You might have noticed a few changes around the main community. You might be wondering what Firefox is - although I suspect the vast majority of you might have heard about it by now.

If not, let me take a few moments to introduce you to what I believe is the way forward for web browsing. Up until now, most people have been using one of the various versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer, otherwise known in the trade as ‘Insecure Explorer’ due to its shoddy security model and susceptibility to hacks, exploit and other nasties. Despite its flaws, it remains the most widely used browser around today, which is testament to the power of the Microsoft monopoly. It may be notoriously shoddy in its standards compliance, vague in its OS:Application boundary and extremely high risk due to its buggy code base; it may be a cumbersome user experience with its proliferation of pop-ups and pop-unders; it may have hooked corporates in with its disastrous ActiveX technology. Yes, it is all of those things, but until recently it was for many the only real choice.

Choice. There it is, that word again. We now have a new kid on the block. Firefox is a new browser which has emerged to much acclaim in the past six months or so. It has recently had its first ‘proper’ release, version 1.0, which is free to download and offers many benefits over Insecure Explorer:

• Tabbed Browsing;
• A non-embedded-in-the-OS browser engine;
• Effective searches;
• Full standards compliance;
• It’s quick;
• It doesn’t over-egg the features pudding;
• It’s a small download;
• It’s not Microsoft, therefore it has no hidden monopolistic agenda.

…and so on. All in all, it’s a big improvement over the Microsoft offerings, and there’s a definite sense of parity amongst various on different operating systems - for example, Firefox 1.0 on my Powerbook runs almost identically to that of Firefox 1.0 on my desktop PC. Try that with IE for the Mac versus IE for the PC - disastrous!

So, you might be wondering why I’m writing this article? Well, two main reasons. The first is that Firefox is, like CallCentreGurus, an essentially non-commercial venture with the agenda of making life better for its users. So, we are in a sense brothers-in-arms. I can really relate to their cause, as corporate independence and free services/software do not likely bed-partners make.

The second reason is that it’s great. In the next few months, I will be re-designing CallCentreGurus to be fully standards compliant. To my own discredit, there are bits of the site which really do hang together with sticky-tape and glue, and I want to put that right. The target platform will be Firefox, and because Insecure Explorer is not standards compliant, things may ultimately not look so pretty when that browser is used. However, it’s nmt all doom-and-gloom as I will ensure everything still works in IE. It won’t, however, be our recommended browser any more.

The days of IE dominance may well be coming to an end. We’re putting our money where our mouth is and supporting Firefox, and I can only hope that other sites do the same, to ensure that this superb fledgling browser becomes the number one choice in internet browsing on all platforms.

I’d welcome any comments on this subject, and I hope that you will all download a copy of Firefox for your machines and at least give it a chance to win you over. It won me over!

John