Firefox Evangelism

Many thanks to Jemima Pereira for pointing me to Switch 2 Firefox, a website about why you should switch from Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to the Firefox free browser.

IE is just a gigantic target painted on your computer. It leaves all kinds of doors and windows open to whatever criminal happens to wander past. Some of its "features" are actually dangerous to you. It doesn't even do a good job of showing you the websites you're looking at.

Firefox is a better way. Trust me, once you try tabbed browsing, automatic pop-up ad blocking, built-in cookie control (all initially set high to protect you; you can lower those settings later if you want) and the 100 other neat features of Firefox, you'll never, ever want to go back. Very few security problems happen with Firefox, unlike IE, and those problems get fixed very, very quickly. No denials of problems while your computer gets hammered, either. And there is a large and friendly community of people who will help you with your problems.

Plus, Firefox is endlessly customisable. You can hide or eliminate all kinds of features you don't want or use. You can even peruse an enormous list of add-on tools that you select and download to your browser easy as pie. All this flexibility means your browser fits you like a glove and works only the way you want it to.

Not everyone agrees, but the vast majority of folks I know who have made the switch have been happily surprised. It helps if you like to tinker, because the possibilities for play are endless. But if you just want to download and go, then Firefox does that right out of the box.

Download the program, run the set-up, zoom. You're going. Give it a try. You can have it on a computer alongside IE, but after just a while you'll find you don't need IE anymore, nor much want it. You'll be happier and your computer will be safer. It's a win-win.