Mozilla Firefox has become a household name for web browsers and its plain to see that they have had a roaring success in the past couple years. According to w3school’s website, almost 50% of online users are now using Firefox, compare this to around 35% for IE users and its clear to see that Firefox must have something about it thats attracting so many users.

I myself switched to Firefox a few years ago and have never looked back, the majority of people would probably say the same and Microsoft have obviously got some catching up to do!

So which browser is better? Well I have yet to meet someone who has a valid argument as to why Internet Explorer is better and from what I can see, everything that Internet explorer can do Firefox can do, and in most cases a lot better. Lets compare a few features between the two browsers.

Security – Without a shadow of a doubt firefox is much more secure that Internet explorer, this is especially the case for Internet explorer 6 which is a very vulnerable web browser to be using. I am still yet to come across a case of ‘browser hijacking’ for Firefox and although they are possible they are very few and far between. On the other hand hijacks for Internet explorer are very common, these usually consist of the home page being changed, additional toolbars being installed or search results being hijacked and replaced. Internet explorer is also a lot more vulnerable to ‘drive-by’ exploits, and whilst these have been possible on Firefox they have been a lot less frequent than IE.

Performance – In terms of memory usage Firefox is probably a bit more of a drain on system resources than Internet Explorer, with that being said, the latest version is a lot more efficient and less of a memory hog. Internet explorer 8 on the other hand seems to be more of a memory demon that IE6 and 7, this is probably down to the new ‘Windows Vista’ interface style that IE8 has adopted.

Functionality – Well this one has got to go to Firefox really, with it being an open source browser there are all kinds of add-ons and themes available. These are all easily installable at the click of a button and can customise your Firefox to look and operate however you want it to. Internet explorer on the other hand is nowhere near as customisable, and whilst some themes are available they are not as easy to install, the same goes for add-ons.

Features – Firefox offers many features including a saved passwords manager, one click bookmarking, Smart location bar, restore ability (for when your browser crashes) Internet explorer on the other hand is still very much featureless, although version 8 has a few added ones that version 7 didnt have.

Overall – Without a doubt I would pick Firefox for its security, functionality and reliability. It has so much more to offer than Internet Explorer and I personally think that its only a matter of time before were all using Firefox. For those who have never tried it I highly recommend you give it a try, you wont regret it!