Internet Explorer 7 versus Firefox 2.0. Which is the better browser?
There is a little tale doing the rounds on the Net these days. According to this, the earliest NASA astronauts discovered that their pens would not function in zero gravity conditions as the ink could not flow down to the writing surface. Eventually, almost a decade and US$12 million later, the NASA’s R&D nerds developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on practically any surface, and at temperatures- from below freezing to over 300°C. And what did the Russians do? They just deployed pencils instead. Hah! I am not sure if this story is true or not. But it is allegorical in highlighting the difference between focusing on problems versus concentrating on solutions.
And that brings us to two mini-events that took place in October’07: the launch of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and Firefox 2.0 (FF2), the two dominating web browsers. IE7 has taken five years to cook (IE6 was born in October 2001). FF2 follows less than two years after version 1 and about 10 months after version 1.5 was put out to pasture. While the upgrade of IE can be called a long overdue overhaul, FF can be summed up as fine-tuning an already future-laden offering. So are both browsers finally at par? Hmmm…
Internet Explorer 7
www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.mspx
IE, which has steadily been losing market-share to FF, has tried hard to play catch up with its new rendition. To bring IE up to speed with the competition, the prime features that Microsoft has included in this 15MB download are: a neat Windows Vista-like user interface, much needed tabbed browsing, good integrated search, excellent RSS news-feed support, a nifty add-ons manager to promote and distribute the extras, and a useful session-saver option for tabbed windows.
In addition to this, the IE7 development team has spent the last five years squashing the IE6 bugs, enhancing web-page programming support, adding quick page zooms, working on a nice little bookmarks panel, churning out a faster rendering engine, and collating and vetting add-ons (www.ieaddons.com). On the much promised security front, IE7 has beefed up by plugging several security holes, adding an anti-phishing tool, SSL3 support and opt-in support for ActiveX.
Pause mode, for those who feel out of sync… Phishing (pronounced “fishing”) is a scam to steal valuable information like credit card, user IDs and passwords via an official-looking e-mail which is sent to potential victims pretending to be from their bank or ISP. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer, an Internet security protocol used to validate the identity of a website and to create an encrypted connection for sending credit card no. and other personal data. (When you are making online purchases, check for a lock icon in the status bar (at bottom); a “closed” lock icon shows you are on a secure SSL connection.) ActiveX is a set of technologies and tools shepherded by Microsoft that helps programmers create small components or applets (self-sufficient programs, also called ActiveX controls) that can be installed and run on networks. ActiveX is viciously exploited by evil Web weevils to distribute malware, spyware and adware.
Mozilla Firefox 2.0
With FF2, a lot of the aforementioned is a been-there-done-that case. Being an open-source project that is constantly being worked on by a global community of committed techies, Firefox has always taken full advantage of two of its inherent strengths: the speed of development and the ability to innovate. While it demonstrates no radical revamps since its last major less than a year ago, version 2.0 of Firefox polishes and perfects what it has already delivered. On some fronts, FF2 has integrated into the browser what was previously available as extensions or add-ons.
This 5.6 Meg download offers perpetual customizability, an improved user interface, excellent browser tab and form control enhancements, a first-rate in-line spell checker with multi-language support, an admirable auto-complete function for the built-in search engine box and web forms, a competent tab session save as well as reopen closed tabs capability, an outstanding PC crash session recovery function, and a refurbished themes and extensions manger. RSS integration is limited but can be enhanced via extensions like Sage (at addons.mozilla.org). Security-wise, FF2 has a built-in phishing-detection system to caution you of a “suspected web forgery”.
Endgame: For finicky mirchi-masala mongers like me, who like to tool and tinker, taste and tune, smack and squeeze power and performance, Firefox is the chosen one. For those who like your Web-meal experience pre-cooked, pre-salted, pre-set, Maggi noodles style, IE7 is the road ahead. Because all said and done, Firefox again sets the bar a few notches higher and remains the browser to beat.
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