and the integrated pop-up blocker.

Then there are extensions. Every time I visit the site I'm surprised to see how many new extensions have been created and how quickly old ones are improved. It seems that for every boring or time consuming task we need to do online a Firefox extension exists to save us time.

I want to mention the Web Developer Toolbar, I find it useful as I want to learn to create websites. Another good one is the Adblock extension, I activate it and I can surf without annoying pop ups or other unwanted advertisements.

I'm probably not completely objective because I'm a Firefox fan. I know that, as any other software, it must have some limitation or defect, but i can't think of anything.

Firefox Extensions

Posted by osexpert on 16 January 2007 23:36

I agree that extensions are one of the most important features of Firefox and probably the main reason because I use this browser. Many of these tools are extremely useful and some are really big timesavers.

The following are my favorite extensions, thanks to some of these tools I've also convinced quite a few of my friends to switch to Firefox

Flashblock. I'm not a fan of Flash even because in my opinion many sites greatly misuse it, thanks to Firefox and this extension I can accept or block Flash on selected websites.

Sage is my favorite RSS reader. I've tried other similar add-ons, but Sage is fast, easy to understand and has all the features I need. In addition customizable layouts are really cool.

Web Developer. I see others are recommending it and I agree. When I find a website I like, I love to have a look behind the scenes with this extension. There's always something to learn from the html source, javascripts and CSS.

These extensions and many others are a good reason alone to install and try out Mozilla Firefox.