Browsers should matter to businesses because they're the interfaces through which employees and customers will spend ever more of their screen time. Mozilla's Firefox isn't really in a battle with Microsoft's Internet Explorer (the two most popular Windows' browsers), even though both have in recent time released major new versions of each browser: Firefox spreads by word of mouth, not IT dictate, and it's backed by a nonprofit instead of the world's largest software company.

The latest Web browser from Microsoft has been available for a little over a week, while a new version of Firefox for the Web 2.0 age was recently released . Available in Firefox for ages, Internet Explorer 7.0 (IE7) now includes anti-phishing technology to prevent fraud, as well as a built-in search engine manager - and about time! But has Microsoft’s complacency allowed Firefox to gain too much - although deserved - market share (around 11 per cent)?

You may be surprised to learn that there’s quite a contrast between the release of Firefox 2.0 and IE7. Firefox 2.0 is, to the regular Firefox user, not a huge jump as there are few new outstanding features. The reason for that is simple - it already had all the core goodies that real world users like such as tabbed browsing. IE7 is still playing catch-up from the back of the field and is thus more visibly changed. For Microsoft, IE7 represents a key piece of software in its critically important ‘Live’ initiative to deliver Windows, Office, and other products as services over the Web. The browser is the gateway to the Web, and therefore the window to Live services.

Firefox is also still way ahead of IE in terms of conforming to the Web standards such as stylesheets (CSS2). It’s also a much safer security play although, in the past, not without bugs that affect security. However, the impact of these bugs has nearly always been much smaller than is the case with IE bugs because Firefox hasn’t been coded so close to the heart of the operating software. Unlike IE any bugs it does have are prevented from being exploited more widely on the victim’s machine. Lastly, Firefox is a multi-platform browser and will work on Microsoft Windows machines (or Linux or Mac etcetera). In the past, Microsoft has produced a version of IE that ran on Macs as well as Windows, but that is history now and the new IE7 runs only on Windows.

But the best news for the health of the development of the Internet in general, is that the new Firefox does not require Web site managers to change their Web sites to make sure they’ll work for visitors with Firefox 2.0. It is sticking close to the existing Web standards and that will save thousands of hours for hard pressed Web developers ,world over. This is just as well, because right now they are losing a stack of time in ensuring that Web sites work for IE7, which has changed so significantly, breaking  many of its old features.

IE 7 has the worst implementation of tabs of among  the major browsers available (for any OS). They are huge in size and you can’t open multiple tabs from the tab toolbar. You may be surprised, that you can only use IE7 on the most recent releases of Windows (XP Service pack 2, and some releases of Windows 2003). Surprisingly, Windows 2000 is not supported. As usual, if you want to use this latest Microsoft software, you need to upgrade your operating system (ie: spend some $$).

It’s not all bad for IE7, however. Microsoft’s browser has no glaring deficiencies, which is more than you could say about IE6, and it inches ahead of Firefox in a few respects. It’s got a better printing engine and its zoom feature lets you resize Web pages onscreen, while Firefox can only resize text, not graphics. Another neat touch is that IE now lets you see thumbnails of all the pages in all your open tabs at once.

Both browsers have built-in RSS readers, but Microsoft’s performs better by rendering feeds in a more user-friendly way, including filtering by category, showing time stamps on articles, and looking more like Web pages. Outlook 2007 will use the IE7 RSS platform to share, for example, calendar feeds. Firefox also lacks the print management capabilities of IE7, which scales printed pages to fit the paper. Among IE7’s security advances: a parsing module identifies and discards dangerous URLs, turns off most ActiveX controls by default, and offers colour-coded warnings in the URL bar based on whether sites are trusted. Another is a built-in phishing filter that spots malicious pages before they reach the user.

Firefox does support many of these and dozens of other features – courtesy, the array of amazing extensions that let you customize the browser - but you’ll have to shop around. While some extensions aren’t yet compatible with Firefox 2, they’re the single biggest reason to opt for Firefox over IE 7. Other Firefox features like search suggestions that appear as you type in the search box, spelling checker, and additional tab-related conveniences will also make your time online more productive and happy.

Firefox 2.0 doesn’t make the same leap ahead as IE7, but that’s in part because it’s been only some time since its last big release. It enhances its most popular feature, tabbed browsing, with a history of recently closed tabs, the ability to reopen closed tabs, single-click tab closing, and more ways to display tabs. It also adds an open source alternative to commercial installers like InstallShield, anti-phishing features, spelling check for text boxes, and improved support for reading RSS feeds.

We believe that many businesses will abandon IE on their entire network in favour of Firefox. Employees, after minimal training, will soon come to appreciate the customization that Firefox provides them. Network managers will also appreciate not having to log in to find yet another IE vulnerability, needing another patch - even now companies are already issuing warnings of IE7 compatibility bugs. Slowly, Microsoft will lose  it’s desirability as users become more technically savvy.

But the biggest decision maker is this: if Firefox had never cut sharply into IE’s market share, would Microsoft ever have gotten around to bringing its browser into the modern age? However, there is a warning: Firefox has brought Microsoft back to the table, but it makes no guarantees, as to how long it’ll stick around.

Firefox 3.0, code-named Gran Paradiso, is already in the works, with a projected May 2007 release. Mozilla’s goals for Firefox 3 are to improve security, performance, and stability; get it to work with more Web sites; and better support corporate deployment. New features will include a revamped approach to bookmarks and history called ‘Places’ that will integrate RSS and may automatically categorize favorites. Clearly, Microsoft needs to pick up the pace if it’s to keep up with the more nimble Mozilla. Microsoft promises it will update Internet Explorer more frequently, with the next version, within 18 months.

Source: biosmagazine.co.uk