Mozilla Firefox

Although it seems as if the rest of the world has been using the Mozilla Firefox browsers for AGES, I've been reluctant to switch from my trusty Internet Explorer...mainly because I just don't have time to learn how to use a new browser. At least that's what I kept telling myself until one day recently while I was working at the reference desk at the library where, you guessed it, they have installed Mozilla Firefox. They haven't actually taken IE away but it's not as accessible as Mozilla and apparently everybody but me is already using it.

For those who are unfamiliar with Mozilla, it is an alternative web browser to Internet Explorer or Netscape (at least those are the most-used browsers, I think AOL has its own browser and there are other, less commonly used browsers out there like Opera). Anyhow, the thing about Mozilla is that (according to those who appear to know more than I do), it is less susceptible to the transfer of viruses. That's what attracted me to it. Since switching, I've found a couple of other features that I really like (although I confess to just downloading it and sort of learning to use it as I go along).

One feature I really like is the tabs across the top of the screen. Unlike IE which opens a new window every time you go to a new website, Mozilla simply opens a tab in the same window. That means no more "alt-tabbing" from one IE window to another. You just click on the tab you want and go on. It also lets people like me who usually have a lot of web pages open at once, remember what they're got open and where.

Another feature that I really like a lot is the display of favorite bookmarks just under the menu bar at the top of the page. And I'm picky about what appears on my page. I usually had IE set on full screen so nothing but the icons showed and I could see a very large amount of screen. But in Mozilla I can have my favorite bookmarks at the top of the screen and close the big bookmarks list completely so it probably amounts to the same amount of screen for viewing. Anyway, I like it.

I'm sure there's lots more to learn about Mozilla so I'll keep you posted as I find new, cool things. One last note, Mozilla is available free for the downloading from but those of you with older computers may want to read the fine print about technical requirements before downloading it.