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Firefox by Mozilla Contributors |
Firefox gets first place as a no nonsense, full fledged, feature rich , stand alone browser packed with the things that every internet surfer needs. If you are in the market for a freeware, stand alone browser, you should at least give this one a try! |
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4.8 megs HERE |
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Firefox by Mozilla Contributors Before we start, I must give full cudos to all of the individuals who do countless hours of work on the process of developing such great freeware such as Firefox along with full suites such as Mozilla! If it wasn't for your contributions, these excellent programs would not exist and be of the finest quality that they are! OK, that being said, Firefox is filled with lots of goodies to make a stand alone browser ooze with brilliance. Here's the skinny: Platform..... Firefox requires at least Windows 98 and is supported through XP. Linux and the Mac are also supported with versions along with private builds for Solaris! As stated, you should be using at least a 233 mhz processor with 64 megs of ram and 56 megs of hard drive space. Web Site.......... Mozilla.org is renowned for having an excellent web site. The Firefox pages are no exception! Everything is done in straight fonts with large print for even the most fuzzy of eyes (like mine!). Categorized boxes contain links to items like FAQ, help, themes, release notes, plugins and more. Clear fonts in dark colors on a white background make the home page for Firefox very easy to read. Downloading........ Downloading
is quick from the Mozilla site. Installation.......... The installation for Firefox is a standard install engine which gives you the usual patter as far as EULA, directory choice, summary etc. Nothing fancy here EXCEPT that after you have finished your installation, Firefox will ask you if you want to import your settings from your previous browser setup! It will import all important information including bookmarks and place them in the appropriate places for Firefox to instantly utilize them. An excellent start to an excellent program! Here's a pic:
Help Files.......... Help files are complete including detailed explanations for all areas of the browser and include some screenshots. If more help is needed, there are two firefox forums that are linkable from their web site, both of which are used extremely well and are current to the date of this writing. The 'Mozilla Firefox' directory also contains a 'readme' file with basic instructions on installation for all supported operations systems as well as a program summery of Firefox itself. Along with this readme file there are text files as logs for the installation wizard and results. Here's a pic of a help file window:
Interface & Features ........... The interface of Firefox is quite similar to the browser found in the total Mozilla suite however, that's about where the similarity ends. Firefox incorporates tons of great features along with fast speed (on my systems at least) to give you an excellent online experience. Starting at the Firefox interface, I'm happy to announce that Firefox accepts 'themes' for their browser, as design installed at default didn't appeal to me very well. These themes will change everything right from your icons to the shadowing of buttons. I found no less than twenty themes available from their site and I'm sure there are more. Here's a pic of my opening browser window with the default theme installed:
Quite basic and not the most impressive looking is it!? Now here's one I found that I like from the suggested site:
This particular theme called 'Noia' has animated icons and is really cool. These themes are downloaded from the Mozilla site and they are extremely easy to apply to Firefox. Each theme has an “Install” icon which when clicked, will do all of the dirty work for you. Here's an excellent pic of the install window for the themes with a few that I downloaded and inserted:
Once you've taken a look at the interface, you'll want to check out the options for this baby. Here's a pic of the first options window that opens:
Notice how cool the icons are! Here is where you set the home page, fonts, colors, languages (there are lots!), whether Firefox will be your startup browser and any connections. Taking a look at fonts and colors, even a minor adjustment window such as this has been designed with ascetics in mind. Here's a pic:
The 'Privacy' icon in setup brings you to the settings area for such things as cookies, history, cache, and more. “Web Features” is where you setup your popup stopper along with a special window for imputing your own specific sites to block. This is also where you enable or disable your java or javascript and whether you load images from sites or not. The next option area is “Downloads”. Here is where you set your options for downloading such as where they go, how they get there and what they are associated with when they arrive. Here's a pic of both the downloads window and the plugin window:
Speaking of downloads, Firefox has an excellent download manager build right into it's code. It's fast, has options such as close window after download and looks great too! Here's a pic:
I have notice some very nice additions to this program that I noted were missing in the full Mozilla suite. One is the ability to make full adjustments to your bookmarks right from the bookmarks themselves without going into the bookmark manager. Oh sure, it's still there, but if you right click on any one of your listed bookmarks, you're given the full menu treatment such as 'open in new window' (yeah!!!) and 'open in a new tab' along with a 'properties' listing where you can do your changes! Here's a pic to prove it:
Notice that you can schedule updates through the 'update' tab along with notifying you of these updates. Also, your ability to include or not include certain bookmarks into your sidebar is done through this menu too. As mentioned, Firefox can also display a sidebar along the edge of the program to make all of your connections within a clicks reach. Also, the program can incorporate 'tabbed browsing' which gets rid of quite a bit clutter in the program bar of windows. In fact, along with each listing of bookmarks comes an option to 'open all links' in tabbed format. Just group a bunch of closely watched sites into one area, click the 'open in tabs' item in the menu and there you go, all sites ready for observation! Here's a pic of the browser showing that tabbed feature:
Another great feature of Firefox is noticed when you click on an image link. Firefox can open up this file in a 'filled screen' view showing the entire shot and gives you the ability to enlarge this image through your mouse. Just click on the left button and the magnified glass icon brings the image to actual view then back again with another click. In actual view, pressing and holding your scroll wheel will give you the ability to slide navigate through the entire image with your mouse. A sweet feature! Plugins..... There are third party plugins that are available for Firefox. I will not get into detail here as there seems to be many however, I would suggest a search on google for more information on this topic for Firefox. Uninstall...... Through the usual 'add/remove program' in your control panel. It's fast too! One nice touch is that it asks if you want to delete the entire directory. This is missing from many, many programs that just leave the operating directory intact in the /program files directory on your hard drive, creating a lot of clutter. Problems...... According to the web site and the Mozilla community, there seems to be the odd bug that comes out however, I noticed that these are attended to immediately by individuals with new builds coming out frequently. If anything, that shows dedication and support, something that even the most expensive shareware and commercial programs are missing these days! Personally, I've had no problem with my browsing and downloading. I certainly hope you won't either! In Closing .......... Forget Windows Internet Explorer and the front ends that are so popular for it's engine. Never mind loading in an entire suite when all you need is a good , reliable browser to do your surfing. I strongly suggest you download Firefox and give it a try. Enjoy!! Buzzy J |
