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Mozilla Firefox is a free, open source, cross-platform, graphical web browser developed by the Mozilla Corporation and hundreds of volunteers. Beginning as a fork of the browser component (Navigator) of the Mozilla Application Suite, Firefox has since become the Mozilla Foundation's main development focus (along with the Thunderbird mail and news client), replacing the Mozilla Suite as the foundation's official main software release. The current version is 3.0 released on June 17th, 2008. The first version of Firefox was released November 9th, 2004 as version 1.6; before that the browser was known as Firebird, and before that, Phoenix.

Pros & Cons

Pros:
75 people have already voted. Do you agree?

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Extensive functional add-ons (extensions) and plug-ins
+60agreedisagree

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Tabbed browsing
+55agreedisagree

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After a crash can "Restore session" which reopens all tabs
+55agreedisagree

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Open-source project
+52agreedisagree

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Fewer security exploits directed at Firefox vs. IE
+44agreedisagree

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Page loading can be significantly faster than IE, especially when using speed-enhancing plugins.
+27agreedisagree

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In page searching and highlighting is powerful and straightforward. Just slash and type, or F3 refind: easy!
+20agreedisagree

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"Awesome bar" learns and adapts according to the frequency and recency of pages you visit
+16agreedisagree

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Faster browsing in v3
+15agreedisagree

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Improved memory usage in v3
+13agreedisagree

Cons:
Do you agree?

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Websites designed with proprietary IE/Active X code may not render correctly
+39agreedisagree

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Firefox V2 crashes semi-regularly and uses a lot of computing resources
+6agreedisagree

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v3 Default theme sports obnoxiously large and glossy back button
-2agreedisagree

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Memory usage and load time are significantly slower than IE.
-25agreedisagree

Competing products

Firefox is ranked 1st.  See the top picks in Internet Browsers
  1. 71% prefer Google Chrome 7 votes
  2. 28% prefer Opera 36 votes
  3. 10% prefer Safari 30 votes
  4. 10% prefer Windows Internet Explorer 41 votes
  5. 0% prefer Flock 15 votes

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More information

Features

  • Free, open-source software
  • Tabbed browsing
  • Highly customizable with many add-ons
  • Fewer security vulnerabilities over Internet Explorer

Firefox 3

Mozilla Firefox version 3.0 (codename Gran Paradiso) is scheduled for release on June 17th 2008 at 10am PDT, with public beta trials having been in place since November 19, 2007. The first release candidate was released on May 16th, 2008 and is now available for download in 45 languages.

  • new location bar that learns from user behavior - dubbed the "Awesome bar"
  • improves HTML rendering compliance - meets Acid2 standards
  • new internal memory allocator, jemalloc, improves memory performance over libc
  • new themes for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux
  • improved download manager with searching and downloading resuming
  • improved bookmarking and history powered by SQLite /w support for tagging
  • completely redesigned icons

The release of Firefox 3 has been dubbed as "Download Day" in an attempt to break the world record for most software downloaded in 24 hours. The website spreadfirefox.com has been taking pledges for people to download Firefox, and have received more that 1.6 million pledges from all over the world.

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Articles

• Firefox 2 officially released

written by Erik Oct 25, 06

Related products

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7 comments about Firefox

1.  avatar Omar  Jun 17, 2008 12:19pm

I just downloaded Firefox 3 (go go download day!) and after using it for about an hour I have to say I'm quite impressed. I switched from FF2 to IE7 after I got fed up with the performance and memory leaks. There were definitely some trade-offs in switching, particular with in-page searching and copying image locations... seemingly simple stuff, but actions that I use everyday.

Well early signs look like FF3 will be the best of both worlds. The power and convenience of Firefox combined with the speed of IE7.
2.  avatar rabidpotatochip  Jun 17, 2008 4:16pm

My one complaint about version 3 is the new location bar. It seems kind of sluggish when you have a few hundred bookmarks for it to search through. This wouldn't normally bother me too much, but it's still almost instant in Opera.

Otherwise, I'm extremely happy how alt text for images is displayed in this version and am definitely happy with my download.
3.  avatar Erik  Jun 17, 2008 4:18pm

I agree with rabidpotatochip. I'm not too sure about the new location bar. I don't really like how it auto-completes based on the title of the web page vs. the old way based on the actual URL. There is an extension that allows you to revert the location bar to the old one.
4.  avatar Erik  Jun 18, 2008 10:35am

I think I may have been hasty with my assessment of the new location bar. I saw an interview with an engineer from Mozilla on Attack of the Show last night, and he said that the "Awesome bar" will adapt to the frequency and recent activity of the URLs you visit. So, when I first installed Firefox yesterday, the learning hadn't yet started and I was getting sub-par results. I've noticed that the results are, in fact, getting better with more use.

Will it read my mind? Will it replace Google? No, but it's definitely useful.
5.  avatar dialupinternetuser  Jun 18, 2008 12:28pm

I love the awesome bar. I've been using F3 since the Beta 5 in early May, and it's really useful. Especially when I was doing this report. I had about 4 sites related to each subtopic of my report, and instead of bookmarking them, all I had to do was start typing "Kurt Vonnegut" or "Communism" or "Atlas Shrugged" and I had very easy access to the sites. I also like the new integrated add-on installer that allows you to install add-ons from within the browser.
6.  avatar Howlsthunder  Aug 05, 2008 2:54pm

Prior to version 3 I was a die-hard Safari user but with all the improvements in v.3, I am a total Firefox convert. It is WAY faster and uses far less RAM than Safari and is much easier to customize. I like the new ability to tag bookmarks and URLs, especially for sites whose names I never remember, and I like the new smart address bar (the "Awesome bar") - its more intuitive than memorizing urls for me. Tabbed browsing also seems to be tighter as well, consistently opening outside links in new tabs.

The only thing I *don't* like is that I prefer the way Safari shows bookmarks within the browser itself, saving desktop space and all.
7.  avatar DamienT98  Oct 05, 2008 11:47am

I love firefox, i would never use anything else now. I also have a ad-blocker application, it is awesome!
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    Key Features:

    Manufacturer Mozilla
    MSRP $0.00
    Product Line Free, Open-Source
    Release Date Nov. 9, 2004
    Software Type Web Browser

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