Url: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
I decided to download FireFox (the new 1.5 version) last week to try and combat my complains about how Flash is too pervasive. So far I am pretty impressed. Not every site that I use works well with Firefox, but the majority of my “browsing” with FireFox works flawlessly. Usually FireFox falls down when IE features are used (e.g. SharePoint or FreeTextBox related sites). I have found the following plugins to FireFox not only useful but required:
- FlashBlock: Puts a play button over every Flash animation allowing me to show Flash when I want it. Even allows me to say, “Always allow Flash from this site”. I like flash when it is used right (e.g. http://gamespot.com), and hate it when it is used wrong (e.g. http://msnbc.com).
- IEView: Allows me to right-click any page and view it in Internet Explorer. Also allows me to say, “Always view in IE” so I don’t have to remember to launch IE for some sites and not for others. Simply awesome.
- AdBlock: Allows you to stop ads from showing, though I am not as aggresive as some are with this block in.
I also use the Google Toolbar, but I do in IE too so I didn’t list it. Overall I think FireFox is a compelling browser, though if Flashblock existed in IE I would have never switched. I don’t find it any faster or better since I care about the end-user experience, and not standards compliance or anything like that.
As I do web development, I still use IE as my main browser to debug with since that is what most of my clients still have.
What do you think?
