Web: Resistance To Change

In the very beginning I used Lynx and laughed at people using graphical browser’s because at dial-up speeds back then it took a very long time for image heavy pages to load. Then I broke down and used NCSA Mosaic to visit web sites that had image maps and other things that did not work well in Lynx. That was fine for a couple years but eventually I wanted a more integrated Web and E-Mail solution so I started using Netscape and that was my favorite for a long time.

Then I started working in tech support for an Internet provider. It wasn’t long before I started noticing how many little things I was tweaking and fixing in Netscape without thinking about it – things that I just DID because of an error or problem I wanted to eliminate. These were maintenance tasks that went with using Netscape that I took for granted but the users calling for help were not capable of doing without a lot of help. I started comparing the support issues with Internet Explorer vs. Netscape and IE won. have been a big supporter of Microsoft Internet Explorer for a long time and still am for people new to the Internet. For 98% of people using Windows – Internet Explorer just WORKS. And since Windows 98 was released its also just THERE. Its built in and can be used immediately once an Internet connection is configured on a computer.

I know there have been law suits against MS for bundling the browser so tightly tied to the operating system itself. Most people I know who are anti-MS do not have to support large numbers of computer novices. Everyone I know who does (including the entire AOL corporation) seems to understand that supporting Internet Explorer is just easier. AOL has owned Netscape for several years now but they still use Internet Explorer as their core embedded browser as of the current AOL 9. There are reasons for this.

During this whole time I have tried many browsers as they have come around including Opera, but only recently have I found a browser that can give IE6 a run for its money in terms of functionality and support. For a week or so now I have been using Mozilla Firebird 0.7. Mozilla has everything I like about IE plus a lot more. In addition it has Tabbed browsing features (this allows you to have multiple pages open at once within the same browser) in IE you need to open a separate instance of the browser for each page you want open simultaneously and can quickly clutter up your task bar. It supports Themes/Skins so if you don’t like the look of the buttons and toolbars you can change them. It also has a built in – configurable – pop-up blocker. It’s built right into the browser itself instead of being an add-on like the Google Toolbar pop-up blocker and others. It allows you to permit pop-ups on sites that need them and leave them off for other sites. It even uses most of the same Keyboard shortcuts as IE such as CTRL-R to reload a page or Ctrl-D to add a page to your favorites.

I think one of the best parts about this browser is that it is JUST A BROWSER. It doesn’t interfere with my mail client (Outlook 2003) or anything else installed on my computer. In fact, the installation of Firebird is barely an installation at all. If you download the browser from http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird (its a 6.0 meg download for Windows users) you are just getting a zip file. You extract the zip file to wherever you want it, and run the program. That’s it – it works. You might want to do a little more such as create a short cut to the browser executable on your desktop but that’s it. I haven’t found any problems with it yet.

I don’t typically go around recommending people change the software they are using but this is a pretty amazing piece of work.