Are you having problems with your web-browser, just wanting a better browser experience or you need a really great web development tool?
I think it’s time you gave Firefox a try. I’m sure you’ll at least like it…
My Story: “in 2008 I needed a portable web-browser and mail client for my Flashdisk, I came across Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird and was only going to use them temporarily.
Not so easy, once I had started using Firefox and I went back to IE6, I missed the way Firefox worked and the ability plug-ins give it to be customised for every need.
Since then I have been converting all my clients, friends and family across.
Switch today it’s a tiny download and your out of the Microsoft exploitation loop. ”
Firefox is a built for speed, security & standards compliancy. It has received rave reviews from PC World, PC Magazine, USA Today, Wired Magazine & cnet.
Why use Mozilla Firefox!
[Firefox is now in a rapid development cycle, similar to Google Chrome, so it updates often and not all your add-ons will be compatible with the latest version.]
- Open-source & Free
- Reasonably Compact, only a 14.6B download
- Not Microsoft
- Tabbed browsing at it’s best
- Secure online browsing
- Plugins to do just about anything you can think of with your browser
- Now available for Android!
- Browse to http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/
- Choose the download link appropriate for the operating system on which you’ll be running Firefox, Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X. [or visit http://firefox.com/m on your cellphone for the mobile version]
- Save the file to your desktop.
- Double-click on the file you just downloaded to start the installation wizard.
- Click “Next” on each step of the wizard until the program is installed.
- If you like, you can set Firefox to be your default browser, instead of Internet Explorer.
- Start up Firefox, and browse happy.
Software Details
- Author: Mozilla
- Current Version: 10.0.0
- Size: 14.6MB
- Price: Free
Like Firefox then get Thunderbird [e-mail client].
My Favourite Firefox Add-ons/Plugins
Absolute Must Haves
Web Developer (1.1.9 – 404kB) – If you are a developer or just want to be able to see how a site is put together. You can even play with a site’s css to see how it’s put together.
Firebug (1.9.1 – 1.1MB) – Put’s a wealth of web development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
Google Page Speed (1.12.0.2 – 1.8MB) – You need Firebug installed
YSlow (3.0.9 +- 200kB) – needs Firebug, shows how heavy a page (Y it’s Slow) is and gives some advice to speed downloads.
Quirk SearchStatus (1.39 – 68.1kB) – SEO tool, assists in seeing a pages possible seach engine ranking.
Dust-Me (2.2 – 82.1kB) – helps you find unused CSS selectors in your site.
Fireshot (0.96 – 1.6MB) – Creates screenshots of websites
SEOQuake (2.7.11 +-200kB) – SEO tools
X-Ray (0.9.1 – 11kB) – Show HTML tags in the same window, no more switching from source view to page and back.
Resources
http://www.dev102.com/2008/03/30/5-firefox-extensions-any-web-developer-must-have/