Firefox in the Media

Fired Up Over Firefox
Mozilla Readies Alpha for Firefox Upgrade
Microsoft Says IE 7's Tabs Just "Catch-up"
AOL Concocts a Mess With Netscape 8.0
The Browser Wars are Back

Auto Updates

If there is an update to Firefox, or any of your installed "themes" or "extensions", Firefox puts a small "update" icon on your browser.



To update, simply click on the icon, and the updates will be downloaded and installed. To activate the updates, you'll have to shut down and restart Firefox for them to take effect.

To update Firefox completely, it's suggested to uninstall the "old" version and then install the newer version. This will ensure updates are installed correctly. This update procedure my be changed in future versions of Firefox.

Tabbed Browsing

Another one of the nice features of Firefox, is the use of "tabbed browsing". This means, you can easily switch between multiple web pages in one browser window ... as opposed to having multiple browser windows open to view each page. Once you've gotten used to tabbed browsing, you'll wonder how you did without it.



The easiest way to use tabbed browsing, is to right-click on a link and select "open URL in new tab". This will open a new tab, so you can view the page you just opened, and by clicking on the "tab" of the page you just came from, you can go back to your original page. By clicking on the "tabs", you can easily jump back and forth between pages.

When your done viewing the page, you can close the tab by either clicking on the "X" on the tab bar, or right-click the tab, and select "Close Tab".

You can also customize how the tabs behave, by going to Tools > Options > Tabbed Browsing , and play around with the settings until you get what you like. The "default" works just fine if you don't want to worry about customizing things.

Firefox in the Media

What's All the Fuss About Firefox?
Firefox Gets Big Win with Big Blue
Firefox Doubles Its Browser Market Share Says Survey
Microsoft follows Firefox lead

Browser Comparison

An article on C|net compares six Web browsers. Guess which was rated the best?

Built In Search

One of the first things you'll notice with Firefox, is an extra space next to the box where you type in a web address. This is Firefox's built in search. Here you can type in what you are looking for, and select from any of the "default" search engines.



Type in what you are searching for, select the search engine (Google, Yahoo, etc.) you want to use from the list, and hit enter. Your search results will then be listed.

Advanced users may add additional search engines to this list.

Ready to go

OK .. now you've checked out some reference materials about Firefox, installed Adware and Spyware protection, and are ready to give Firefox a try!

Here are some simple step-by-step instructions on how to get Firefox set up and running on your Windows computer.

Next we'll start to cover some of the neat features of Firefox.

Firefox in the Media

Firefox: An Increasingly Popular Alternative to Internet Explorer
Firefox vs. IE in O'Reilly Network Logs
Firefox Crosses 50 Million Downloads, Market Share is 8.69 Percent
Some Simple Apps

First things first

Have you been able to avoid Web sites putting little bits of programming in your computer without your knowledge ... eventually making it seem as if your computer has a mind of it's own? If you have, consider yourself lucky!

So, what can you do to protect yourself? The first thing to do, is download, install and run Ad-Aware and Spybot Search and Destroy. These will attempt to remove as many of these bad programs as possible. The first time you run them, you may be surprised at the number of bad things it'll find! You should probably run these every day, until you remove as much as you can.

Then, you'll want to download, install, and run SpywareBlaster and SpywareGuard.

With all four of these programs, make sure you check for the latest updates each time you run them.

Once you've cleaned your computer as best you can, now you can start using Firefox for another layer of protection. If you're lucky, the number of bad programs and files on your computer will have been reduced, if not totally eliminated. If you can't seem to get rid of them, you may have a serious infestation ... and may need to reinstall Windows in order to erase all traces of the bad programs.

Why Firefox?

Firefox is an Internet Web browser, like Internet Explorer, Netscape, and others. A Web browser is the tool that allows you to view Web pages. Firefox was developed by some of the same people that worked on Netscape. In fact, Firefox uses some of the same programming that Netscape does.

So why Firefox? Firefox is an alternative to other browsers. The full release version of Firefox, came out in November 2004, and in just 99 days, was downloaded 25 million times! On Friday, April 29, 2005 ... Firefox passed the 50 Million download mark! Web site statistics, show that Firefox usage is growing ... which in turn, is cutting into IE's domination. Some statistics, say IE usage has dropped below 90% for the first time.

Firefox Advantages

There are many advantages of Firefox compared to other browsers. First, is it's small size, only 4.7MB. It loads Web pages much faster. It features a built in popup blocker, to prevent annoying popup ads, and tabbed browsing, so all your Web pages can be easily accessed from one browser window. It can be customized the way you want it, with optional themes and extensions. It has a built in search tool, and "live bookmarks", which lets you bookmark RSS feeds. Because it's not tied into the operating system, it's more secure against spyware. And because security is a major issue, potential security risks can be addressed in a matter of days, instead of months - if at all! Firefox works with Windows, Linux, and MAC. It's also the most standards-compliant browser available. This means Web pages are viewed the way they are supposed to be ... no "hacking" is needed to make Web pages work as intended. It's also Free!

These are only a few reasons why Firefox is better than any other browser. You can also read what Forbes had to say about Firefox!

If you haven't already done so, download Firefox today and give it a try.

What's This?

I decided to start a blog, dedicated to helping spread the Mozilla "Firefox" Internet Browser. I've been a happy and satisfied user since I stumbled upon it around September, 2004.

I've always been a Netscape user (which was also developed by Mozilla), but just got bored with it. I've never been a serious user of Microsoft's Internet Explorer ... except for a time or two when that's the only browser that will work on a site.

Hope to post some additional information about Firefox ... such as user tips or some of the neat features I run across. Will also try and post links to articles or other useful information I find or hear about.

Stay tuned!!