Firefox Friday – Thinking of Switching Browsers?

2009 April 24

tags: browser, FireFox Friday, mozilla, switch

by timmy

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Friday, it’s Friday! Yay! Which means Firefox Friday is here again!

Back in January I wrote a post (What Web Browser Do You Use and Why?) about the reason I switched from using Internet Explorer to using Firefox. Since that time I’ve noticed several things. First of all, most of the people I’ve spoken to about their browser of choice raved about Firefox. I’ve also taken notice that over 60% of visitors to this blog use Firefox (31% of visitors use Internet Explorer – that’s about half!).

All of this tells me that many people have already made the switch away from Internet Explorer, even though it comes packaged with the most popular OS, Windows.

In this post, I would like to answer two questions: Why are so many people switching to Firefox? and What are some tips while making the switch?

Why are so many people switching to Firefox?

In order to answer this question, I would like to refer to Mozilla.com and let them explain:

Speed – I think the speed of the browser is very noticeable, however I hear that if you use too many plugins, performance suffers
Safety - Mozilla uses an open source type of security which supposedly acts very quickly (Mozilla’s explanation)
Easy to use – I think the learning curve is quite manageable and once you’re used to it, I think you’ll find it very simple to use!
Customization - I’m STILL finding new ways to make Firefox quicker and easier for what I need it for!
Free - Can’t beat the price! Five-finger discount? I guess you can call it a steal!

Some tips for making the switch:

There are three steps I can think of that will help someone looking to switch to Firefox:

Download, install, and test it for a bit. Browse the web a bit, visit some of your favorite sites and just play around with settings, etc. to see if it suits your fancy (I think it will!)
Import your favorites from Internet Explorer – Detailed instructions are offered by Mozilla
Make Firefox your default browser – go to tools-options-advanced and you’ll see at the bottom a button to check the default browser for you.

If you need any help AT ALL, feel free to leave a comment! I or one of my wonderfully tech-savy readers can lend you a hand, I’m sure!

There you have it! Someday I would like to do some side-by-side comparisons with other browsers but for today, check out the benefits of Firefox. Oh, and keep up with Firefox Fridays because we’re sure to learn more each time!

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