I did a fairly indepth case study on this matter in 2005 and came to the conclusion that Microsoft's Internet Explorer would require a rebuild to match the look, feel, safety and performance of the open-source web browser by the Mozilla Foundation, called Firefox. This conclusion came from my research findings that Firefox was a far superior web browser, in that it was user-friendly, safer, and quicker to load web pages. Mozilla also patched security holes and flaws quicker than Microsoft did, again, giving the consumer friendly edge to Firefox.

Well, where has Microsoft come after almost 2 years of losing market share? Basically, I predicted the future of Internet Explorer. The web browser software has undergone a major rehaul, and current public test versions of the web browser show how the new Internet Explorer simulates Firefox very nicely!

I'm still not impressed however. Firefox offers many great features lacking from Internet Explorer. First, Firefox has a large public base of programmers who've coded very useful extensions (and even skins to change the appearance to your liking!) for the browser. Such things as RSS readers, weather conditions built-in, and just about anything else useful has been coded into the extensions database. Second, Firefox is still more user-friendly. Internet Explorer's bloated options make it difficult to find what you're after. Third and probably most important, Firefox is open source and not associated with other programs or hooked to an operating system like Internet Explorer is. This ensures you're browser experience is absolutely not being watched over by the 900-pound gorilla commonly referred to as "M$" (Microsoft), because the browser code is freely available to anyone, allowing consumers to validate the security or tracking functions of Firefox.

You may ask, what is "open source"? To be simple, free lance programmers working together toward a similar goal while sharing the software code with the public, encouraging constant improvements, and usually not for profit. This programming philosophy is growing rapidly and threatening large companies like Microsoft in many ways. Why pay $450+ for a suite of applications that handle word processing, spreadsheets and databases (Microsoft Office), when you can download -- FOR FREE -- an open source software package with similar features called Open Office? Microsoft claims Open Office's program features are comparable to the "97" version of Microsoft Office, but for most people who don't require advance options, that simply doesn't matter. Open source is an intriguing recent phenomenon in the tech field, that will surely affect the future of software.

Anyway, I'm still recommending Firefox as the best web browser out. Unfortunately, the future of Firefox doesn't look so bright with the upcoming release of Internet Explorer nearly cloning Firefox's best features.

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