The article points out, though, that Mozilla 1.01 and Mozilla 1.1 are only vulnerable to the last, least severe security problem. Which means Netscape 7.0 is most likely vulnerable

So make sure you upgrade to either Mozilla 1.01 or Mozilla 1.1 :)

Sorry if the title (theirs) seemed like scare tactics. The article does say that Mozilla 1.01 and 1.1 are only vulnerable to one of six security issues in the article. But the Mozilla site linked to at the bottom of the article lists <a href="http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/known-vulnerabilities.html"twelve other vulnerabilities</a> of Mozilla (some affecting 1.01), though none of them seem to affect Mozilla 1.1.

And the difference between IE and Mozilla is that the open source project tries to move quickly to correct any security flaws. Whereas MS has sat on known security issues for months without issuing a patch.

That's the true advantage of open source. All bugs become transparent. All fixes quickly integrated into new releases on a more frequent schedule than in proprietary programs.

Excellent point! The assumption is that some people using the program have the skills to correct the bug and make a patch or new release. The entire community has an interest in finding and fixing these bugs.

As if we needed proof...this article describes and points to a list of 101 reasons why Mozilla is better than Internet Explorer. The top items from this list include tabbed browsing, popup blocking, and script limiting.

In principle, I agree with the idea that Mozilla is better. However, I have to say that Explorer still provides a better subjective browsing experience. It's nothing concrete, the product simply "feels" more refined. Chimera, on the Mac, gets closer to the experience of IE, and it's even *faster* at downloading pages, but it still feels a little clunky compared to IE.

What do you mean by "feels more refined?" IE is certainly faster at booting up than NN, but I think Mozilla is faster than either. Are there particular features of IE that make it feel more refined?

What do you mean by "feels more refined?"

Well, I hate to be this picky about it, but it comes down to things like this:

When you boot up Explorer, the panel giving the name of the application opens up all at once, presenting a nice, clean image for the program. With Mozilla, first a blank box appears, then the cute dinosaur. Looks clunky.

Mozilla takes substantially longer to load than Explorer. Then, when I type a URL in the location bar, the cursor doesn't precisely align with the text, and there's a slight delay as I type each character. Again, clunky.

Finally, Mozilla is buggy displaying ads on Macslash, which causes some of the comment text to be obscured as I read. Not just clunky, but downright annoying.

Chimera solves most of these problems, but it renders text inadequately, and its options for selecting fonts don't seem to work. I'm learning to live with that, and I'm willing to put up with it for the speed advantage it offers over Explorer. But Chimera is slow rendering nytimes.com, so sometimes I find myself opening Explorer just to read that site. A couple hours later, I'm still using Explorer.

As far as the 101 features, I don't use most of them, so they're not really issues for me. I do pay attention to the basics, though--and right now Explorer handles the basics better for me.

In short, the only reason I try to use Chimera most of the time is because I'm philosophically in support of open source. Unfortunately, I don't think most people are willing to sacrifice comfort and ease of use for an abstract philosophical concept.

"When you boot up Explorer, the panel giving the name of the application opens up all at once, presenting a nice, clean image for the program. With Mozilla, first a blank box appears, then the cute dinosaur. Looks clunky."

In Windows, on current machines, the blank box never appears since the image is rendered quickly. And by the way, one must always remember that Mozilla was designed by developers for open source--thus the "cute dinosaur." Developers are more inclined to worry about the code. While on this note: I recommend using the optional "Pinball" theme for Mozilla 1.0 and above (download from theme sites available through get themes option). It uses smaller icons, less text, so it significantly reduces the amount of screen donated to application, rather than web page. It's based on the modern interface, so it's less "clunky" than both the modern and the classic.

"Mozilla takes substantially longer to load than Explorer. Then, when I type a URL in the location bar, the cursor doesn't precisely align with the text, and there's a slight delay as I type each character. Again, clunky." One has to remember that Mozilla is truly cross-platform, whereas, most likely, IE for Mac has been rewritten to load faster for Mac OSX. In Windows, once loaded, Mozilla tends to execute pages at least as fast, if not faster, than IE in most situations.

"Finally, Mozilla is buggy displaying ads on Macslash, which causes some of the comment text to be obscured as I read. Not just clunky, but downright annoying." Well, that could be a w3c compliance issue, where macslash has opted to make their site more IE compliant.

"But Chimera is slow rendering nytimes.com, so sometimes I find myself opening Explorer just to read that site." Then use Mozilla, but use the tabs. Thus, open tabs for articles you want to read, but click back to the current one. By the time you get back, Mozilla will have opened the pages. Before having cable access at home, Mozilla was a blessing because of this capability.

Once you go tabbed browsing, as well as no more popup ads, you can't go back :)

In Windows, on current machines, the blank box never appears since the image is rendered quickly.

I finally broke down and installed Mozilla on the public (windows) machine I use at work. You're right--but of course, this doesn't help me when I'm working at home.

And by the way, one must always remember that Mozilla was designed by developers for open source--thus the "cute dinosaur."

I actually kind of like the dinosaur--I just don't like the "clunky" way it shows up on a Mac. But why should we have to make such allowances for open source software? Isn't the claim that open source is better than proprietary software? What the Mozilla developers should do is borrow the startup screen code from Chimera, which loads just fine. The cursor problem is a bigger one, and I'm noticing it right now on typing in this dialog box on Windows. Again, if Chimera can get this right, why can't Mozilla?

In Windows, once loaded, Mozilla tends to execute pages at least as fast, if not faster, than IE in most situations.

Actually, it loads pages faster in Mac OS as well. My objection was with the startup time, where in the Mac OS Mozilla isn't handicapped the way it is in Windows, since Microsoft loads IE into memory on startup. With equal access to the underlying operating system, it seems like it should be possible to make an open source program that loads as fast as a proprietary one.

"Finally, Mozilla is buggy displaying ads on Macslash, which causes some of the comment text to be obscured as I read. Not just clunky, but downright annoying." Well, that could be a w3c compliance issue, where macslash has opted to make their site more IE compliant.

I think actually it's just a problem with the Mac version of Mozilla. I just visited Macslash on the PC version, and it works fine.

Once you go tabbed browsing, as well as no more popup ads, you can't go back :)

I know these things are big deals for a lot of people, but I don't really see them as problems. Popunders don't really bother me. Popups are annoying, but most legitimate sites don't use them since they are so annoying. The other thing is, it seems to me that the popup blocking actually takes longer (on my DSL line) than browsing without it. And, in Chimera at least, it hasn't been perfectly executed--sometimes when I WANT a popup it doesn't work.

Tabbed browsing strikes me as more of a benefit for Windows users than Mac users: since Macs don't put menus in every window, just opening up new windows doesn't use up too much screen real estate. Also, using two windows is handier for copying and pasting between windows.

All that said, using Mozilla on Windows is definitely better than the equivalent Mac experience. I'll probably put it on all the PCs here at work! (I'm not in charge of them or anything, so in some ways I'm being a little subversive by doing this :-))