NEWS ANALYSIS
By Steve Hamm

SEPTEMBER 17, 2004

A Firefox in IE's Henhouse
Though the Mozilla Web browser's share is still small, it's winning converts wary of security holes in Microsoft's dominant product

When was the last time you heard about the browser wars? Well, they're back. The reason: For the first time in more than seven years, Microsoft (MSFT ) is losing Web browser market share. And it's not just a blip. According to Web analytics company WebSideStory, Microsoft's share of browser users who visited top e-commerce and corporate sites shrank from 95.6% in June to 93.7% in September. And people using browsers made by the Mozilla open-source software group grew from 3.5% to 5.2%.

Programmers at the Mozilla Foundation hope to increase that momentum with the release this fall of their new browser's consumer-ready version, called Firefox 1.0. It's superfast and suffers few of the security problems that have plagued Microsoft's Internet Explorer in recent months. "There's a window of opportunity for Mozilla to gain significant market share," says Stacey Quandt, analyst with tech consultant Robert Frances Group in Stamford, Conn.

NO SIGN OF PANIC.  Firefox's latest preview version was released on Sept. 14, and the organization is hoping to achieve 1 million downloads in the next few weeks. Feedback from users will help polish the final version. Mozilla's market share "is limited only by our ability to reach IE users and show them that we've built a better mousetrap," says Brendan Eich, Mozilla's chief technology officer.

Microsoft is watching closely, but it's showing no panic. In August the Redmond giant released a special update of Windows, called Windows XP Service Pack 2, aimed at making the operating system and the browser more secure. It also adds a pop-up ad blocker to IE.

"The security enhancements delivered to IE with this release dramatically improve the security of IE and deliver to customers a much better and safer browser experience," says Gary Schare, director of security product management for Windows. He also points out that if users have problems with their software, Microsoft has legions of paid support people who can respond quickly and walk them through repairs. That isn't necessarily the case with open-source software.

UNEXPECTED BLOOMING.  Yet security remains a sore point with IE. In June, the U.S. federal government's Computer Emergency Readiness Team warned Web surfers to stop using IE after Microsoft disclosed a bug that allowed spyware to be downloaded to people's computers without their involvement. Immediately, thousands of people in search of an alternative began downloading browsers from Mozilla's Web site.

Despite of the security fixes in SP2, the pressure is still on. The Berliner Zeitung, a leading daily newspaper in Germany, on Sept. 10 reported that the German Federal Office for Information Security is recommending that Internet users switch from IE to Mozilla or Opera, another browser.

What's most amazing is that Mozilla matters at all. Launched as an open-source version of Netscape's suite of Web applications after America Online's (TWX ) acquisition of Netscape Communications, the project never got much traction when it was part of AOL. And after Mozilla was spun off a year ago, most observers expected it to fade into oblivion.

TELL A FRIEND.  The opposite has happened. A handful of foundation employees, helped by programmers at other tech outfits and thousands of volunteers from all over the world, set out to create a new browser that would be small, fast, and resistant to pop-up ads and viruses.

With funds in short supply, Mozilla plans grassroots marketing to get attention for its consumer version. It has set up a Web site, www.SpreadFirefox.com, to coordinate volunteers' efforts -- which include urging Web-site operators to place links to Mozilla on their pages. It's asking people who already use preview versions of Firefox to recommend it to their friends and to help them download the software and set it up.

Once Firefox 1.0 is launched, "We'd like to see 10 million downloads in a relatively short time and to pick up a significant gain of market share," says Mitchell Baker, president of the Mozilla Foundation. She wouldn't pick a target number. "It's hard to pick up share against a monopoly," she says.

ALL VULNERABLE.  Is Firefox superior to IE? Analysts who have compared the two say Firefox loads more quickly and opens Web pages more quickly. It has some features that IE doesn't have, including something called tab browsing, the ability to set up and manage pages using tabs that are quickly clickable on the user interface. The new version of IE has an ad blocker built in, so that feature no longer sets Firefox apart.

However, it's hard to tell if Firefox is inherently more secure than IE. And Firefox is vulnerable to viruses, too -- although the dominant IE will remain the more popular target for hackers intent on afflicting its users with all sorts of malware. If any browser has a flaw, somebody will find it.

Still, Microsoft is in little danger of being toppled from the top spot -- at least, not any time soon. IE is included with every copy of Windows, so most people use it as a matter of course. But as browsers from Mozilla gain ground among consumers and corporations, that encourages Web-site designers and operators to make sure that the pages are accessible to any browser -- not just Microsoft's. So far, just a few of Microsoft's own Web sites are fully accessible only to IE users. "This is important, so Microsoft doesn't control what the consumer and the worker can see," says Baker.

If Mozilla can continue to pick up market share, it will be another feather in the cap for the open-source software movement. Already, the open-source Apache Web server operates on nearly 60% of Web sites, and the Linux operating system has a 24% share of server operating systems distributed each year. With Mozilla on a fast track -- and literally in people's faces -- open-source software would really pick up steam.

http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/sep2004/tc20040917_1883_tc119.htm

Mozilla Firefox 1.0 Preview Release

Paul Rowlingson, vnunet.com 17 Sep 2004

After a year in development Mozilla Firefox has finally reached version 1.0, and this Preview Release has recently been made available.

Firefox is built with speed in mind, and does away with many of the components of its big sister, Mozilla. Therefore, all you get is a browser, download manager and a DOM inspector (for developers).

This results in a tiny download and a very fast application (both starting up and rendering pages).

Tabbed browsing and a pop-up stopper are, of course, included as standard. The latter can also foil other irritations such as scrolling status bar messages and 'spoofed' (false) URLs in the address bar that IE is prone to.

New features in release 1.0 include improved privacy, which prevents websites installing applications on your PC without your knowledge (you need to authorise a site first). Privacy is also improved with the addition of a master password for protecting all saved passwords.

Live Bookmarks is another new feature that lets you bookmark RSS feeds and display the article headlines in the bookmarks panel - click one to be taken to the article.

Numerous extensions are available to add extra functionality to the browser, including a great Calendar and a powerful set of web developer tools.

www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

I shifted over to Mozilla for my office workstation, my laptop and my home workstation about two months ago.  Our lab head IT geek told us all that IE was so full of holes a spammer/hacker/virus asshole could drive a dump truck through it.

All three run very well;  fast with no "issues".

Not going back to IE.

my computer had the all searching virus and I went to Mozilla firefox and in about a week it was all gone.

I've had compatiblity issues with Mozilla


It doesn't work for editing my MSN website, www.pa-ar15.net

Quoted: I shifted over to Mozilla for my office workstation, my laptop and my home workstation about two months ago.  Our lab head IT geek told us all that IE was so full of holes a spammer/hacker/virus asshole could drive a dump truck through it. All three run very well;  fast with no "issues". Not going back to IE.

The biggest issue with IE, and all of the MS applications that handle transmitted content, is that they handle them poorly.  All those neat tie-ins that allow Microsoft to claim IE is a part of the OS are what make it insecure.  ActiveX, their attempt to subvert Java, has no security whatsoever!  WinXP SP2 changes the way IE handles ActiveX and downloaded content, which is a step in the right direction, but if you want the changes you have to upgrade to XP.

Mozilla isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better when you consider security.  I'm petitioning my company to ditch IE and move to Mozilla.  Our desktop guys are literally drowning dealing with IE issues.

Remember the Alamo, and God Bless Texas...

Firefox rocks!  

If you haven't done so already you should also replace MS Java with the more secure Sun Java.

Sun Java

Been using Mozilla firefox since it was called firebird 0.2.   I'm currently on 1.01 pr.

Yes there will always be a few web sites that do not work properly but that's becuase they are MS owned and microcrap's .net designed.

The only time I use IE with for windows update.  And I rarely do that since my systems auto download the updates.