Mozilla Firefox 1.0 is the dream Internet browser you’ve been looking for. Featuring a host of small technical improvements, including tabbed browsing, built-in and customizable search bars, and a built-in RSS reader, Mozilla’s Firefox browser is the one that should finally put a dent in Microsoft Internet Explorer’s unrivaled market dominance. While its lack of ActiveX support might prevent some sites from working properly, after more than three weeks of use in our tests, Firefox 1.0 remained fast and stable and displayed an impressive range of cutting-edge browsing options. We were able to view every Web site just fine, thank you. If you’re fed up with the latest Internet Explorer security patch issued from Microsoft or with the latest virus to capitalize on some flaw in IE, you should switch to Firefox – now.
Firefox is more secure than Internet Explorer, in part because most criminal hackers look for holes in the industry leader. But there are also several structural differences that make Firefox an inherently more secure browser. First, Firefox doesn’t support VBScript and ActiveX Controls, which are often the source of attacks and vulnerabilities within IE. Unfortunately, the lack of ActiveX support also affects the performance of some Web sites.
Another difference from Internet Explorer is in how Firefox handles secure Web sites, such as e-commerce or online banking sites. When visiting a secure site, Firefox highlights the address bar’s URL in yellow and shows the Lock icon. The domain name of the site you are visiting is also listed in the right-hand corner of secure windows, so you know the true source of every page. A criminal hacker might be able to spoof the location bar address, but he or she won’t be able to spoof this secondary address display. Given all this security, we were still able to log on to secure financial sites, including Citibank.com and Fidelity.com, without any problems.