Trilight Zone

[digital8]

By: Paul Teodorescu
Posted On: 2/28/2005

The Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser was designed to compete directly with Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer. Since there are articles all over the written media about Firefox, I was assigned the task of testing it. So far, it is considered for the IT administrators an option for replacing the trouble target also known as IE.

Firefox 1.0 is relatively user-friendly and intuitive, with probably the most minimal learning curve imaginable. In addition, the Linux and Mac OS X versions of Firefox are functionally identical to those on Windows, making Firefox an excellent cross-platform solution. One can download it from www.mozilla.org. With its streamlined interface and wealth of navigational aids, Firefox makes IE look every inch the old, static artifact it has become.
Of course, one would ask what the IE’s advantages over Firefox are. The answer is two: It comes preinstalled on Windows systems, so most users are familiar with it, and many Web sites and enterprise applications are coded specifically for IE as opposed to Web standards.

When one launches the Firefox browser, will instantly notice its clean, uncluttered interface and familiar Web navigation icons. Digging deeper, one will also find that Firefox includes such useful features as the tabbed browsing capabilities also found in Opera Software ASA's Opera; Apple Computer Inc.'s Safari; and Firefox's cousin browser, Mozilla.

Firefox's pop-up-blocking features worked well in tests, providing feedback in a small status bar when a pop-up was blocked and making it possible to quickly unblock a site from which we might actually wish to get pop-ups. I personally liked Firefox's find-in-page features, which are the best I've seen in any browser. Rather than launching a separate window for the Find command, as most browsers do, a small tab bar is launched at the bottom of Firefox—a much more user-friendly method.

When I went to a Web site that required a plug-in I didn't have, a bar appeared at the top of the browser stating that additional plug-ins were required. When I clicked the Install Missing Plugins button, Firefox found the needed plug-in and walked me through installation.

Firefox does a good job of easing the transition from IE, including a For Internet Explorer Users choice in the help menu that breaks down the differences between the two browsers and helps with migration.

Still, this won't help with one problem—sites that work only with IE.
There are sites that still do not work well with the browser. This is because developers often use IE-specific features to provide rich application behavior rather than using standards-based methods to achieve the same behaviors. The problem is also common in Web-based administration tools for enterprise hardware.

Honestly, Firefox is not immune to viruses and security problems and, in fact, has had some of its own. They were all quickly identified and fixed, though.

All browsers will have some kind of security vulnerabilities, but the main belief out there in the Open Source community is that until Microsoft stops tying IE so tightly into Windows, alternative browsers will provide better security.

I do not know about you, but I am taking serious steps in testing and integrating Firefox in the enterprise.