This week, the latest version of the FireFox web browser was released to much hype and fanfare.\u00a0 Ignoring the hype, it’s still a major accomplishment.\u00a0 I’ve been using it for almost a week now and I can tell you that I’m impressed by the increase in rendering speed and overall performance.<\/p>\n
FireFox is another Open Source development effort (part of mozilla.org).\u00a0 Interestingly, the very first web browser (Mosaic) was also open source.\u00a0 It eventually was reincarnated as Netscape Navigator, the first widely available and used browser.\u00a0 After Microsoft effectively killed off Netscape, the mozilla project was reborn from the proverbial ashes, and thankfully lives again.<\/p>\n
I switched to FireFox when I got frustrated with Internet Explorer 6, which is arguably one of the worst browsers ever.\u00a0 When IE7 came out (it’s amazing what a little competition will do to Microsoft), it was a significant improvement, but it still lacked the standards compliance and extensions model of FF2.\u00a0 And there was a lot of standards non-compliance to get rid of.\u00a0 Having been bitten by the DHTML\/CSS web standards bug several years ago, most everything I develop is developed to current web standards.\u00a0 I am continually amazed about how many things render differently in IE7 and more standards-accurate browsers (like FF), and consequently how much time I waste trying to make everything work correctly in both browsers.\u00a0 But FF2 had its problems too – It had a significant memory leak and would slow down if left open for multiple days.<\/p>\n
After 2+ years, FireFox 3<\/a> is here.\u00a0 It’s significantly faster that its predecessor (GMail is almost tolerable in FF3) and hasn’t lost any of the rendering compliance of FF2.\u00a0 What’s more, I found myself checking the extensions catalog for compatibility to see if my favorites had been upgraded to support FF3 before I pulled the trigger on the upgrade.\u00a0 I wasn’t going to upgrade to FF3 without AdBlock<\/a> or the Web Development<\/a> toolbar!\u00a0 Extensions are a big part of the overall FireFox allure.<\/p>\n Like I said earlier, it’s amazing what a little competition can do.\u00a0 Microsoft has announced they are working on Internet Explorer 8<\/a>.\u00a0 While I’m sure they will ram it down everyone’s throat (through Windows Update), they better get busy – there’s a lot of ground to make up to catch the current leader!