The Free & Open Source Software community is an unknown universe to most computer users. Hardcore geeks know Open Source in and out, but the vast majority of end users have no clue that there is a community of dedicated, talented individuals out there creating software that is as good or (in most cases) better than what the evil proprietary software giants are selling at wildly inflated prices. For the frugal computer user, the Open Source community is a treasure trove of excellent quality, free software.
I’m not going to suggest everyone go out and ditch their Windows installations for Linux (in this post, at least), but I do have a list of Open Source software that everyone should be using. In this post, the Open Source essential is Mozilla Firefox.
What makes Firefox so hot? Honestly, about a thousand different reasons. Highest on my list of reasons for loving Firefox with an eternal passion are:
- Tabbed browsing: No more opening multiple browser windows to view more than one page at a time.
- Extensions, extensions, extensions: There is a Firefox extension for *everything.* From weather forecasts on your status bar to Gmail message notifications to website security alerts, all in easy-to-install extensions. You can even get an extension that lets you open an Internet Explorer window in a Firefox tab!
- Saftety: First is security in numbers: There are thousands of top-level developers working on Firefox, finding and solving any issues that may arise. Second, Firefox has industry-leading integrated security against phishing, spyware, viruses, and other internet dangers. Third, most malicious browser attacks are aimed at Internet Explorer, because it (and it’s mainline users) are more vulnerable.
- Integrated features: In addition to integrated security, Firefox has everything from spellchecking to session saving to searching to popup blocking.
- Fan of RSS? Firefox has integrated RSS reading through live bookmarks, as well as a multitude of RSS-in-Firefox extensions. (Don’t forget to subscribe to Wisebread!)
- Cross platform support: Firefox is available for Windows, Mac, and most flavors of Linux . It’s also available in a number of different languages .
- And, of course, it’s all 100% free: Not just to use, but to distribute, modify, improve, and extend.
If you’re a regular internet user and you care about your browsing experience, ditch Internet Explorer and supercharge your browsing experience with Mozilla Firefox.
Mozilla Firefox is distributed by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation under the terms of the Mozilla Public License.
Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with the Mozilla Foundation or Firefox, and receive no compensation or incentives to recommend Mozilla software.