Firefox Is Better

It’s official, Firefox 3 is now available for download on the Firefox Website! The new Firefox 3 boasts over 15,000 new improvements and updates to the Gecko based browser. Of course the best way to see the new and improved Firefox 3 is to download and try it for yourself. The Beta 3 release was just a glimpse of the first release of Firefox 3. The new version is smarter, faster, easier, and even safer then the previous version and sinks the competition when compared side by side. With the increased speed and security over Internet Explorer you will browse the internet better than ever. The best part about Firefox 3 is how easy it is to customize the look and feel with little effort. Firefox has always been “Open” for developers to create, innovate, and to share their Add-ons and plugins with the community.

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The latest version of Flock 1.2.1 now supports more social networking websites. Flock supports Digg, Flickr, Facebook, Pownce, Twitter, and of course YouTube! If you are a social networking junkie, Flock can help you manage all of your accounts by logging in and retrieving friend updates. Make sure you check out the Friend Activity Widget in the flock start up page or in the widgets menu for more information. Also new to Flock is the ME.DIUM extension that allows you to surf in real time with your friends. Medium is on an invite only basis right now but Flock users can get in by downloading the extension from the Flock extensions website.

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We have come a long way from Internet Explorer in the last ten years. Today there are dozens of web browsers to choose from, many of which are built on the same platforms as their competitors. Browsers fall mainly into four categories, Gecko (Firefox-Mozilla-Netscape), KHTML (Konqueror-Safari),  Proprietary (Internet Explorer-Opera), and Mobil. Browsers built on the same platform/engine are not necessarily the same. KHTML Browsers like Safari account for about 4% of browsers in use. So what is Safari and what is KHTML anyway? KHTML is just another software rendering engine developed in 1998 and was adopted by Apple some time in 2002. KHTML can be a difficult browser to work with because some websites will not work properly with Safari. [Read the rest of this entry...]

It’s not a bird or a plane, it is a new way to approach how we use the internet and connect to people. Flock is built on the same Mozilla platform that Firefox is founded upon. Although both Firefox and Flock are using similar engines to drive their vision of web browsing, Flock has taken hold of the various social connections on the internet and attempts to plug them into their browser in a unique way. The multi faceted approach of widget or gadget integration into Flock along with it’s core integration into YouTube, Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, and many others, Flock promises to bring the World Wide Web to it’s community in a very unique way. The design and functionality is simple and easy to use. Similar to the WYSIWYG approach to website publishing, customizing Flock is pleasantly fun and easy right out of the box.

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Taking a screen shot and editing it in your Firefox browser is simple and easy with the FireShot Add-on. Created by Firefox user Evgeny Suslikov. You can use this Add-on to take quick snapshots of web pages, PDF files, pictures, or any thing else in your browser window. But what is so great about FireShot? After taking your screen shot, you can crop, edit, annotate, resize, or just about anything else you could imagine necessary. I currently use the Free Version of Faststone Capture (no longer available) which does all of you screen shots in windows, but the Fire Shot Add-on is a great addition to your Firefox browser. [Read the rest of this entry...]

The Opera browser, (pronounced like the music genre) is a great second internet browser to have handy on your computer’s desktop. Opera, a free to download for individual use browser, adheres to strict web page rendering standards set forth by the W3C. Among the fastest browsers, far exceeding Internet Explorer and rivaling Firefox 3 (Beta), I would encourage everyone to download a copy for use. Why would you want another software program on your computer? Adding more software to your computer is sometimes like taking a poison pill. Everything was fine until you downloaded another program and installed it. Rest assured Opera won’t harm your computer, and Will come in handy for many reasons. [Read the rest of this entry...]

How would you like to download videos from websites like You Tube, Yahoo, and many others. The easiest way to download videos is to install the Video Download Helper Firefox add-on. Made by Michel Gutierrez, Video Download Helper is a free add-on for use with the Firefox browser. Video Download Helper lets you know when there is media that can be downloaded on a web page. Features include; download mode, animated icon notification, cookies, preserve file names, and storage directory location. When enabled, the media link will automatically find files that you specify in the options menu. Media link file types include; jpg, jpeg, png, gif, mpg, mpeg, avi, rm, wmv, mov, flv, mp3, and many more. Watch the video demonstration below for a preview of Video Download Helper.

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April 2, 2008 Mozilla launched the latest Beta version of Firefox 3, (Beta version 5). If you have not tried Firefox 3 yet and are like most who wait for the final release candidate you just might want to test drive it. After all Firefox 3 will eventually be released and used by most Firefox users in the near future. So what is so great about Firefox 3? Number one on my list is SPEED! Firefox 3 is without a doubt many times faster than Firefox 2 and is made for todays resource intensive media driven web sites.

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Foxy Tunes by Alex Sirota is a Firefox music player Add-On for the Firefox browser, compatible with most popular music players. Foxy Tunes has many features including positioning of the console by dragging where you prefer the player to be located. Foxy tunes also can be customized with a number of skins on the Foxy Tunes Website. The screen shot below shows Foxy Tunes in the top tool bar area.

Foxy Tunes has a built in sleep timer and alarm clock, scrolling marquee, configurable short cut keys, album artwork and covers display, artist and album information, and a customized web search.

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In the Add-ons section of the Firefox Website, there are a few tools to make your Fox out run the other browsers and load pages significantly faster. I have tested two of these Add-ons and found that one Add-on in particular that doubles my page load time. The first Firefox Add-on I tested was Faster Fox by Tony Gentilcore. This Add-on has some good Features that does add a little speed and pep to your Firefox page load time. After testing the page load and performance of several websites I installed and activated Faster Fox. To my surprise I noticed that every page that I visited had increased their load time noticeably. Keep in mind that this was not a bench mark test and I can not claim any scientific data to substantiate my claims. However as we spend more time on the Internet we can notice page load times that vary by fractions of a second. One of the great features of Faster Fox is the page load timer in the bottom corner of your browser (optional, pictured above). This will give you an idea of over all browser page load speed.

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