Switching to Firefox |
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Rik Nilsson AbstractSome browser history, fundamental reasons for browsers, differences among browsers and the W3C Standards are discussed, followed by a step-by-step procedure for converting to Firefox on Windows. What's A Browser, Anyway?... and why do I need one? A "browser" is an application (program) on your computer that understands and can display documents (pages, if you prefer) on the World Wide Web known as HTML documents. The World Wide Web is a lot of interconnected computers called servers that contain "websites" (places on the web) that have documents (pages) you can read -- if you have a "browser". If you are using a PC with Microsoft Windows, your browser is almost certainly Internet Explorer. It is the program you are viewing this document in. In the top bar of this window, it should say "Microsoft Internet Explorer". Originally, the myriad documents on servers comprising the early Internet were retrieved using FTP (file transfer protocol) and "gopher" protocol clients. In the early 90's Tim Berners-Lee developed a server and "browser" or HTML reader called ViolaWWW, creating a new form of distribution, called HTML (hypertext markup language) which used techniques similar to the then current "text processor" programs widely used to edit documents. A better browser called "Mosaic" was developed by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina at the University of Illinois. Originally developed on UNIX systems, Mosaic was adapted (ported) to run on PCs running Microsoft Windows, and soon after Aleks Totic developed a version for the Apple Macintosh. Commercial rights were assigned to Spyglass Inc. in 1994, who later licensed the technology to several companies, including Microsoft and Mosaic Inc. (later renamed Netscape), a company formed by Andreessen to commercially market HTML server/client technology. Here's a (very!) concise history:
Originally sold on CDs for up to $150, during the "war" both Microsoft and Netscape eventually began giving away their browsers free for downloading. At its breakup, Netscape "open sourced" theirs -- gave away the source code as well as the object, or "executable" end product. AOL only wanted the code so it could escape Microsoft's domination. A group called "Mozilla" was formed whose goal it was to improve on the open source Navigator. Mozilla struggled for years, but it was difficult to fight the ubiquitous nature of Windows and MSIE. After a while, the open source movement attracted some industry "big guns" including IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems and others, who contributed funds. Mozilla came into its own, and under the influence of the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium, of which even Microsoft is a member) produced a star performer that renders to the full range of standards set down by the W3C. Why Switch?Firefox offers these benefits over IE:
Firefox is not susceptible to the plethora of worms and viruses that plague Internet Explorer for the simple reason that they do not run ActiveX (so-called "DHTML") or make use of VBScript, which are the prime doorways for intrusion. Both these technologies enable automatic execution of downloaded programs, and access to other Microsoft applications with similarly poor security. ECMA script (JavaScript) on the other hand, is safer, because it does not permit access to files external to the browser. Browsers like Firefox, Opera and Safari on the Macintosh render standards-based sites almost identically due to close conformance to W3C standards. Microsoft chose to develop or include these technologies because of economic expediency; it was less costly to gobble up code already written than develop to W3C standards for ECMA scripting (JavaScript, as developed by Netscape). In their zeal to provide a more interoperative browsing experience for industrial application of their products, which usually run safely inside protected networks, they have thrown intrusion-prone products to the unsuspecting general public. Since Explorer is given away for free, a practice forced on Microsoft by it's open-source and free-software competitors, the company is reluctant to update the product. The current release, IE6 was made in early 2001, and has yet to be updated. It must be conceded that with the exception of scripting, Explorer actually renders pretty close to the current XHTML Strict standard. "Pretty close" is good enough for Microsoft, but gives web developers fits because the elements that aren't rendered properly, like content "boxes" such as divs, are the most common! Microsoft's inadherance to ECMA scripting standards and addition of intrusion-prone extentions makes for difficulties in creating safe, dynamic interactive web applications -- unless one also uses their not-so-inexpensive development tools. How to Upgrade to FirefoxNote: You don't need to get rid of Internet Explorer -- don't even try. It is so closely integrated with the operating system it would be impossible even for an experienced qualified Microsoft technician to do this. Also, unfortunately there are some sites you just have to have IE to view.
You're finished. Painless, eh? (I hope so!) Now a Firefox browser window opens, so let's get familiar with some of the features, starting with... Tabbed BrowsingAssuming you're still connected to the internet, the first page that comes up is the Firefox Start page, and it's basically just a stepping stone into Google. Let's go someplace more interesting, say, Yahoo!. Click in a blank area of the page to get Firefoxes attention. Hit ctrl-t (hold down the control key and press "t". Now the Firefox Start page is in a "tab" hidden behind the new blank tab you created, and the cursor is in the web address blank at the top. Type "yahoo.com" and hit "Enter" (or "Return", if your keyboard is so labled). Presto, you get Yahoo!'s front page (or index document as it's known to geeks). To go back to the Firefox Start page, click its tab. It pops to the "front", becoming the "active" tab. Now click once in the web address blank again and see that the address is highlited. Now just type "news.google.com" and hit enter again. I think this is a better start page than Firefox's, so let's make this OUR start page -- the one that Firefox will bring up first whenever you start it up. Set A Start Page (...or two)At the top of the window is a horizontal group of words which are menus. Click the "Tools" menu and then click "Options..." at the bottom of the menu pane. Click "Use current pages". Now, since we had two tabs open, we're going to have two start pages -- each will open in a separate tab in the same Firefox window when we next start Firefox. Click the upper right "X" button to close Firefox. Now double-click the Firefox desktop icon or select Firefox from your Start menu to start it up again. Both the pages we selected come up in separate tabs. If you want to start with only one page, close the tab you don't want, and set the start page as we did before under the Tools menu. To close a tab, click the tab, then click the red "X" to the right of the tab bar. When you get down to only one page left, it's tab disappears, but that's an preference you can set under the "Tools: Options" menu. Import... Favorites - ah, BookmarksThe next thing you'd probably like to do is import some favorites from you Explorer favorites file. Firefox should ask you if you want to the first time it starts up. If it doesn't for some reason, or you want to do it later, here's how: Click "File: Import..." and click "Next". Now select the things you want to copy over from Internet Explorer, and click "Next" again. When "Import Complete" appears, click "Finish". Your favorites are under the menu "Bookmarks". Adding favorites is the same as Internet Explorer -- click ctrl-d and the current page address is a favorite. You can also rearrange and categorize your favorites into "folders" if you like. Click "Bookmarks: Manage bookmarks" to get the bookmark editor, and play around in it. Resources and Advanced Topics:Here's a fun comparison you can make: Download free Ad-Aware and clean up any spyware it finds on your computer. Run nothing but Firefox for one day. Run Ad-Aware again. Then run IE for one day. Run Ad-Aware again. Compare the results ;) Ad-BlockingSee the Mozilla/Firefox Central website for more info, features and extensions, including the slickest ad-blocker I've ever seen by Neil Jenkins; this method even takes the ad space out in many cases, showing the site as it was designed before the marketing department got hold of it! It even eliminates those annoying animated Flash ads the other blockers miss. You just copy the CSS code on this page and paste it into your /profile/default/chrome/userContent.css file. Just search for that file to find it on your computer. If you don't have one, just paste it into a TextEdit or Notepad document and save it in the profile "chrome" directory as "userContent.css". SwitchToFirefox.com has a wealth of success stories from people who've switched, as well as tips and tricks for using and extending your Firefox experience.
© 2004 Rik Nilsson, All rights reserved. Richard H. Nilsson/December 15, 2004 | |