Browsers
 

PC World in the February 2005 issue rates five browsers.  Netscape 8 was August 2005.

* Best Bet
**  with Sun Java 2

"Firefox, the new kid on the block, is safer livelier, and offers a better Web experience than other browser out there - and not just because Microsoft has made a mess of market leader Internet Explorer. ...  All of these tools are priced right at zero dollars (for personal use, and in Opera's case if you don't mind ads.  ...  (Ad-free Opera costs $39)."

The PC World web site  ( http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,118959,findid,48870,00.asp ) has an article by Michael Desmond, dated December 15, 2004, titled Browser Wars.
 

PC Magazine in the June 2005 issue rates free browsers.

* Editors Choice
**  $39 for ad free version
*** Due out this summer
 

PC Magazine in the February 8, 2005 issue says:  "Many businesses are adopting Firefox because they feel it is more secure than Internet Explorer."

The Mozilla Foundation has given $2,500 to a security researcher for discovering vulnerabilities in its free Web browser.  (3/31/5)  The group paid $500 to German researcher Michael Krax for each of the five bugs he found in Firefox.
"We developed the bug bounty program to encourage and award community members who identify unknown bugs in the software," said Chris Hofmann, director of engineering for the Mozilla Foundation. "This program is one of the many ways the Mozilla Foundation produces safe and secure software for its users."
The bugs relate to chrome privileges--a mechanism that allows applications to change user interface details of the browser itself. If abused, this function could alter the 'Home' button, for example, to make it download malicious programs.

To find known bugs go to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/
 

There are several Firefox extensions available, to access them click on Tools, then Extensions, then Get More Extensions.
 

Fred Langa, writing in Information Week (4/18/5) says:  "Firefox is a good browser, but not the panacea its most ardent fans think it is.  While Microsoft's IE gets most of the attention for its security vulnerabilities, the reality is that Firefox (like other open source products) has security flaws of its own that readers need to be aware of."
Read the entire story at:  http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=160900911 .

PC Magazine (6/7/5)
More than 50 million copies of Firefox were downloaded in the first six months.  Installation is simple.  Some pages may not work properly because they require Active X (IE may be needed).
Opera includes neat features like page zoom and voice command.
IE 7 promises to be worth waiting for.

See http://www.nidelven-it.no/articles/introduction_to_firefox for an introduction to Firefox.  For more information on Mozilla see http://www.mozilla.org/about/ .

The Sunday Times (7/31/5)
Since Firefox launched in November its share of the browser market has climbed to 7%  Microsoft's share has fallen from 95% to 89% in the past year.  More than 75 million copies of Firefox have been downloaded.  There is an interesting story about Blake Ross, one of the developers.

San Francisco Chronicle (8/3/5)
The Mozilla Foundation (Firefox creator) is going corporate in order to better oversee the development of new products.  Mozilla Corp. will be responsible for marketing and distributing those products.  In June Firefox had a market share of 8.7% compared to 86.6% for Internet Explorer.

The Sunday Times (8/14/5)
Microsoft's IE has been showing signs of age.  That's about to change with IE 7, a major update that, in its early incarnation, plays catch-up with newer browsers.