After getting a virus on my computer last weekend (thankfully picked up and dealt with my my Antivirus software), I’m thinking about switching over to FireFox, after hearing so many good things about it from people here and elsewhere on the Net.
But what can you guys tell me about it? What should I be aware of, and how is it different to IE6?
Everyone says it’s better, but what are the major differences?
Any help or thoughts would be greatly appreciated…
Firefox has hundreds of freely available plug-ins, so you can tailor your browser to behave and look more like you really want it to.
IE6 still allows ActiveX, which is an inherent security risk. (If I tried really hard, I’m sure I could find a link to a government report in 2005 stating that ActiveX was probably not worth fixing.) I don’t know if IE7 does.
Firefox has anti-phishing software, IE6 does not. IE7 reportedly has good anti-phishing software.
Firefox seems to have a faster release cycle, so new ideas get to you faster.
If you don’t want it to be different, Firefox will be very similar to IE. And you can install it without it affecting IE one bit. So do so, and try it out.
Once you’re familiar with it, the idea of plugins and such will be the next step 
Plugins are the main reason I downloaded firefox. First Firefox has an awsome popup blocker, but second - they have an awsome flash and ad blocker that you can download, so that you have to click on flash to get it to play - great for those annoying browsers.
There are many differences between firefox and IE - most of them good, but a few bad. I’d do as instructed above and install it just to mess around with it.
~Tasha
I meant banners. Wow. The death cold is affecting my thought processes now. 
~Tasha
Just to reiterate what they others have said, people that ask this question always phrase it in the form of “converting” to Firefox as if it is an all or none decision. In fact, it is just a relatively small app that you can download and install in a few minutes and use or not use at your pleasure. I would imagine that all of us Windows users with Firefox still have IE installed in case we need it.
I like Firefox because it is more stable and it stops naughty behavior like popups very well be default. The interface is cleaner an less kiddy looking than IE IMHO.
It’s not a big deal to install and try it out. It’s not like some programs that screw up your OS and don’t cleanly un-install. You can choose from a lot of easy to install modules that do what you want better.
The transition from IE to Firefox is almost completely painless and intuitive, I think. Much more so than the transition from IE6 to IE7.
The key strength of Firefox (IMO) is the diversity of extensions available - for blocking popups and adverts, for managing bookmarks, etc - and the ease of installing/uninstalling them.
I know you didn’t ask, but might I suggest Opera. I went from IE6 to Firefox to Opera and would never go back. Firefox seems to take way longer to load than Opera but maybe this is just MHO. I did not have to load any plug-ins and get no banners and no popups. I could never really figure out Firefox.
A couple of things I like are:
Maybe these are available and easy to use on Firefox too, but I never found them.
Oh, and you can go back to the last page by hitting the z key and forward with the x key. And get a closed tab open by hitting ctrl z. I am really lazy.
My favorite addition replaces all flash with a box with a player button. You don’t have to disable it to stop all the flash crap on some pages. You can click the play button and it’s fully functional flash media.
Thanks for the thoughts, everyone…
I’ve downloaded FireFox (and am indeed using it now!)
So far I’m very happy with it- it is certainly different to IE6, and has some very useful features (such as the ad blocking and the ability to disable cookies completely except for select sites)…
I’ll play with it for a few more days before deciding whether or not to make it my default browser, but so far I like what I’ve seen and experienced!
I would add that if you do need IE–for some work-required IE-broken website, for example–there’s an extension called IE Tab that will open a page in IE inside Firefox, so you don’t have to switch browsers or windows.
Oh, and sinjin–I don’t know about the other Opera features you listed as Firefox extensions, but it natively has the font-size feature. Ctrl + enlarges, and Ctrl - shrinks the text. I use mouse gestures rather than forward or back buttons, too. Opera’s nice, and I use it for some things, but overall I prefer Firefox.
I have 4 different browsers on my computer and use the best one for whatever site I am on.
I like options…
One of the greatest features of Firefox 2 is the spellchecker. If I am posting (like now) using IE, I have to use Word for a spell checker, but in FF - it’s all there.
My daughter (using MySpace et al) apparently hates the spellchecker, because it pulls her up on SMSpeak.
Gotta love FF
Si
Firefox won’t run Visual Basic scripts. Like not being able to run ActiveX, that’s a security measure, not a shortcoming.
Firefox has an annoying bug - until you do something like “Save page as” then cancel, you can’t use Paste/ctrl-v.
Speaking for all web designers out there, ditch IE and go Firefox. They have better support for web standards. I am sick to death of writing stupid hacks just so my websites render properly in IE.
Of course, a few years ago, we were all saying “Burn in hell, Netscape! IE is amazing!”
More info at The Web Standards Project, if anyone’s interested.
I don’t have that issue. I can paste into the browser address bar or into any form field (assuming the designer didn’t prevent pasting into the form field by design).
Update. There’s 2.0 out.
IE7 seems more secure from what I’ve seen, but I’d still suggest using Firefox just to be different. Why be different? Because IE is sill about 80% of the browser market, and they’re the biggest target for malicious software writers.
To clarify, IE7 seems more secure than previous versions of IE.
Another good reason to use Firefox is all the cool extensions they have for it. Adblock is a very good one. Extensions – Add-ons for Firefox (en-US)