[Boli]

As someone who has recently converted, I thoguht I'll add my thoughts on it (and maybe some pointers).

Speed:

Virtually identical, though IE has a signifiicant advantage at boot up b/c half of the files needed are already cached. Using a slower computer though I recon firefox beats IE. as it stands though for pure running they are virtually identical.

Popup blocker:

Using the Google popup blocker to make IE good once again they are similar in how much they can block. Though I have found that one some pages Firefox can sometimes be "too good" at blocking popups for its own good. When pages open in a new window sometimes this fails and you have to open them manually... but no biggy.

Interface:

Skin-wise you are stuck with what you have (so far... though I haven't explored this further than the firefox homepage) but it is clean and uncluttered and even comes with its own google search bar. The tabbed windows can be a bit confusing to begin with and a few cases of closing many windows at once can occasionlly happen but will alow you to group your brousing in a neat and tidy way by using in combination "open in new window" and "open in new tab" buttons.

Options:

Wonderfully simple, what you don't need to play with.. simply isn't there.. . or is hidden elsewhere, if you know IE well enough you'll delight in these options and menu items having them pop up instantly, clear and easy to brouse. I put a great deal of faith in a program just by how easy the options/help are to use.

Reliability:

I never thought my IExplore was that un reliable... one crash in 3 months brousing and I have had as many crashes in my first month of firefox. The only advanatge I see firefox over IE in this case is it doesn't have the habit of bringing windows to its kees with a crash the same way IE can sometimes. (you know "The Crashes" the ones you give names for "The September Crash", or "Black Friday" for instance).

Also:

The Download manager is a really useful tool, much like the one in Opera... more so as it can act independantly of the brouser.

And Finally:

One thing that does clinch it IMHO is the Thnderbird mail client. Having used PocoMail for a year or more and refusing to touch outlook after it broke my computer a year ago I am extremmly chuffed about the entire program. Most notablbly the filters allowing my 200 daily spam to be filtered almost perfectly to the junk mail folder. This intergration between the two clients is a nice addition and far outstrips the other combinations I have tried.


Overall I am very chuffed with my change... and fully intergrating it (removing all the IE shortuts and replacing they with Firefox ones) I think will be the best way to test it fully out don't bother touching IE (as I know how easy it is to slip bad into the groove of IE) and you'll be flying!