firefox internet_explorer This is the third time I have addressed the issue of Firefox vs. Internet Explorer on this blog. About three years ago, I compared Firefox 1.0 to Internet Explorer 6, and a few months later I wrote about Firefox 2.0 and Internet Explorer 7. Since Firefox 3.0 has already been out for some time, and Internet Explorer 8 is about to be released, it is time to check on what has changed. Considering Firefox’ growing popularity, and the fact that it will be possible to disable Internet Explorer 8 in Windows 7, many Windows administrators will toy with the idea of finally getting rid of IE. In this post, I will cover some of the most commonly discussed criteria relating to the IE vs. Firefox issue. In my next article, I will cover network-related arguments.

Usually, when it comes to the Firefox vs. IE question, security, speed, and web standards are the main issues considered. In my view, all three points are of negligible importance to corporate environments.

Security

Perhaps security really was an issue for IE at one time, when a new IE vulnerability was discovered almost weekly. Since then, the situation has changed fundamentally. Security is now a top priority for Microsoft. However, it is uncertain whether Firefox can improve security for the corporate environment. Firefox’ market share is now at 20%, which makes it an attractive target for the bad guys. It is no coincidence that now, more than ever before, Mozilla is dealing with serious vulnerabilities.

Speed

To be honest, I have never understood the speed discussion. Whether a web page is displayed a few milliseconds earlier or later isn’t really worth considering. The time required to display a page depends mostly on network speed and the load on the web server. Web browser performance has no measureable influence on 99.99% of all cases.

Web Standards

Many people get very emotional about the web standards thing. I can understand this from web developers who have to fight with IE’s rendering engine every day. With IE 8 things will change because Microsoft has finally decided to follow open web standards, but it will take quite some time until the sins of the past are forgotten. However, for a Windows administrator, the web standards argument cannot be settled in favor of Firefox. There are still many web pages out there that follow the IE standard, but only a few that can only be displayed in Firefox. Therefore, it is a dangerous thing to get rid of IE altogether. It is only a matter of time until the first end user will come knocking on your door because some parts of the Internet have become inaccessible.

You might wonder why I am not discussing features that are new to Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3. In my view, they are mostly irrelevant to corporate environments. It is not that I think these features, such as Web slices and Tab Color Grouping in IE8, or the new Gecko engine and web APIs in Firefox 3, are not useful enhancements. Some of them might improve the productivity of end users. However, both browsers have so many of these “gimmick features,” especially if you include the available add-ons, that is almost impossible to compare them on this level. In my opinion, the only thing that really counts, when it comes to deciding which is the best web browser for the corporate environment, are the network-related features. This will be the topic of my next post.