But now competition is again heating up. Mozilla’s Firefox burst onto the scene in a small way but has grown considerably putting a great deal of pressure on Microsoft to tune up and polish Explorer. After all, IE hasn’t seen competition like this in years.

The Bumpy Road of IE
Internet Explorer may be the most well known browser to professionals and casual users alike, but it is by no means perfect. Like many things Microsoft, it is produced with more than a few bugs that take time to identify and work out. And just when the system is working smoothing most of the time, a new version is released that has some improvements, such as tabbed windows and RSS feeds, but also has the kind of bugs that make you wish for something more.

Is Firefox the Answer?
For those sick of dealing with frozen windows, constant updates and slow loads, Firefox has offered a ready alternative for years. Initially Firefox was popular primarily with computer geeks and internet professionals but in recent years has become a household name. Your mother’s computer might be just as likely to have Firefox as it is to have Internet Explorer.

Firefox tends to not only work a bit better – at least according to its fans, but it also has features that Microsoft had to scramble to replicate. Firefox’s primary asset for years was tabbed browsers. Instead of opening multiple windows all over your screen, your windows are nicely contained in a single place and easily accessible by clicking from one tab to the next. Firefox has had these tabs for years. It took Windows eighteen months to create (copy) the idea for IE 7.

Firefox had a few other things going for it with better search features and SEM. Updates are automatic for the most part and even if Firefox has to close to reload after updating, it will often open back to your same windows avoiding the irritation of lost material or non-bookmarked URLs. Firefox has easily accessible history as well with old pages and even old tabs saved for review should you accidentally close a window or need to backtrack quickly.

A Bit of Healthy Competition
When Microsoft announced it was working on Internet Explorer 7, the web community geared up for a serious fight. Internet Explorer was old school, but immensely powerful. Surely it would cream the little upstart that was daring to steal some of its market share. So with the release of IE 7, reviews were almost instantaneous.

IE 7 was certainly new. It had tabbed browsing, RSS features, and updated searches. But even with these new features (which aren’t new anywhere but IE), Microsoft still didn’t hit one out of the park. In fact, according to most industry experts and web professionals, Firefox is still simply better and that’s sure to put a hurt on the big boys of Microsoft.

Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer may be the standard, but it had some flaws. Without competition to make it necessary for continuous improvements, the browser became stale. The features didn’t improve much and bugs didn’t get fixed. Windows would freeze and nothing new was announced – until there was a good reason to do so.

Introducing Firefox
Firefox is nothing new really; it’s been around for years. Its popularity has been steadily increasing through this time until it’s not only popular with techie geeks, but with casual internet users. Until the latest release of Internet Explorer, Firefox had a few features that really made it stand out.

The most obvious of these was the tab viewing. Windows in Firefox opened in tabs. This made it easy to switch between windows and didn’t require extra room on your toolbar. Searching and SEM features were better integrated into Firefox as well. Firefox is easy to use and has plenty of updates with new features. There are relatively few glitches in the browser as well.

Competition Heats Up
With Firefox starting to cut in on its market share, Microsoft stepped up its game. It released Internet Explorer 7 which had many of the same features that had set Firefox apart. Despite the new tabs, feeds and search features on Explorer, Firefox still has a leg up on the browser competition. Explorer is full of bugs. Of course Microsoft is working to get it all fixed, but until it works as smoothly as Firefox has for years, it’s still in need of improvement.