Always on top of the latest net trends, it took a total meltdown of our internet capabilities for harker to ditch internet explorer in favour of mozilla firefox. But we're glad he did, cause it's the future...

Just before Christmas disaster struck the oxygen office. It was just a normal day and harker was doing his usual research [watching cinema trailers, reading football gossip, stealing music, looking at porn etc.] when suddenly the internet stopped working. Right halfway through a topless picture of Jenna Jamison. You could only see her face.

Fired into action by this disaster, harker used all of his technical skills by first closing some windows, then resetting the computer, then bashing the cpu with the back of his hand, but there was nothing doing. He even tried his patented just turn it off, go out for lunch, then come back and hope it fixes itself manoeuver, but it was no good.

Some pros were called, and some horrible spywares and trojan viruses were located, some hundreds of euros were handed over, and the crisis was over. What can I do to stop this happening again, harker asked. Quit visiting dodgy sites, said the man. When harker explained that he suffered from an illness, and not an easy one to shake at that, and that even the most innocent of people end up on dodgy sites every so often through no fault of their own, the man suggested the oxygen office switch browsers from Internet Explorer to Mozilla Firefox. Firefox does a better job of blocking viruses and the like, he said. So we did. And he's been watching cinema trailers, reading football gossip, stealing music and looking at porn without a hitch ever since.

Firefox has everything that Internet Explorer has, and more. As well as the extra security and pop-up blocking, there's other handy features like tabbed browsing [makes multiple browser windows way easier], live bookmarks, handy password remembering, smarter web searching with built-in google and a nicer design in fetching blue and orange. If you switch it automatically imports your favourites and settings so it's pretty much hassle free. None of which is that groundbreaking or anything, but each of which works simply and when taken together just generally makes things better.

It's not from Microsoft, and best of all it don't cost nothing. Firefox is distributed by the Mozilla Foundation, which is a not for profit organisation who just like George W and chums are committed to spreading freedom and democracy. The subtle difference is in the tactics. Instead of bombing foreign countries these Americans are trying to make the world a better place by sharing open source software across the web. Which at least has a chance of working.

We're not the only ones who have fallen for Firefox. PC World say it's "faster, better, safer and livelier, and it offers a better Web experience than any other browser out there." A whole campaign has sprung up called Spread Firefox, which has even gone so far as to buy a full page ad in the New York Times imploring people to switch.

This is a proper nerdy internet grassroots campaign, you can get Firefox buttons and banners to put on your own website, or to stick in your email to spread the word. As it's open source they want you to join and help develop the software, fix bugs, and also buy a Firefox t-shirt, if you're that way inclined. Firefox is still far from perfect, but with open source as problems arise everyone gets together to solve them. That's the plan anyway.

So it's big, and getting bigger. Over 17 million people have downloaded the latest version of Firefox [1.0] since it was launched on November 9th last year. Soon after the launch msn.co.uk, which is a part of Microsoft, began listing Firefox in their downloads section as "The best browser around. Period." Unsurprisingly, the link was soon removed. ''Competition and market choice are good for customers, and Microsoft welcomes it," says Microsoft group project manager Dan Leach. Through gritted teeth we'd guess.

Mozilla are aiming for 10% of the global browser market by the end of 2005. And it just might happen. Especially if you do yourself a favour and ditch glitchy, pop up friendly Internet Explorer and get Firefox instead. As a techie friend of oxygen put it: "I use Firefox and it's fantastic, far and away the best browser on the market. Anyone still using Explorer is a fool and asking for trouble/ spyware/ pop up ads/ phishing scams/ fill in your own nefarious activity here. I honestly can't think of a bad word to say about it."

Without sounding too much like an ad, It's the future.

first published on oxygen.ie