Return of the Browser Wars

If you are viewing this blog with Internet Explorer (IE), you will notice a button at the very bottom of the page that says, “Browse Happy”. Go ahead — click it. You know you want to. Just in case you’re nervous, I’ll go ahead and tell you what happens. Pressing the “Browse Happy” button will redirect you to a web site called browsehappy.com. There you will find four alternative browsers to Internet Explorer (Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, and Safari), along with reasons why you should not use Internet Explorer and stories from people who made the switch.

Now, I know everyone has their preference and I’m not here to tell you which browser you should use. If I wanted to do that, I would just block all IE users from viewing this site . Instead, I just want to give you the facts — with a little persuasion of course (notice there are no links back to Microsoft in this post).

If you remember back to the mid-late ’90s, when the Internet was just hitting the mainstream, we had our first browser war with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. I remember it felt like we were divided — you were either pro-Microsoft or anti-Microsoft. Back then, I favored Internet Explorer. Beginning my career as a web developer, IE just made things easier for me. Netscape wasn’t too compassionate towards bad code and if you forgot a closing tag, your web site probably wouldn’t display properly in their browser. IE, on the other hand, would notice that you left off that tag and compensate for it so your page would look almost, if not exactly, how you intended it. Now that I think about it, that’s not necessarily a good thing. Who wants to develop bad code? Anyway, despite having a court case filed by the Department of Justice, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer came out to be the victor.

Fast forward to today… there’s new kid on the block — Firefox. Firefox, in my opinion does everything right. It’s built for speed and security, and getting rave reviews from the likes of PC World, PC Magazine, and USA Today — even Microsoft’s security program manager runs Firefox! Aside from it being faster and more secure than Internet Explorer, my favorite feature is the support for add-ons. Because Firefox is run on open-source code, users have developed some pretty amazing add-ons that enhance the overall usability of Firefox. Some of my favorites are Foxytunes (a music player built into Firefox that controls any player you have your music playing on), the MySpace toolbar (which gives you access to all your myspace functionality in a toolbar), and support for del.icio.us (an awesome linksharing website, which I’ll write about in another post).

So you’re probably wondering what made me switch from IE to Firefox. Honestly, it was a very slow move. I initially installed Firefox when it was starting to get a lot of buzz a couple of years ago. I wondered what all the hype was about. Once installed, I still used IE even though Firefox will import all of your settings and bookmarks from IE. I was so comfortable with IE. I didn’t think anything could be better. The more I used Firefox, the more I loved it. The main feature that drew me in was its tabbed browsing (which Microsoft has now incorporated into its latest version of Internet Explorer). When I’m online, I’m reading close to 5 different web sites at one time (yep, I have 5 open now!). Having 5 browser windows open with IE was a huge resource hog and confusing when trying to toggle between sites. Once I had a taste for tabbed browsing, there was no going back. When Internet Explorer 7 was recently released, I gave it a chance. The incorporation of tabbed browsing was an improvement, but it still felt sluggish and didn’t have the support for add-ons like Firefox has.

Now, I’m hoping I’ve peaked some interest to those of you who are still using Internet Explorer. Some of you may not even realize you have a choice. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, you have a choice. Just like Pepsi or Coke. Go ahead — click the button. Give one of those other browsers a try. Then come back here and tell me what you think.