Why Use Mozilla/Firefox

Why use Mozilla/Firefox?

Mozilla and Firefox are both state of the art, open source browsers. Mozilla is a full suite of browser, email and newsgroup reader, html editor, and ChatZilla. Firefox is a state of the art browser aimed to be sleek and fast. Both Mozilla and Firefox are the fastest developing browsers these days.

Lets consider about features common to both first:

Tabbed Browsing

Tabbed browsing is one of the best features in Mozilla browsers which make them very convinient to use. With a "CTL+T" one can get a new tab for browsing, without genearting a clutter in the task bar.
Tabbed browsing allows one to open tabs related to same subject of browsing in one window. This helps in keeping different browsing interests in separate windows. Normally, one keeps similar interest links in one folder in Bookmarks. In Firefox you can open all the links in a Bookmark folder with a single mouse-click.

Pop-up Blocking

Another very sleek feature is the "Pop-up Blocking". Pop-ups have become nasty annoyance these days. But the pop-up blocking ability is there to help. One can block the pop-ups from arbitrary website and peacefully browse the net. In case one requires to use the pop-ups, they can be easily allowed from the Preferences/Options panel.
Nowadays, pop-up blocking is becoming default feature in other browsers too. For those which don't have it, one can always use toolbars like Google Toolbar, Yahoo! Toolbar, etc.

Text Size Resizing

One of the features of Mozilla browsers which is not as popular as the ones above, is resizing of the text shown in the browser. Text size can be increased by "CTL++" and decreased by "CTL+-". This feature is attractive for people with bad eyesight, who can easily increase the text size to which ever is convinient to them. Also with increasing use of high resolution screens, text is rendered according to resolution which might be too small for many viewers. Text resizing comes in handy in this situation.

User Interface customization

UI of Mozilla can be customized to a great extent. For example, the Bookmark/History toolbar can be moved to the right side instead of the default left side.

Quick Searching

Mozilla browsers have another nice feature. They use "Mycroft"-the search plugin having the same features as "Sherlock" of MacOS. Quick searches can be performed using the "Search" toolbar. Search plugins for Google, dictionary search, etc. can be found on Mycroft site. If one is adventurous, one can develope new plugins for Mycroft and contribute to the project too.

Find-as-You-Type

Another feature most often used when browsing is the "Find as You Type". This feature allows the user to type in a string and the browser finds its first occurence automatically. By default the browser tries to find a link matching the typed string. Browser behaviour to find links/text in the web page can be toggled by hitting "/"(text) or "'"(link) before typing the string. The best part of the feature is that it finds the string without poping up any window(as in IE).

A few features make Firefox a good choice if the requirement is only internet browsing.

Extensions

Firefox if installed as shipped contains only a few essential features, making it a lean mean browsing machine. For those who want more and thus make Firefox a heavy weight and much more flexible in browsing: Enter the "Extenstions"*. Extensions are add-ons for Firefox (and generally for Mozilla too) which extend the capability of the browser. Keeping extensions as optional add-ons gives the user a choice to keep the browser small. There are more than 100 extenstions available. The most popular being Adblock, Calendar, HTTP Headers, etc.

*For those who have a slow machine(like mine) or are on a dial-up connection, beware the link for Extensions might take long to load.

Comments and suggestions are welcome. The tabs for features are not yet in correct order, suggestions on order are also welcome. This article is in its first draft mode as of now.