|
CostEffective IT: Netscape Reborn
Cost-Effective
IT: Netscape Reborn, by Richard Sonnier
Houston
Business Show "Advisor" Richard Sonnier, of the Information
Technology Services firm Nimble Services, Inc., provides weekly
information on our show about business technology issues. He can be
reached at 281-445-4800 x250 or rsonnier@nimbleservices.com.
This week I will discuss the FireFox web browser. FireFox is the next
generation browser from the developers that produced the original
Netscape browser.
History
In many ways the Internet took off in the late 90's due to the Netscape
browser; and many users started on Netscape. Microsoft was able to
catch up with Netscape with its Internet Explorer product that it
bundled into Windows. Many legal battles ensued. In the end, AOL
purchased Netscape and its software seemed destined for the scrap heap
of history when AOL cut a deal with Microsoft to use Internet Explorer.
However, as it was fading, Netscape released all of its source code to
the public and made its browser free under the stewardship of the
Mozilla organization. A dedicated team of programmers at Mozilla
continued working on the program and today many people regard the
Mozilla FireFox browser as the best browser in the
world.
FireFox Preview Release 1.0
After years of development and testing, the first release of FireFox is
available as a preview. You can download it from http://www.mozilla.org. Like the
original Netscape, FireFox is being widely acclaimed. Forbes says it is
"better
than [Internet] Explorer by leaps and bounds". For business
FireFox has answers to many of the spyware issues of Internet Explorer,
and FireFox together with its siblings Mozilla and Netscape 7.2 is
being
recommended by many security experts.
Beyond better security, FireFox is easy to use and has a compelling set
of
innovations like:
- tabbed browsing where each web page you view is loaded into a tab
on the main browser window (very useful)
- popup blocking
- smarter search
- live bookmarks
- hassle-free downloads
- small size at only 4.5 megabytes
Our testing at Nimble Services has shown it to be very fast and very
easy to use.
Recommendation
Download FireFox and try it. Be warned that it cannot replace Internet
Explorer yet and for some business needs you will still need Internet
Explorer. In fact, since Internet Explorer is integrated into
Microsoft's Windows operating system, you cannot run Windows without
Internet Explorer. However, it appears the FireFox is the future of
Internet
browsing and the innovations to make the Internet more productive are
not coming from Microsoft.
Next week, I will discuss the Outlook alternative from Mozilla:
ThunderBird.
|
Home
• Services
• Case
Studies
• Whitepapers
• Forum