Firefox has been my browser of choice for several years, and prior to that, I first came in contact with the technology that runs behind the browser, called the Gecko Renderer in early 1998. The thing that impressed me the most back then was how much FASTER the Gecko engine rendered pages as compared to Internet Explorer on a dial-up connection.
Here’s a short list of reasons why Firefox will help you if you ever decide to try out or switch to Linux (or Mac OSX for that matter).
- Firefox runs on Windows and all popular operating systems.
Whether you prefer Windows, Mac, Linux, whatever, your favorite flavor of O/S, Firefox runs on it. - The interface is the largely the same on Linux and Windows.
The default interface and theme for Firefox is exactly the same no matter what O/S you are using.
For me, the biggest change was where the Preferences item was displayed. Using the Menu Editor plugin for Firefox allows you to move around menu items, or hide them completely. I have found this HUGELY helpful for my own migration to Linux, as Preferences is located in the “Edit” menu at the top of the screen, as opposed to the Windows version of Firefox that actually has the Preferences menu located until “Tools.” Just install the plugin and move it easily. - If you feel comfortable browsing the web, that’s a big step towards being familiar with the computer as a whole.
Many time, when I have a problem or something I want to do in Linux and I don’t know how, I google for it. Using a browser like Firefox that has a standard interface among all operating systems, lets me feel comfortable while I’m searching on a topic that I am unfamiliar with. - Add-ons that you enjoy in Windows are also available for Linux.
One of the biggest reasons I like Firefox is because of the practical unlimited amount of Add-ons written for it.
Do you want the weather in your taskbar? Done. Do you want a music player controller embedded in the browser so you don’t have to alt-tab to skip a song? Done! If you can dream it up, it’s probably already there.
They function exactly the same way in Windows and in Linux, because they’re built on a framework that integrates with Firefox.
Some of my favorites include: StumbleUpon, Adblock Plus, IE Tab (when using Windows), and DownloadStatusbar, Menu Editor and Stop-or-Reload Button - Firefox is accepted as the most popular browser for users on any distribution of Linux.
Firefox is bundled by default on the following distributions: Ubuntu (and it’s derevitives), Fedora, openSUSE, Mandriva, PCLinuxOS, SimplyMEPIS, CentOS, etc. Most Linux Distributions also make it easy to get and install Firefox if it is not installed by default.
If you don’t think these reasons are enough, humor me and try it out. I bet you’ll love the tabbed browsing and lack of advertisements when using Adblock Plus, which gets rid of nearly all ads out there. It’s terrific and no more annoying talking ads!