Mozilla Firefox: A Substantial Review of the Top 4 Web Browsers in the Planet Today – Part 4 of 5
Choose Independent. Choose Firefox.
That is the motto of Mozilla, the non-profit company behind the Firefox web browser. According to W3Counter, Firefox has 15.1% web browser market share as of January 2015 - almost same with Safari (15.2%), behind Internet Explorer (17.2%) and Chrome (43%). The latest version of Firefox is Firefox 35. It’s free and it really works the way most of us do – independent.
Allow me to tour you around the beautiful, intuitive and intelligent Firefox. Let’s see if I can convince you to at least try Firefox on your next independent browsing. Here’s my substantial review.
Apps
If you’ve already tried the new Firefox OS on your smartphone, then you’re welcome to browse, download and install productivity, games, lifestyle, social, business and more apps from the Firefox Marketplace. Of course, Firefox OS has the Firefox browser that will bring everything in one place. All you have to do is go and get it.
SoftwareInsider said that it is using 653MB of memory with all 10 tabs open and that seems to be true. So I tried browsing with Firefox on my Windows 7 desktop, with 10 tabs open too. And the result? Almost the same.
When I explored the Add-ons section of the browser, I found tons of applications that looks clever to use and exciting to add. I tried adding the ImTranslator, a language translator, as an extension and it just took me seconds to translate “good morning” to “Buenos dias”.
You can also add themes, plugins and services in Firefox in just a couple of clicks. Not that much difference with other browsers when it comes to managing Add-ons.
Reviews
I totally agree with 10TopTenReviews for giving Firefox 9.85/10, the highest score in their 2015 Internet Browser Software Product Comparisons. They also described Firefox as “versatile and feature-rich”.
Experts from PCMag gave Firefox with 4/5 rating and commended the web browser for its clean design, fast performance, and loads of new standards support.
So why are they giving Firefox these good reviews? Is it about the UI? Let’s find out.
User Interface
The Firefox UI is like an all-in-one office tool. The tiled icons in the main menu will make you think you’re using a mini-Windows 8 on top of a browser. Click the “customize” panel and you can personalize your Firefox menu with simple “drag and drop” actions.
Other noticeable features are the “Sign in to sync” and the pre-added communication app in the toolbar called “Firefox Hello”.
Mozilla, good job on Firefox UI!
Privacy and Security
Did you happen to read the November 2014 news from CNET which says “Firefox dumps Google for search, signs on with Yahoo”? That was about the search engine stuffs again. Let’s see if that will affect our browsing privacy and security.
Here’s what I found out.
Mozilla was recognized for the second time as the Most Trusted Internet Company for Privacy by the Ponemon Institute. Another good job Mozilla! But are we really safe with you?
Here’s my discovery.
When it comes to privacy, Firefox has the Do not Track, Private Browsing, and Forget Button features at its core. If it’s for online safety, Firefox keeps you secure online through the Site Identity Button, a security feature that gives you more information about the sites you’re visiting. Firefox can also protect you from online threats with their ‘world class’ anti-phishing and anti-malware features, and automatic security updates.
Firefox got a rating of 13 out of 17 in the Browerscope Security Test conducted by SoftwareInsider. What that means is that the browser follows industry best practices for blocking harmful interactions between sites.
Hmmm, looks like we’re really safe and secured with Firefox.
Standards Support
Firefox is running on the JavaScript engine called Spidermonkey. This is the engine that set Firefox to become the fastest browser in the planet in 2013 based on Tom’s Hardware Web Browser Grand Prix XVI.
Firefox supports HTML5, CSS, CSS3, RSS (for basics), JavaScript, Web APIs, DOM (for scripting) SVG, WebGL (for graphics) and MathML (for complex mathematical notations) web technologies.
Extensibility
The Mozilla Developer Network is the community for Firefox developers, web makers, and technical contributors. Because Firefox is an open source project, everybody is invited to build with Firefox.
Want to build with Firefox? They have these tools for you.
Firefox has built-in developer tools consisting of the inspector, web console, debugger, style editor, and JavaScript profiler. Developers can extend the capability of these tools though the Web Developer’s Toolbox available at Mozilla’s Add-ons site. The Firefox WebIDE, an environment for creating and developing Firefox OS apps, is also accessible via the web browser.
Firefox for Android is another great tool to explore at Firefox.
What do you think of Firefox? Would you consider using it now?
Read my substantial review for Opera.
