General

Thinking Outside The (Windows) Box,
Part II: Free Web Browsers—Firefox

While many businesses depend on Microsoft and its various product suites, alternatives exist, some of which are not well known. Part two of this series examines free alternative web browsers.

by Lisa Phifer VP Core Competence, Inc. [December 30, 2005]

We used Mozilla's popular open source Firefox version 1.5 on Windows XP SP2. Firefox also runs on Windows 98, ME, NT, 2000, and Server 2003, with a minimum of 54 MB of free disk space and 64 MB RAM. Versions are also available for Linux (2.2.14 or higher, including Red Hat 8.0) and Mac OS X (10.3.x and later).

Firefox www.mozilla.com Mozilla Corporation Mountain View, CA

Firefox installation is exceedingly simple. There are only two decisions: do you want to install the optional development tools, and do you want to import IE settings (e.g., favorites, history, passwords). But you'll also want to install at least a few the many hundred Firefox extensions. Firefox-recommended extensions include Answers.com (encylopedia), FoxyTunes (media player), and Sage (RSS reader).

There are several other extensions to augment Firefox security, like FasterFox (Flash pop up blocking) and NoScript (domain-based Java filters.) An easy-to-use Extensions Manager warns checks extension signatures and can be used to view, configure, or remove installed extensions.

Like Deepnet (see previous page), Firefox provides many usability features, including tabbed browsing and an integrated search bar that accepts drag-and-drop text. Tabs can be bookmarked together as a group; bookmark groups can even be used as your home page (see figure at right). The list of search engines checked by Firefox can be extended, with half a dozen sites included by default. The Firefox location bar can navigate URLs in the usual fashion, or visit the most likely website for a given keyword.

Firefox's unique Live Bookmarks feature let you treat RSS just like other Bookmarks. When you visit a website with an RSS feed, an RSS icon appears in the location bar. Clicking the RSS icon automatically creates a Live Bookmark for that feed. A Live Bookmark updates itself to present feed articles as links within the bookmark. Here, we illustrate a Live Bookmark for the ISP-Planet RSS feed (see figure at right).

Beyond extensions, Firefox can be customized by applying Themes—skins that change the look and feel of the browser. We were happy with the clean, simple default Firefox theme, but there are dozens of free themes that can be applied to suite your taste for simplicity, OS integration, or aethestic purposes.

On public or multi-user PCs, files left when a browser session ends can leak sensitive data. Firefox lets you clear "private data" objects like history, passwords, cookies, cached pages, and authenticated sessions. Better yet, this data can be cleared automatically every time you exit Firefox (see figure below). If you choose not to clear passwords, a Master Password (entered once per session) can be configured to permit later use of saved passwords.

Firefox includes a Pop Up blocker that is effective against annoying ads, yet easy to bypass as needed. It also supports SSL 2.0, SSL 3.0, and TLS 1.0, without detailed configuration of ciphersuites. Potentially dangerous content like Java and Javascript can enabled/disabled, but only globally. Firefox does not support VBScript, ActiveX, or Microsoft JVM at all. In short, Firefox security is relatively straightforward because (compared to IE) there are fewer bells and whistles. This is both a benefit and limitation. Firefox won't fall victim IE-specific exploits, but some sites just won't work well when viewed through Firefox (e.g., Windows Update, Outlook Web Access.)

In fact, some are drawn to Firefox precisely because it does NOT use the IE rendering engine. For example, if you're trying to clean a hijacked PC, Firefox can circumvent the responsible spyware BHOs long enough to find and remove them.

But the fast Firefox engine does have its own vulnerabilities. As noted by SANS, "Mozilla and Firefox have emerged as viable alternatives to Internet Explorer and have been steadily gaining the browser market share. With this increased usage, the browsers have come under greater scrutiny by security auditors and hackers alike, resulting in multiple vulnerabilities discovered during last year. Many of the flaws discovered are critical in nature and allow a malicious webpage to completely compromise a client system."

So, even if you use Firefox, it's still essential to apply security patches in a timely fashion. To facilitate this, Firefox can be configured to check for updates for Firefox itself and for all installed extensions, themes, and search engines. Those updates, downloaded in the background, can be applied automatically or at your discretion.

Free Windows Web Browsers: Deepnet Explorer

Free Windows Web Browsers: Firefox

>Free Windows Web Browsers: Netscape

Free Windows Web Browsers: Off By One

Free Windows Web Browsers: Opera, and Conclusion