All these years I thought there were only two Internet browsers out there: Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Oh the woeful existence that is mine. I am happy to report that I have graduated to the 21st century and discovered Mozilla's Firefox. Follow the link to see all the features, but here are my favorites:
- Tabbed browsing: I often have several web pages open at once and have to click back and forth between windows on my taskbar. If I have too many windows open, each program consolidates into one drop-down window and I have and extra click before I get to the actual window I want. Tabbed browsing lets me open each web page on a separate tab within my browser so I can easily navigate between them by clicking on the tab. AND I set my home page to multiple tabs so they all open at once instead of me having to go do it manually. Here's more on how tabbed browsing works.
- Extensions: There are a bazillion small add-ons that you can download to add functionality to your browser. My favorite is Sage, which aggregates all my blog and news feeds in one place so I don't have to go to a bunch of individual websites to read them. Nor do I have to subscribe thru MyYahoo, Bloglines, etc.
- Themes: Fluff to some, dynamic self-expression to others. Themes allow you to change the look and feel of the user interface. Sometimes all you need is a cartoony looking toolbar to make you happy.
There are other browsers out there. In fact, Internet Explorer 7 looks remarkably like Firefox with its tabbed browsing, RSS feed and Add-on capabilities but it's still in Beta.
Note to Mom: "Beta" means they are still testing it but you, gentle public, can download it and be one of the testers. They will be happy to provide technical support should their beta program fuck with your system. For a fee, of course. Oh, I said fuck. Sorry mom.
I tried to download IE7 Beta3 to run alongside Firefox for comparison purposes, but I got an error message and the fix required a manual change to my Registry. The instructions included a WARNING IN BIG LETTERS that an incorrect change to a Registry file could blow up my computer. I opted to uninstall IE7 Beta3 and forget about being a good little tester. I've found a good thing in Firefox so to hell with Microsoft.
AOL also has a new and improved browser called AOL Explorer that has all the same bells and whistles as Firefox & IE7. I'm not sure how this works in the tiny browser screen you get inside AOL's interface, though. Way back before I discovered AOL was the devil and I exorcised it from my computer, I used to sign on to AOL and then open my IE browser separately so I could have a full page browser view. I could never figure out how to get my AOL Favorites to open in that browser window, though. I suppose one could import them from AOL, but what happens when you add a new one? Do you have to add it in both places? I will have to check this out on my mom's or sister's computer, both of whom are still in league with the devil.
BTW, this blog is optimized for Firefox. IE does not show all the line breaks for some reason so, if you are using IE and things seem squished, I blame Microsoft. Firefox is free and easy to download and install. You don't even have to get rid of IE. In fact, Microsoft being the way it is, I don't think you can uninstall IE. Anyway, if you decide you don't like Firefox, you can always uninstall it later. Just a little software tip from your friendly neighborhood non-tech person who like cool new stuff that's easy to use and optimizes my time on the computer.
