Why Firefox?

Faster browsing

Firefox 2.0 features a totally unique "look-ahead" cacheing mechanism, anticipating the links on the page you are reading and quietly fetching them for you before you've even asked for them. It does this without affecting your connection speed or the 'rendering' performance of the browser. Amazing! Clicking on a link really does feel more responsive, because Firefox has already started fetching parts of the page for you, especially if you've spent more than a few seconds on the current page.

Tabbed browsing

You've probably already heard of Firefox's tabbed browsing feature. Once you start using a tabbed browser you will wonder how you ever managed without one.

Built-in popup and adware blocking

Firefox has been built from the ground up with the user in mind. If a site tries to do anything sneaky you can bet that Firefox will let you know, keeping you in full control of your browsing experience at all times.

Guaranteed spyware free

Furthermore the enhanced security features ensure that if you visit a site that attempts to install any type of software onto your computer without your knowledge then you will be fully warned about it. Firefox is probably the most secure browser out there because from the very start it has been built in full knowledge of the kind of tricks that are used to exploit the many weaknesses in Internet Explorer and other browsers.

Fully customisable

With hundreds of classy skins to choose from, Mozilla Firefox has got to be one of the coolest looking browsers out there. Don't be deceived by its plain looks when you first install it - just a few clicks and you can have it looking like Apple's Safari, the latest XP theme, or countless out-of-this-world look-and-feel themes that really make you feel you are using something a bit special.

And then there are the plugins!

What's not always mentioned is the HUGE variety of free plugins available for download via the Mozilla website. These are what makes this browser really shine. You can customise and enhance your surfing experience like never before. All the nice little features of Opera can be reproduced this way, plus a host of other features that make surfing that bit more intuitive. For a web developer there is simply nothing that comes close in terms of the additional functionality you can add.

My favourite plugin is IE Tab which lets you run the Internet Explorer rendering engine within Firefox's tabbed and customisable user interface, enjoying Firefox's advanced features while still retaining IE compatibility with older web sites. So you'll never need to go back to IE, ever!