Reasons To Use Firefox
As most everyone who knows me knows - I spend a lot of time on a computer. I spend a lot of time on the internet (either working on websites or browsing). Over the past several months, I’ve fallen in love with Firefox. Here’s several reasons why I love it, and why I think everyone should use it:
- Mac and Windows compatible. I’m a user of both, so it’s cool to have the same browser available on both machines.
- It’s open source and free. The glory of open source software is that it gets updated often, and it’s always free.
- It’s customizable - thanks to add-ons, plugins and themes, I can customize Firefox to my liking. The next several bullet points will explain some of my plugins and themes.
- FireFTP - perhaps the coolest plugin I use. When updating websites, I use FTP to upload and download files. With FireFTP, I can work on websites on any of my machines and always have the same FTP tool available.
- FoxyTunes - I don’t use this too often, but it’s still cool. It’s an audio player controller that sits inside Firefox. I can adjust volume, change songs and more without going into iTunes.
- Performancing - a blog editor. I don’t have to sign into my blog to publish posts. Very quick and efficient.
- Download managers - there are several download managers available for downloading multiple files. I prefer DownloadThemAll. FlashGot also seems to be popular.
- PDF plugins - there are a couple of PDF plugins that make viewing PDF files from websites a breeze.
- Sage - an RSS feed manager. I know that Firefox offers it’s own RSS feed managing tool, but I prefer Sage.
- Foxmarks - a bookmark synchronization tool. I can have the same bookmarks on any computer I use that has Firefox. This means my iBook, PC and work computers can always have the same bookmarks.
- Themes - I really like the look of Mac’s Safari browser, so I prefer to use themes that are based on Safari. But, there are tons of themes available (”skins” is another term for “themes”). You can make Firefox look however you want.
- Website rendering - as a web designer, I find that Firefox accurately renders my designs, so they look as they should. I find that I have to make adjustments to my designs due to other browsers (mainly Internet Explorer) being quirky in how they render sites.
- Search bar - I find myself using the built-in search bar more and more. I can search Google, Wikipedia, Dictionary.com, eBible and more all from the search bar. I don’t have to physically go to these sites to search.
Microsoft just released Internet Explorer 7. I have to admit that I’m very pleased with it - a drastic improvement over the previous version. However, I still don’t find enough good in IE7 to make me stop using Firefox. I also find Mac’s Safari to be a well-done browser, but it still lacks the features Firefox offers. Overall, I find that Firefox makes my web browsing experience very quick, clean and efficient. If you’ve never used Firefox, I strongly suggest you give it a try. It’s free! What do you have to lose?
