Internet Explorer 7 Vs Firefox 2 article

[smyke89 0]

I have noticed that many things where said about these 2 programs that were not correct, so i plan to take the comparison from the very beginning.The very long period Of time Between 1998 and 2.004 has Represented without a doubt The most boring stage in the computer at evolution regarded Strictly From the web browsers point of view. stalking with march 1998 the date in which Netscape Has given up developing its own browser navigator launching it As an open source project, And ending with November, 2004 the date at which Mozilla Firefox Has been officially launched That period of time It has represented the peak of internet explorer developed by Microsoft. The Netscape Company has been forced to leave this scene because of the stagnation of the upgrading process of Netscape 4 a necessary stage four competing against internet explorer four. The lack of interests for the current product and launching into big developing stages for new products Which would Of required Years of hard work have left a free stage for Microsoft. the Number five version of internet explorer Has found an empty scene And thus the domination extends along the axe of time until the present day. During this whole periods of time the products of other companies where insignificant, the 6 and 7 versions of Netscape, now open-source having major performance issues, the excellent Opera browser being forced to stick to a low percent of the market because of the bad interface, bad marketing and pretty high price.. The situation has been changed in november2004, when the now famous Mozilla Firefox has been officially launched for the first time. Its climb to the top was rapid even tough it hardly passes 10% of the market, and it represented the start of a competition for Internet Explorer 6.Internet Explorer 7, a risk? Besides the man to man marketing campaign made by the Firefox fanatics, it’s success was determined by the fact that it was simple, had very few security problems (compared to IE) and the fact that it respects the standards of World Wide Web Consortium. If the last 2 meant something only for a small amount of regular users, the promise of a better navigation in a familiar environment was the criteria that caught most new Firefox users. Judging only from the point of view of basic functions, Mozilla Firefox was, and still is, a simple application. The base extra facility, tab navigation is still optional, Internet Explorer fans being able to preserve their navigation routine without using these tabs. Even the buttons have a similar positioning and use, the only new thing being the quick search button and RSS flow support. This simplicity has brought the long awaited market success for the small browser.[end of part 1]

[jimmy89 0]

A very good comparison of both the browsers! it is very hard to decide what you can crown as 'the better browser', Firefox or IE. They are both good browsers and both have their advantages, as well as disadvantages!The Firefox revolution has come a long way since its beginnings in 2004 and now has millions of downloads. it is a good stable and safe browser that many people are now using! personally, i like it because of the add-ons and extensions that you can use to make browsing easier.I think that Microsoft presume that they are loosing the 'browser war' and use their OS market share unfairly. they make products that must have IE installed to function. Take MSN Messenger for example, to view your emails, you must have Internet Explorer and you even have to have IE installed to install MSN. They are now even putting up IE7 as a update on Windows Update, they are trying to force it on Windows XP Users. The New Version of the Windows OS, Vista comes with it pre-installed!It is very hard to pick a Internet Browser because of all the options, it all depends on your requirements and what you want to be able to do!your comments and thoughts...-jimmy

[Arbitrary 0]

I think what browser you want/need ultimately depends on you.Now to counter the security risks of Internet Explorer 6, you could always get some antivirus program and keep it running. That would definitely keep it up to par with Firefox's security. If you don't like tabs and hope for a relatively smaller memory usage from whatever browser you choose, you might consider going for IE (assuming your security holes are covered) or Opera (though tabs are still there). Each browser has their own advantages and disadvantages and those have to be weighed to decide which browser suits you best. If you're going for speed and relatively lower memory usage, Opera is great. If you're looking for a number of extra functions (aka Firefox's numerous extensions), then Firefox it is. (I, for one, cannot live without Firefox's extensions).Picking a browser solely based on what others say probably won't help you much. Perhaps your best chance is to download what browsers are available for download and see which one you like best. =)

[jimmy89 0]

it is possible to run firefox without using tabs - you don't have to ever see them.By changing a few options you can hide the tab bar and make sure that all new windows are opened in new windows then you wont have to worry about the tabs, and you will have less memory usage.still, i love the tabs, they are so useful, and now that firefox saves your tabs for you when you close the program and they are there when you start it again, its even better!-jimmy

[smyke89 0]

it is possible to run firefox without using tabs - you don't have to ever see them.
By changing a few options you can hide the tab bar and make sure that all new windows are opened in new windows then you wont have to worry about the tabs, and you will have less memory usage.

still, i love the tabs, they are so useful, and now that firefox saves your tabs for you when you close the program and they are there when you start it again, its even better!
-jimmy

i am gonna talk about the tabs... about all the advantages of both browsers...
i am getting there... this is only a small part of a large article i wrote... but it is in Romanian... and it takes time to translate it... i am covering a lot of details in this article...
i will post part 2 tomorrow...

[ginginca 0]

I am so much more comfortable with FF.

[Denis3721 0]

I have all browsers: Internet Explorer, Firefox, AOL Explorer, AOL, NetscapeAnd honestly i have had the least problems with Firefox, it is very simple, but the problem was when I wanted to watch streaming videos it didnt let you sometimes. rarely images will not load on firefox, but it still a great browser, very simple.When I check my sites tha i build, every single browser displays it a little different.

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

I'm very comfortable with Firefox 2.I wrote a Firefox review at Xisto too, feel free to check it out.xboxrulz

[smyke89 0]

On the other side, Microsoft has brought up a totally different product. The new Internet Explorer 7 users will be confronted with a completely new environment, where almost nothing is where it was before. The new interface is strictly oriented for tabbed browsing, even tough there still is the possibility to use the old way with simple windows. The button layout is different, only the Back and Forward functions being placed in the same zone of the main screen. The pathways to the favorite sites, refreshing the page and stopping the loading process are placed in new areas, the application’s main menu has disappeared (even tough it can still be showed by activating the contextual menu of the tab showing area), and the buttons bar brings new functions. If Mozilla has speculated routines of navigators, Microsoft seems committed to shake the past away, betting on innovation, even tough this move can bring more bad things than good things by chasing away users with low adapting skills, obtaining from the beginning the advantage of overall impression.Tabbing, searching and 2 new interfaces Mozilla Firefox 2.0 will let down it’s users on first sight. Besides the new theme that brings an icon pack with a translucid look, slightly nicer than those in the old “Stripe” theme, the overall aspect is unchanged. You will notice small changes only in the address bar, which now brings a button that’s similar to the “Go” in Internet Explorer 6, but cannot be eliminated, and a make-up of the quick search bar. A pretty weak offer from a company that wishes to promote the new version. In a total contrast with its rival, Internet Explorer it’s a real spill of design concepts. The interface is fluid, blending graphic elements from the well known Aero interface in the imminent Windows Vista. To avoid spoiling this graphical with reminiscences of it’s predecessor, Microsoft has chosen an elegant solution of placing the “favorites” list and “navigation history”: a drop-down menu. With 2 buttons you can create the shortcut in your favorites list for the site you have opened in the active window and you can access the menu in which these are placed. The navigation history, which is placed in the same menu, offers a quick way of consulting the history list, and you can sort by date or by number of hits.[END OF PART 2]....this would of been waaayyy easier to read if you would of let me finnish the review before commenting on it...

[smyke89 0]

Even if the tabs take up a little too much space, and the button destined to open a new tab is poorly conceived, both because of the placement as for the lack of an permanently visible etiquette, the tab management from Internet Explorer 7 is almost similar to that of Firefox 2.0. The only weak points of this system are the lack of an option that can help you start a tab that you have accidentally closed and the poor system that automatically reopens the active tabs that were active when you closed the application , because this is not applied to windows with only one tab open and it need an extra click. But, Internet Explorer has a bonus that Firefox does not posses : the QuickTabs. This gives you the possibility to show all the open tabs in only one window, switching, viewing or closing the pages being done quick and nice. This is doubled by “TabList”, an option that shows all the open tabs as a list from which you can select the desired page. Unfortunately, the Redmond giant has forgotten an important facility: the restoration of the working session in case an error occurs. Given these conditions, even if Firefox 2.0 has an superior management, that can be extended plugins (or as they are called…extensions) like TabMix Plus or TabBrowser Preferences, it’s advantage in this domain has been diminished. The new interface of Internet Explorer 7 bring us the long awaited quick search field, placed in the same spot and offering the same functionality as it’s “brother” from Firefox. The search engine it uses, is the “young” Live Search , that offers the possibility to add search engines or even conceiving a new one, done by following a set of simple steps indicated by the page that is opened from the option “Find more providers”. Firefox 2.0 offers only a better management of this, allowing at last sorting and deleting search engines as well as real time suggestions for the search you are performing (this last option is less useful than it may seem). Both companies have agreed in this matter, and both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2.0 supporting the Open Search format. [end of part 3]

[smyke89 0]

RSS FEEDS

After Microsoft intended (and failed badly) to launch it’s own standard, known best when Internet Explorer 4 came with Active Channels, the company has apparently forgotten this mode of transmitting information. Mozilla on the other hand, did not. The possibility of using RSS feeds being available since the 1.0 version. But, both this version as well as the following one were not very ergonomic in implementing this facility.
Even in the 2.0 version, Mozilla did not back down from the option to put RSS feeds in the favorites menu. It’s an ambiguous approach, many users not understanding what the RSS option really does. Furthermore, opening an address of this type returned an XML code, confusing even more the users. Fortunately, the 2.0 version has solved this problem.
Curiously, after Microsoft has adopted the famous orange icon for the RSS feeds, the two rival companies have involuntary agreed in the way they show these news. Once you access the icon from the address bar (for Firefox 2.0) or from the instrument bar (for Internet Explorer 7), the pages offered by the two browsers are very similar. Fortunately, the likeness stops here. Internet Explorer 7 manipulates feeds as ordinary pages. Subscribing to a channel like this makes a shortcut in a special section from the dropdown menu and contains navigation history and the Favorites, the refreshing being automatically done. The page opened with Firefox is more complex, allowing the sending of the RSS channel to the internal management and display system Live Bookmarks or to external services like Bloglines, Yahoo! or Google Reader, as well as the FeedDemon application or other similar applications that cannot be automatically detected.
If you do not use online services Firefox works with, the approach of the rival (Internet Explorer 7) is made with more style, lecturing a page with a good layout being preferable to consulting a list of shortcuts (Live Bookmarks).

[smyke89 0]

Security

 

The discussion about browser security will always be a battle, the fans of a browser always trying to amplify the problems of a rival company’s browser and minimize those of their own. Although both browsers have had their fair share of problems, they have been minor ones in the case of the Mozilla browser, the repair of the breaches being done pretty fast, and that cannot be said about the Microsoft browser.

Microsoft has declared that Internet Explorer 7 will be different of precedent versions, bringing the long awaited security to the user. Even tough the official launch has been affected by the signaling of two security problems, one of them a reminiscence of the inherited code, and the other a ordinary breach that allowed one to hide some portions of the URL address by entering some special characters, we must appreciate Microsoft’s effort to bring out on the market a much safer browser. The mode in which the alien code was ran has been rewritten, the application not allowing the opening of unsigned ActiveX controls, thus offering a protection against Cross-domain scripting and the possibility to block the same ActiveX controls depending of the security zone and the site’s address.

But the most interesting option that was introduced by both companies in the new products is represented by the anti-phising protection. This protection allows the signaling, in the moment you visit a site specifically made to collect confidential information, of the danger the user is exposed to. It seems that this time Microsoft has made a work as good as Mozilla…

Firefox 2.0 uses a local static database. This contains the addresses of the most popular sites used for phising. The user can also choose to use the consulting of the online Google Safe Browse service. The advantage is that Google Safe Browsing is updated more often. The Microsoft product offers similar facilities, utilizing an online black list. Depending on the way the first tests of this facilities where made, the results have placed both products in the same area, both detecting somewhere between 60 and 75 percent, the single exception being that of Internet Explorer’s blacklist, which is pretty weak.

Unfortunately for Microsoft, Mozilla has succeeded, in the context of very close matched products, to bring out a new and useful facility (especially for English users) : a lexical corrector. Available in the text fields, this allows a real time correction of the typed words, being a real help for the users that often mistype. This option has been a little neglected tough by Mozilla, the dictionaries available in other languages, not being compatible with the 2.0 version, and the user has to manually install the .XPI archives. But Microsoft’s Internet explorer 7 has a zoom button that gives users the possibility to enlarge the whole page, not only the text, an option only Opera users had until now.

 

Conclusions

 

It is difficult to give a simple conclusion that can make one of the products a favorite. On one hand, Mozilla has chosen the simple way, not introducing some of the facilities and preferring to improve those existent, promising to revolutionize browsing when they launch Firefox 3, sometime at the middle of the next year. On the other hand, Microsoft has learned from its mistakes and has managed to offer a good product, that, despite of some functionality and design problems, is meant to give all its users a new and nice experience for all the users, but being forced to counter the migration towards Opera or Firefox…

 

 

This was it… it is what I could pull out of the 2 browsers….

 

This is the table of results…

Edited February 13, 2007 by smyke89 (see edit history)

[smyke89 0]

Firefox 2.0 | Internet Explorer 7

 

Starting Speed (cold) : 12.5s | 2.75s

Starting Speed (hot) : 2.5s | 2.1s

Loading Speed : 7.2s | 7.6s

Cache Loading Speed : 2.1s | 4.3s

JavaScript Speed : 10s | 18.2s

CSS Speed 101ms | 33ms

Table Speed : 2s | 3.1s

Memory Allocated at Start: 19.9 MB | 22.75 MB

Memory Allocated during test : 52.5 MB | 101.5 MB

 

ACID2 test : 9 | 0 out of 15

image support : 4 | 3 out of 8

protocol support : 6 | 4 out of 6

JavaScript Support : 8 | 7 out of 9

Web standards Support : 11 | 7 out of 14

[Killer008r 0]

Everyone always forgets OPERA the webbrowser. It's probaly the best browser out there. Not to mention it supports the Nintendo Wii by having the only browser on the Wii, and making it's internet work... Opera has it's own built in features, and had them before the others, Firefox took the built in mail client and the tabs feature. And quite frankly so did explorer 7. Opera also has widgets, which are little programs you can download that can be from a small browser programming thing, all the way to games. It's like personalizing your google page. Except more choices. So I only have one thing to say..Opera is better than bouth of them in my opinion.

[dj:nich 0]

I use Fire fox 2 because it is more secure and is much better at websites you can restore your old sesions :wink:I would never go back to IE7 maybe when IE8 comes out i might but they all ways seem to copy firefox now correct me if im wrong but didnt firefox have Tabs before IE??