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Cool stuff review: Firefox browser
Cool stuff review: Firefox browser

Cool stuff review: Firefox browser

I was wracking my brain, trying to come up with some sort of post about love and coming up short. Why is Valentine’s Day in the middle of the horror that is February? And why must it snow today? Oh well. I got beautiful cards from the men in my life and a gift card to a day spa. Mmmm… But why is it so hard to write about love? I love my husband, I love my sons, for the most part I love my life. I want to do them justice and just can’t get myself in gear today.

So today I’m copping out and writing about a completely inanimate object.

I am head-over-heals, big sloppy kiss with tongue, in love with Mozilla’s Firefox. Is it wrong to feel so much love and affection for something so ethereal? It’s not like I can hold it in my hands. It’s just there, on my laptop, making my internet experience so much better, so much quicker, so much more effective. Internet Explorer and Vista and my laptop couldn’t get along. They argued all.the.time. And IE would get pissed off and crash. And if IE got really pissed off, then my whole computer would have to be rebooted and it was just a disaster. The three of them couldn’t cooperate, and I was the one who had to deal with it all. Sucked donkey danglies.

So I investigate a couple of free browsers. Opera was ok, but it also had a few issues with Vista and my laptop. Nothing critical, they could have gotten along just fine, if maybe a little chilly. But it wasn’t great.

And then…sigh…then I played with Firefox. And I fell hard. Firefox wooed Vista, it brought my laptop flowers, and I was hooked. They’re a happy little computer threesome. Here is why I loves me some Firefox, in no particular order:

  • It has yet to crash, stop working, or generally get pissy. This makes me happy.
  • There are all sorts of add-ons, extensions, and themes to personalize it. This makes me happy.
  • I have an extension that shows me the current weather and tomorrow’s weather in the bottom of the browser screen. For my actual town. Right now it’s light snow and 21 degrees F, expected to get to 30 degrees F, and Friday partly sunny and 40 degrees F. If I click on the forecast, it takes me to the accuweather site, where I can get all kinds of info. This makes me happy.
  • Tabbed browsing. Yes, IE7 has it too, but I like this better.
  • Bookmark bar. I have a bar, directly above the tabs, where I can have frequently visited bookmarks. I’m a big “out of sight, out of mind” kind of person (which is unfortunate, since I’m also a big lover of clean, clear spaces), so I tend to bookmarks sites and forget them. This is especially unfortunate for those sites I need to go to often. PITA. So having a few sites literally in front of my face is awesome. I can add and delete as the need arises.
  • I have figured out Google Reader because of Firefox. I have a gazillion blogs I read, and I didn’t get to them as often as I liked. Why? Because I was opening them in tabs a few at a time and it took forfreakingever. There’s an extension for Firefox that monitors my Google Reader for me, telling me when I have unread items (right now, at 9:44 am, I have 134 unread items…sigh…). I click on the little button at the bottom of my browser, it takes me to my Google Reader, and voila! I can read a few (or several) at a sitting. This makes me very, very happy.

Those are just a few of the things about Firefox that I love. I know there are so many more, but I haven’t had time to take them out for a spin. Truly, the best part is that Firefox is a free download. I LOVE that. Free is my favorite four letter word.

And now I must leave my happy little computer, for I have a 3 year old laying in my lap, saying, “Mommy, I looooove you” and demanding attention…or food. Darned kid keeps demanding to be fed.

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