Wednesday, November 10, 2004

Firefox 1.0 is out.

For the one person on the planet who doesn't know, the much vaunted Firefox 1.0 is out now.

I'll download it and give it a go, I'm sure, but I daresay I'll keep using IE for now.

To quote from the Firefox website:
Why Use Firefox?

Popup Blocking - erm... Well... I've got that already. It works fine...

Privacy and Security - I think most people would agree that Privacy and Security are as much a user's responsibility as they are the software's. I've heard it said (many times!) tat no system can be made completely secure and still usable. SecretGeek has a very nice guide to defensive programming, and making your applications secure. There is also the rather woolly issue of what constitutes privacy. Security's pretty (or at least compared to privacy, anyway!) clearcut. But Privacy? Just look at the 2 main names for internet usage monitoring software. I say SpyWare, you say AdWare. Malicious? Who knows. Easily avoidable? For sure. Killable? Definitely.

Smarter Search - "Google Search is built right into the toolbar". As it is on my machine. The Google toolbar's not that difficult to install!

Live Bookmarks - From what I can gather, this is marketing speak for 'Integrated RSS Aggregator'. Okay, fair enough. If I want to go through my RSS feeds I have to go to the hassle of opening up RSS Bandit (What a drag!). I'll reserve judgment until I play with it.

Hassle-free Downloading - And how much hassle is IE? You've got a bit of a dilemma here when you're putting together a browser, I guess. Do you download a whole bunch of stuff automatically, and face the security consequences, or do you ask for confirmation at every step? Who knows?

S, M, L or XL—It's Your Choice - Yes, it's customizable. My only concern is how that customization fits in with its security and privacy model. Does that mean I can build a plugin that pings my server with the header information of every webrequest made from the browser? Woohoo! Wrap it around a pretty theme, and I've got my piece of SpyWare (or AdWare, depending on who you are) built into the very browse itself! Great! Also means there's more stuff that needs re-installing next time I repave.

Setup's a Snap - Okay, I guess this has just been put in there to attract people who are convinced that software installation is something only to be done by techheads (and there are a lot of them out there)

A Developer's Best Friend - Eh? I have a best friend. I don't want another!

And last but not least, the one thing that I've heard so much about. The one thing that I think has had more coverage than anything else. The one thing that is meant to be the IE killer. Ladies and Gentlemen, put your hands together and give it up for the one, the only...

Tabbed Browsing - Woo Hoo. Tabbed Browsing. Well if that hasn't solved all my problems. Tabbed browsing. I can have an entire group of windows open with only one taskbar item. I can flip between one and the other. Great. Come on. It's tabbed browsing. Much as I like the tabbed interface s la Visual Studio, I don't think it's really so hot as to make it the one selling point for a browser. Is that what we've been reduced to? Getting all frothy about the mouth over tabs.

As I said before, I haven't used it yet myself. I daresay I'll write another post in a few days saying 'Hey, Firefox is da bomb. I don't know how I lived without it!' We'll have to wait and see.

Don't flame me for writing so much about something I haven't used (yet). This is just my take on the marketing spin, and the 'Firefox is gonna kill IE' vibe I've been getting from the news.

At the end of the day, it's still just a web browser.

Just wanted to share. I've seen noting but Firefox Firefox Firefox for the past 2 days...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Don't you feel like a dummy.