Mozilla has finally released the long anticipated Firefox 3. On the day of its release, there were a record breaking 8.3 million downloads, making download history. What many Internet users are wondering now is: How do these two power houses compare in features and usability, and, is there a really that much of a difference between them? Let's take a look at the features that each browser offers and discuss the pros and cons.
One of the new features in the Firefox3 upgrade is a change to the Password Manager. In the past you'd log into a site and a dialog box would pop up asking you if you would like it to remember your password information. This happened before you’d log in. In the latest version, you log into a site first, and after you log in, a strip dialog appears at the top of the browser window. It is there you’re asked if you want Firefox to remember your password. This feature change is geared toward making your browsing experience safer. Along those same lines, Firefox 3 also has the following new upgrades: Instant Web Site ID, Anti-Malware, Anti-Phising, Parental Controls, Anti-Virus Software, Secure Connection Add-ons, Clear Private Data, Customized Security Settings, Automated Update, and customized Pop-up Blocker.
Under their new personal services for browsing, Firefox 3 gives the user a huge amount freedom for making the browser work better for you. The Smart Location Bar gives you the ability to use the smart auto-complete function (which no longer just remembers the page address but also the page title). Other features include: One-click Bookmarking, Smart Bookmark Folders, Library, Tags, Add-ons Manager, Feed Reader, Download Manager, Full Zoom, Session Restore, Spell Checking and the ability to customize your browser in 5,000 different ways through Add-ons that you chose.
Now let’s look at Internet Explorer 7. As you may have noticed, there’s a new interface design, but the features I like best is the Phishing Filter. The filter turns the address bar red in your browser and will display a warning web page for any known phishing sites. There other features too: Extended Validation SSL, RSS Tab, Tabbed Browsing and Opt for Ad-ons. And there’s one more thing: every time someone upgrades to IE 7 Microsoft plants a tree in Carbon Grove. This area only consists of trees donated by those using the IE 7 browser. Neat.
So, what are some of the problems you may run into with Firefox3? Well, only five hours after the downloading rush began, on day one, the TippingPoint found a security whole that is yet undisclosed but that Mozilla began working on right away. There have also been some problems with the browser crashing on older machines and not uploading for some users who are still using Windows 95. As far as IE7 goes, there are one hundred and thirty-six known bugs within IE 7. We won't be going into every problem here but will just touch on the main ones. The browser can crash when you visit some sites that contain common CSS. Some code used by developers won't display properly in IE and some sites that show correctly in Firefox, Opera or Safari won't be the same in IE. Microsoft will be coming out with Internet Explorer 8 soon but it is important to note that while they have continued to develop better security features since the release of IE 7 they have not fixed the bugs that came with the original release.
