| I don't really have an opinion on Firefox 2/IE 7. Haven't used either of them. It's interesting to look at the differing treatments the press gives the two releases, though. |
Firefox 2.0, the foremost rival to Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer browser, is set for release Tuesday afternoon, said its producer, the not-for-profit Mozilla Corp. The free 5-megabyte browser, available in 39 languages for Windows, Mac and Linux computers, will be downloadable from getfirefox.com, the Mountain View, Calif., company said.
| I program mostly for IE, since that's what my customers use. For Rantburg posting, I use IE or Opera. I'll give Firefox 2 a try, but as of version 1 it's pretty much useless for data entry use. |
The new release of the two-year-old product includes new features but strives to retain its simplicity of design and operation, Mike Schroepfer, Mozilla's vice president of engineering, said earlier this week. It incorporates anti-phishing technology to prevent the deceptive disclosure of personal information. It restores windows, tabs, in-progress downloads and text typed into online forms if any of those are interrupted by a system crash. And it corrects the spelling of words entered on Web pages.
Version 2.0 also improves on the tabbed-windows interface that Opera Mozilla innovated and that Microsoft introduced for the first time last week with IE7, its biggest upgrade since 2001. Analysts said IE7 is a significant improvement over its predecessor, but the big question is whether it will stem Firefox's growth at Microsoft's expense. Firefox's share of the browser market has grown to 9.8 percent of the U.S. market this month, from 2.9 percent in October 2004.
Mozilla oversees the creation and maintenance of computer programs by volunteer developers, known as open-source software. In contrast, most software companies, including Microsoft, rely exclusively on in-house programmers. Microsoft long opposed the open-source movement, an attitude that has attracted the company's detractors to Firefox. |