Goodby IE?

Many of the most important events of my life have been the result of a chance encounter or an off-hand comment. For example, a brief conversation at a party led to my spending thirty plus years as an entrepreneur. Now, changing browsers is nowhere as important. But, I’ve just changed from Internet Explorer (IE) to Firefox as a result of a brief conversation with an Open Source adherent.

And, surprisingly, from my early experiences with Foxfire, it really seems to be a very good piece of software with some nice features that IE does not have. It’s particularly strong in its privacy aspects. For example, I’ve got a thing about spyware. So, very often with IE I would individually and manually clear out those spyware cookies I did not want. Firefox adopts a different approach and, once they are deleted, you can tell it to keep them out forever. Of course, since there are many fewer users of Firefox, there is less likelihood of a virus. They tout their tabbed browsing and, once I get used to it, it may be pretty nice. Searching is easier as Google is built into the toolbar and other search engines are readily available without typing a url.

Converting was a snap. The download of the software was fast; the importing of favorites, cookies, etc. from IE was even faster. Within two minutes I was surfing. Pages look a little crisper, but that may be wishful thinking. It loads and runs as fast as IE – and, maybe, a little faster. And, it’s free! If you’re interested, go to getfoxfire.com.

This is my first real experience with open source software and, thus far, I’m impressed. Maybe it is for the average user as well as the advanced developer. I look forward to the 1.0 release of Thunderbird, their e-mail product.