Browser wars are back

If you thought the "Browser wars" of the last few years were over, think again. After Internet Explorer won out so convincingly a few years ago, most people thought that they could just go to sleep and use ie forever.

Well, for just over a year Mozilla's Firefox browser has been making big ripples. I personally have been using Firefox for about 8 months now. I have even installed it on the G5 as my browser of choice.

Whilst I'd love to sit here and Evangalise, the point of me making this point is simply that most of the schools in Stoke-on-Trent are still all using Internet Explorer.

I understand that the reason for this is "network related". Internet explorer, which is bundled with windows is easy for technicians to deploy. They have years of experience with all its teatures and plugins. Many educational packages link directly to Internet explorer. and furthermore the vast majority of teachers and pupils have experience with it.

However, despite these obvoious reasons for Interent explorers continued usage. I am still in favour of Firefox trials. Wouldn't it be great if Head Technicians and heads of department, downloaded Firefox at home and gave it a months trial?

In the late 1990's I worked at Staffordshire University IT Services dept. Staffs uni still used Netscape 4 back then, and trying to get them to adopt Internet Explorer was really difficult. "User familiarity" was cited as the main reason for keeping Netscape. I argued with my boss that surely user experience, reliability and standards compliance outweigh user familiarity.

Today I'm having the same argument with people in the Education authority.

So Now I'm going to be bold. Why not checkout Firefox? Why not..Are you afraid to try something new? I'll provide the link to the software and then I'd like you to leave me feedback on the features of the browser. Who knows, maybe, just maybe we will see Firefox replace Internet explorer sometime soon.

Here is the link to the software and also some relevant links.

Download Firefox


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