Internet Explorer 7 VS FireFox 2

Microsoft Internet Explorer has enjoyed almost complete dominance of the Web browser space for years -- but this stops now. Since the release of Mozilla Firefox 1.5, last year, Firefox has been steadily eroding Internet Explorer's claim of superiority. According to some surveys analysis, in October 2004 Internet Explorer had 92 percent of the market; in September 2005 that dropped to 86 percent; and as of September 2006 Internet Explorer's market share dropped to 82 percent, with Firefox's rising to 12.5 percent. In two years Microsoft ceded 10 percent of its audience to its competition.

We will further breakdown our own judgment as follows:

Installation

We will see which browser is good in installation. We will start by IE 7 (Internet Explorer 7).

Internet Explorer 7

The IE 7 installer asks users to temporarily disable their antivirus and anti-spyware protection, which doesn't inspire confidence. Installing IE 7 requires Windows validation, a restart, and a connection to Microsoft servers, which significantly slows down the process. Further more IE 7 requires a reboot and takes forever (Most users hate reboot) . Plus the setup takes some time to download which might not be so good for low bandwidth connections.

Firefox 2

Installation of Firefox 2 was much faster and easier, completing in a 30 seconds or so. It scanned my old version for incompatible extensions, and then updated that were available. Firefox 2 did not include my custom-created search engines, only those defaulted by Mozilla. Furthermore it migrated every toolbar and all but one of my dozen bookmarklets from Firefox 1 without any hitch.

 

Look and feel

Here's where we look at navigation, as well as overall look and feel.

 

Internet Explorer 7

IE 7 allots more space to the main browser window. The full-screen view is particularly well designed -- tabs and the address bar disappear until you hover over them, creating a true full-screen window. The tabs are wider and more higher than necessary. it is a thoughtful redesign. Also that its a little slicker than firefox.

Firefox 2

The visual interface between its version ins't that different, but it does have some new UI features, such as a 'word wheel' in the search bar. The great thing about Firefox is the extension and plug-ins you can use. There are hundreds of tools for Firefox to enable all manner of customising. IE has extensions too, but not like Firefox.The new improvement of tabs in Firefox is worth noticing. Each Tab has a seperate close button which is really nice. Skining of Firefox is really easy and less time consuming. Firefox's open-source status and myriad add-ons gives it an edge over IE 7.

 

Tabbed browsing

Tabbed browsing has become a part of the Internet browser world. Microsoft just added it to Internet Explorer 7, but Mozilla has had it in Firefox for years. Which one implements this feature the best?

 

Internet Explorer 7

With the latest versions, both browsers treat tabs similarly. You can close tabs with their own little close boxes and open new tab windows by clicking in the tab bar (IE 7 makes it more obvious by displaying a tiny, empty tab). Both highlight the active tab subtly (too subtly for my taste), and let you drag tabs around and save open tabs. Differences: Firefox makes it easy to reload all tabs; IE has a thumbnail viewer.

Firefox 2

One change in Firefox 2 that is a step backward from the last version: If you open a lot of tabs, Firefox shrinks their size a little and puts arrows at the left and right of the tab bar so that you can scroll back and forth. The previous version shrunk tabs a lot, so you could fit many more into the tab bar. Firefox's tiny drop-down menu next to its tabs is a convenient shortcut for finding recently viewed pages, and its layout offers more room for tabs -- although once we had a dozen tabs open, we were forced to scroll awkwardly to view the thirteenth tab and beyond. Luckily, though, if Firefox crashes, you can restore those tabs, which IE 7 can't do.
 

 

Cool new features

Microsoft had five years to dream up a new Internet browser; Mozilla's been updating its popular Firefox browser pretty regularly in the last few years. Which offers the coolest new features?

 

Internet Explorer 7

There is no new worth mentioning features in IE 7. Other than reading of RSS feeds and that it can parse XML and show the content other than the codes.

Firefox 2

Firefox does a much better job of managing feeds: it will let you subscribe in Firefox's own reader, which awkwardly makes bookmarks of headlines, or in Google, Bloglines, Yahoo or any reader application you have on your PC. IE will subscribe itself only to feeds, and it doesn't display RSS content as reliably as Firefox. In Firefox 2, I love the Manage Search Engines dialogue box, but I'd say the Session Saver feature is the biggest improvement. I know that many people who accidentally quit the browser will love it. Firefox also checks your spelling, which could save you from embarrassing mistakes.

 

Security and performance

You can't surf the Web these days without fretting about online villains eager to take your money or your identity. Which browser offers the best?

  

Internet Explorer 7

The security of IE 7 has increased from that of its previous versions. IE 6 had some major security drawbacks and holes from which hackers went in and came out of easily. I would mention an e-gold hack which only worked on IE browsers. It stole all the money from your account if you logged in using IE. I hope this major loop hole is fixed. 

 

Firefox 2

Firefox is far more better in terms of security issues. The remember password  tool is also great. It remembers the password of each username. Furthermore its much easier to manage the saved passowrds in FireFox.

 

Systm Resources

The system resources each browser consumes.

Intenet Explorer 7

IE7 and even its previous versions are good with system resources and do not cause so much problems in opening several windows and tabs. The system still stays much stable.

 

Firefox 2

Even though FireFox is a really good browser but its one of the major drawbacks that was notices was, it consumes a lot of system resources when opening several windows and tabs. It might notch up the CPU ussage graph when you are browing more than 13 or so tabs at the same time. 

 

64 Bit computing

Entering the 64 Bit computing for faster performances.

Internet Explorer 7

IE has definitly an edge in 64 Bit computing. Ie 64 Bit Browsers are available for 64 Bit operation systems. These show much faster speeds in comparisson to their previous versions.

 

Firefox 2

FireFox doesn't have a proper 64 Bit browser. Which lets FireFox down at the moment. But it is expected that the 64 Bit FireFox will be soon released and will rock the browser world. 

 

From our conslusion the winner is...

So from the above analysis its obvious that FireFox is much better browser than IE.