Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a free, fast and efficient cross-platform web browser and one of the most popular browsers in use. Firefox boasts speed and tabbed browsingIt features a built-in pop-up/ad blocker removing the annoyances when browsing. Firefox also offers customization features and plug-ins which allows users to completely change the look and feel of their web-browser.

Mozilla Firefox began as an experiment, led by three developers working for the Mozilla organization who believed the original Mozilla suite, a cross-platform internet suite which included a web browser, mail and an IRC client, would become too bloated in future due to the Mozilla web-browsers needs. They began working on a stand-alone web browser and the concept of Firefox was born. Mozilla named the original versions of the web browser Phoenix and then Firebird respectively but experienced trademark issues and had to rename the product and came up with Firefox.

The very first version to be released was Mozilla Phoenix 0.1 and actually performed better than the later renamed Firefox 1.0 version in 2004; users favorite features of Phoenix 0.1 were the red and yellow stop/refresh buttons. Due to the instability of Firefox 1.0 there were consequently a series of bug and security fixes released during the months leading up to 2005.The next versions to be released leading up to 3.0 included updates to the GUI, a new session restore feature, inline spell checker and enhanced the tabbed browsing feature. The 3.6 version was considered extremely stable thanks to the clever work by the developers in creating a crash protection feature which isolates the operation of plug-ins separately, so if they stop working they dont crash the web browser.

Over the years Mozilla worked hard on making Firefox more efficient and less of a stress on PC resources due to complaints about versions 4/5/6 taking up too much RAM. Version 7 was a success in using less RAM, 50% less than version 4.0 for that matter, but it did sacrifice browser speed. With the release of version 8 and 9 Mozilla addressed add-on installation issues disabling third party add-ons as they were deemed problematic. Browser speed and less memory use were much better in these versions. Version 10.0 released in January 2012 only includes very minor changes, there are whispers of problems with memory spikes and crashes.
For stability user feedback has pointed out version 3.xx as the most stable version for all versions of Windows. It should be noted that there is no longer support for older version of Firefox (apart from 3.6.26 and 10.0).

There are thousands of plug-ins and add-ons for Firefox out there which include new skins for your browser, e-mail notification alerts, download managers and other features for customization. PersonaPlus is a cool add-on with tons of different skins and color themes to personalize your browser. The Cooliris 3D-wall allows you to scroll and look through photos and videos in stunning 3D imagery. The read it later plug-in allows you to save pages you wish to look at later from any computer and can even work without an internet connection.

Check out our browser comparison.

Pros: Very Secure, fast & stable, blocks pop-ups and ads, lots of add-ons.

Cons: Sometimes doesnt work with a few add-ons, problematic on lower end PCs (unless you get an older version!).