MEETING DATE
 Fri May 20th, 2005 

Bill Chriss Presents: FireFox, Is It the Browser For You?

By Bill Chriss and Sandy Rand

    It’s hard to believe today but there was a time when almost nobody used Microsoft Internet Explorer. About 10 or 12 years ago, just about everyone was using Netscape Navigator. Supposedly, they were selling it but there always seemed to be a way to get it for free. Netscape had about 85% of the market. Then, Microsoft started including Internet Explorer with Windows. Up until about a year ago, the balance had tipped to where about 90% or more of the people were using IE and Netscape had been reduced to an insignificant share. Of course, there were others such as Opera and Mozilla.

Earlier this year Bill ran a Potpourri workshop that introduced FireFox, the new free browser from the Mozilla Foundation. His presentation at the May General Meeting will start with an introduction of FireFox operation, comparing it to Internet Explorer (IE) and move on to cover the more recent topics of FireFox extensibility (adding some really cool plug-ins), upgrades and security (does it really block spy ware better than IE).

If you want to get a head start or even try FireFox, go to www.mozilla.org. Then, come look under the FireFox covers and see if it's right for you.