Firefox will live to search another day
For the millions of users who have unplugged from Microsoft’s atrocious Internet Explorer and plugged into Firefox, they will be pleased to learn that Google has signed a new three-year agreement with Mozilla to keep its search engine as the default choice in Firefox.
Financial terms were not disclosed, according to various news reports, Mozilla said that in 2010, approximately 98 per cent of its royalties come from deals with search companies.
However, even if Firefox fades away – as many are predicting – there are other, non-IE choices available. Apple’s Safari is available for the Mac and the PC, the ever resilient Opera and even Google has its own browser in Chrome.
Under the new agreement, Google Search will continue to be the default search provider for Firefox users around the world.
This is great news for web developers who have grown accustomed to Firefox, a relatively stable browser, and the many indispensible extensions, plug-ins and add-ons that assist with project design, coding, work flow and management.
Here are a couple of Market IQ’s can’t-do-without web developoment Firefox extensions, plug-ins and add-ons:
Firebug
Firebug integrates with Firefox and places a barrel full of website development tools at your avail while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. You swap out elements, script and images, view, test and get it right before opening the actual server-side script.
SEO Quake
A great toolbar with dozens of reporting modules on site and page meta content information, page ranking, search engine presence, social media standing, plus much, much more. While Market IQ is a Victoria web development firm, we must consider the web as a whole and competitive analysis requires that we know about the strengths and weaknesses of our client’s competitors. SEO Quake makes this process that much easier and our results that much stronger.
IE Tab
Amazingly, Microsoft Internet Explorer has the most users because IE is bundled in most new Windows installs. Because of this many Websites, pages and online services are written to accommodate IE and not Firefox of the other browsers. With IE Tab installed in Firefox, you can view pages in IE's rendering engine within a Firefox tab, all without having to fully load IE.
LastPass
With a bank vault of passwords, maintaining account order can be a challenge. LastPass is great for encrypting and keeping passwords safe but also easily accessed use. It is also available for IE and Chrome.
FireFTP
Switching between and FTP program and a browser can get tedious. FireFTP integrates the processes. FireFTP loads in a tab and provides all the access FTP access needed without loading a separate program.