Benefits

• It automatically downloads and installs updates.
• It works under Vista.
• It does spell checking when you enter data into a webform.
• It supports user-written add-ons. One that impressed me is called FireBug, not to be confused with DOM Inspector. It lets you instantly view the source of the CSS, Java and JavaScript on the web page, using a expanding outline. It also lets you edit and see the effect of changes, but not permanently save changes. Most useful is the inspect element command that lets you see the HTML and CSS used to generate an effect in somebody else’s website without having to wade through all kinds of extraneous HTML. It does not have a built-in form filler, but you can select one of several add-ons. It shows you how the various CSS rules combine. This alone is reason enough to install a copy of Firefox/Firebug.
• It supports user-written themes. The themes can do major overhaul of the look and feel. I use the HiVisGnome theme. I like each of my browsers to look distinctly different so I can easily tell which one I am using. Firefox does not let you configure the toolbar colour scheme. It is controlled by the add-on theme.
• The Google toolbar works in Firefox. It does many useful things. Try it out.
• It is more robust connecting to a shared printer than Opera.

Annoyances

• Firefox is a RAM pig. You need a machine with abundance RAM for it to work properly.
• If you change your Java JRE, you may have to completely uninstall Firefox and reinstall it to get Java working again.
• When you hover over a link, it will display where the link is about to go to, but it displays at the bottom of the screen, so it is easy to miss.
• When you hit Ctrl-F to search, the box where you fill in the target displays at the bottom of the screen, so it is easy to miss.
• You can’t configure the view source program.
• The import bookmarks from Opera did not work. It picked up the wrong file. However, I was able to import bookmarks by importing them into Internet Explorer and from there into Firefox.
• Firefox ignores <col, both the class and the alignment attribute.
• You can write add-ons to Firefox, little programs that run inside Firefox and interact with it. You write them in XUL (XML) and JavaScript. It is one of the ugliest coding languages I have ever seen, but it is multiplatform and there are a great many complex add-ons written in it. Learn more about how to do it. in XUL (XML) and JavaScript.
• Opera 9.27, Opera 9.50 beta, Firefox 2.0.0.14, Sea Monkey 1.1.9, Safari 3.1.1:525.17 and Flock 1.1.2 all have a “bug”. They will not render <col class="xxxx">s correctly. IE 7.0.6000 renders it correctly. The Opera people say this is a feature not a bug. The language lawyers claim the W3 spec says that the browser is supposed to ignore the color attribute from the <col class. Logically, I think the <col styles should apply to the entire column, but not to <th rows. Last revised 2008-04-16.

Roll Your Own Add-Ons