The Firefox brand of web browser is one that many Internet users both know and love. But what many don't know is that the browser first got its roots in an entirely different browser altogether- Netscape Navigator. Because of the hot war between Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, Netscape eventually decided to release their source code as an open source item to be viewed and developed by any who wished. This decision led to the founding of the Mozilla Firefox project, previously know as Firebird, in 1998. Ever since the critical acclaim that Firefox obtained after its mainstream success, it seems that the browser has been outperforming each and every release of Internet Explorer that comes out in recent months. After all, the long development time and open source movement can be quite a powerful tool indeed.

Internet Explorer has a bad reputation for security holes that seem to persist, even after threats are made aware of by Microsoft. This is in comparison to Mozilla Firefox, which is considered to be one of the most secure browsers available. Part of this feat is attributed to the fact that Mozilla Firefox does not use Active X components, which have widely been known to create browser vulnerabilities in competitors such as Internet Explorer. But the security doesn't stop there- as Firefox has been able to give updates as soon as security holes are found compared to the many months or years it would take Microsoft.

Those who are looking to save some disk space should also opt for Mozilla Firefox, as it comes it at a small 4.9 megabytes in size. This is compared to the 80 megabytes that Internet Explorer requires for its bulky code- of which is unnecessarily large.

Firefox derives its powerful rendering engine "Gecko" from its parent Mozilla products. Its rendering is precise and speedy though it fails Acid 2 test (a standard compliance test for webpage rendering) but still scores well above than IE, which lags at the bottom when rendering is considered.

Any Firefox user is proud to brag to Internet Explorer users that they have access to colorful themes, helpful plug-ins, and powerful add-ons that help extend the functionality of the Firefox browser. Internet Explorer lags behind in this respect, as they are much more close ended in the ability to let browser users express themselves and their needs. Thus, Firefox is far more functional as a browser.

Firefox has long been given popularity due to the simple fact that it supports tabbed browsing. Some versions of Internet Explorer allow for this feat, but Internet Explorer doesn't handle memory usage properly, and lagging is a common repercussion. Opera is another example of a browser that uses tabbed browsing, but expands on the idea by offering thumbnail previews.

A browser crash is something that is hated by many. After all, it's extremely counter-productive to be browsing the Internet and have a browser completely stop responding. Even Firefox admits that browser crashes happen, but they implemented a session restore feature that gives URL data and other information to users, should they want to restore the URLs they were previously viewing. This is something Internet Explorer lacks, and is much less appealing as a result.

The future development of Firefox versions has already been started and version 3 which is likely to pass Acid 2 test is expected to release in June 2008. With this release Firefox is set to show doors to IE legacy.