Herman and the Fox

there's no hate. i respect the huge headway Firefox has made for alternative browsers into IE's marketshare. back in 2003, only a small bastion of early Opera users and Netscape holdouts were using browsers other than IE on Windows.

i liked it when i first tried it. there's something every attractive about animals on fire. foxes are naturally associated with fire due to their flame-red coats and wilyness (vulpix and ninetales anyone?). also, Samson tying torches to the tails of foxes to raze a Philistine village after they insulted him. what Firefox really has going for it is the coolness factor, due in most part to the image it conjures in your mind. a literal fox on fire is really not that cool, but we're talking mythical fire here.

Firefox is also attractive because it empowers the user. the extensions API (advanced programming interface) gives users countless options in terms of feature, performance, graphical experience, etc. if you are a Firefox user and you haven't dabbled into extensions yet, you'd be better off with another browser.

The Fox is marketed as being better, faster, safer than IE6 or anything else out there. as far as marketing goes, Firefox gets an A+. unfortunately most of Firefox's claims are not true, but most users don't care too much and hold on to what they've grown to like. that's alright, Firefox is a capable browser with a very helpful user-base that continues to make improvements.

i originally did not intend to switch to anything when i tested out Opera. Firefox was in its heyday, having just released 2.0 with great features like in-line spell check and... that's all i remember. i had just gotten the hang of tweaking the program to do my bidding, streamlining the interface and setting up shortcuts through keywords and tinkering with the cascading style sheets (userChrome).

after spending a bit of time on Opera, overcoming the slight learning curve with the rather intricate interface and list of options, i began to notice Firefox's shortcomings, specifically in the start-up time and rendering speed. i don't know how it works on your computers, but on mine, Firefox takes like 10 to 20 seconds to fire up. that's like a lifetime compared to IE6's instant activation. to be fair though, IE6 is coded into Windows, so it is technically always on, even when it looks closed. Firefox, however, has no excuse in comparison to Opera's 2.47 s mark. clearly, good coding can achieve times similar to IE6's 1.77 s, even in third-party applications. start up times and rendering times can be found here.

i will not go into how the feature set of Opera compares to Firefox. using basic installations, Opera blows Firefox out of the water, but Firefox has nearly limitless potential through extensions. users beware though, as not all extensions are equal in quality or security. they are made by users like you (with lots of time on their hands), so there is the possibility of incompetance and/or malice. also worthy of passing mention is how a good chunk of the really good FF extensions are copied (not always cleanly) of Opera features.

so, in conclusion, i thank Firefox for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of browser tweaking and showing me that it is okay to expect more than the status quo.