With the Internet zone in continuous growth, everyone is looking for the perfect browser to surf it. The two most used browsers nowdays are Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. The rivalry between Microsoft and Mozilla on the browser market began a few yers ago when Mozilla lunched Firefox as an open source alternative to the Microsoft's IE. Although the two browsers have the same purpose, each one offers different features.

Internet Explorer

IE is the integrated browser in all Windows operating systems. With Microsoft technology and sofware spread all over the internet IE offers maximum compatibility with nearly all web sites and windows update sites. It's easy to customize and use and integrates well in Windows.

The latest versions of the browser offers a pop-up blocker, takes advantage of the built-in security within Windows and selectivly blocks ActiveX support. It has a series features such as Auto Image Resizing, Image Toolbar, Media Bar, and Print Preview, it's easy to manage, save, and print your pictures and other media from Web pages. Features such as Favorites, Auto Complete, History, and the Search Companion help you quickly find what you need online. And the customizable browsing layout makes it easy to change your layout so you can experience the Web the way you want.

Although it offers intresting web experience IE has major bugs security issues that makes it unsecure. Microsoft is trying to repair theese issues through nummerous patches but every update seems to be worse thant the other.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox is a good alternative for IE offering tabbed browsing experience, skins, built-in multiple search tools and built-in RSS reader. It is an open source program so you can find many intresting plug-ins developed by other users.

All major Linux distributions use Firefox as the default, preinstalled internet browser because its stability and compatibility. Firefox also has a very customizable pop-up blocker (Firefox has the ability to view blocked pop-up advertising and to selectively allow and disallow pop-ups from individual web sites) and it's more secure then Microsoft's IE.
Because it's a free, open source sofware, sometimes it takes a lot of time until someone releases a patch to fix new bugs but despite that, Firefox has fewer bugs and security problems than other browsers. Firefox doesn't support VBScript and ActiveX Controls, which are often the source of attacks and vulnerabilities within IE. Unfortunately, the lack of ActiveX support also affects the performance of some Web sites.

Like Microsoft, Mozilla has developers building helper applications for Firefox. While there are more plug-ins available for Internet Explorer, the Firefox plug-ins, called extensions, are much more varied in nature. For example, Chatzilla is an IRC chat client, Adblock blocks flash advertising from Web sites, and Mouse Gestures lets you navigate using simple mouse movements. There are currently 170 extensions available for Firefox, compared to several hundred plug-ins currently available for Internet Explorer. Although offering so many extensions, Firefox actually loads web pages faster than other browsers.

It is hard to determine which is better between Firefox and Internet Explorer because each one offers different features that are useful for internet surfing. It is for you to decide what you think is more suitable for you. Helpero recommands Mozilla Firefox because it offers more protection against internet threats.

You can download Firefox from here.

written by Cristian M.