This week, Mozilla Firefox celebrates its fifth birthday (http://www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/en-US/).
Firefox logo
As a long time fan and user of Firefox (I’m using it for a good three and a half years of those five) I’m often surprised by how many people have not tried it (the most common reason cited is that Internet Explorer is already on their PC, so why change?). While I could give a long list of reasons as to why my own preference is for Firefox, I will instead highlight the foremost of those reasons for the purposes of this post.
One of the most significant features in relation to Firefox lies in the vast array of add-ons which are available for it, which really transform Firefox into much more than ‘just a web browser’. Many of these add-ons are designed with educational application in mind. For instance, take a look at the following pages to get an idea of Firefox add-ons which might be used for educational purposes:
- 99 Awesome Firefox Add-ons for Educators
- 10 Must-have Firefox Extensions for Students
- 50 Useful Firefox Extensions for College Students
There are, of course, hundreds of add-ons available for other purposes, including video download and download management, social networking, web development, bookmarking and many others. The full directory of add-ons is available athttps://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ where you can view by category, search the directory, and review ‘popular collections’ (suggested collections of add-ons for themed purposes).
So, if you haven’t yet tried Firefox, consider giving it a go. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux (it is the default browser on most installs of Linux). It is a relatively small download, and as part of the install process you will be invited to import all of your settings from your current browser, so you won’t lose any of your favourites/bookmarks. And, of course, it’s free
You can download Firefox at http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/