Saturday, December 10, 2005

The Death of Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer is dying. Personally, I am glad to see it go. Yeah, I know that estimates say that IE still has like 70% market share, but a year ago it had 91%. That's a 20% drop in 12 months. Firefox however has grown significantly. My visitors are STRONGLY Firefox users. 70% of the last 400 unique users use Firefox.

Why Firefox? Security, tabs, extensions, and live bookmarks.

Security: New IE flaws come up all the time. Yes, there are Firefox security holes too, but very few people target Firefox - they target IE, because more people use it. Eventually this will change when IE goes below the 50% market share mark - I give that 2 years TOPS.

Tabs: Browsing with tabs has changed my life. I couldn't go back. I always have my Google homepage up. Keeping all the pages in my browser in one window using tabs is amazing. If you haven't ever browsed with tabs, go download Firefox and try it!!

Extensions: Unlike IE, Firefox is very open to configuration and development. There are thousands of developers writing extensions for Firefox to improve the user experience. I use the Gmail Notifier, IE Tab, All-in-One Gestures, BugMeNot, and del.icio.us. There are thousands of these extensions that do almost anything you could ask for. They check your mail, let you use mouse gestures to close tabs, go back or forward in page history, give you a weather report in your menu bar, etc..

Live Bookmarks: Any RSS feed can be a Live Bookmark. Your most recent stories Dugg, Slashdot, CNN, your del.icio.us bookmarks organized by category! I love it!

I know IE is easy because everyone has it and just about every web page is designed to be seen by it, but if you haven't tried Firefox, I encourage you to try it. Did I mention it has built in pop-up blocking?

E-mail or comment if you have anything to add or any questions.

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