It is very important you read This Article on Lockergnome.com about ‘Why you should dump Internet Explorer’. Have you ever had a piece of spyware on your computer? A “helpful search bar” that you didn’t want? Ever had popups? I don’t. You know why? Because I use Firefox.
1. Due to the combination of ActiveX, scripting, and its integration with the Windows operating system, Internet Explorer is more vulnerable to attack than many other browsers.
2. The designers of Internet Explorer have purposely turned their back on the standards designed to benefit the Internet as a whole. They have done this for years, continue to do it today, and appear to have nothing but their own interests at heart.
So what do you do now?
1. Go to http://getfirefox.com and download it.
2. Install Firefox, and run it for the first time.
3. Say YES to the box asking you to set it as default.
4. Change any shortcuts pointing to IE to open Firefox instead.
5. Visit http://update.mozilla.org/?application=firefox and download cool extensions and themes to customise the way YOUR browser works.
And have a better and safer time browsing the internet!
– Shaun
P.S. No, I do not work for Mozilla, I just am a big fan and I want the internet to be a better place.
Hey Shaun – I did it – I changed to Firefox. I figured you’d have more idea than me what was best to use, you’re the one doing computer science after all. I read the article, went all over the Firefox site and decided to go with it. You are right it is so much better than Internet Explorer. It looks a bit different and I’m still getting used to it – but so far so good. You are dragging me kicking and screaming into the cyber world! Thanks! Love Mia x
Hey, excellent well done. Just remember you will still need internet explorer to go to Windows Update site, and some other sites that are “IE-only” (in other words, badly designed sites). If you go to the extentions page which I mentioned above (part 5) you can get lots of tools to help you suft the net, one of which is “Open this page in IE” which is good if you get to a site which is badly designed and will not work in newer browsers.
Also you can download themes, there are some really good ones, I’m using “Qute” (pronounced ‘Cute’) at the moment, and its very sweet.
Another great thing about Firefox is “tabbed browsing”, although maybe thats a bit too advanced for you. You might want to look into it though.
Shaun
Here is a link to the tabbed browsing preferences extension, which makes it easier to use:
Tabbed Browsing ExtensionAnd this page tells you about it:
Firefox Features