So I’ve been playing around with Firefox Version 1.0 for a couple of days, and it’s a major improvement over everything. I can see now why it’s a complete version 1.0. I understand the difference since I’ve been using it since it was still on version 0.6 or thereabouts.

So what are the new things I’ve noticed about it that make it slightl special? Well for a start it’s more informative. When it blocks a pop-up it tells you about it. If you which to hear that Firefox has stopped a pop-up it will flag it up, but not in an obtrusive way. It comes right at the top in red writing over a yellow background. Small little icon to tell you ‘Hey just giving you the heads up’, and I really like that.

The find box is no longer some ugly stupid pop-up, it embedded into the browser window on the bottom, so it’s not something that gets in the way that you have to move out of the way. Again it’s the little things in life.

The themes and extensions sections however are the most powerful stuff around. This is what makes Firefox sing. All these brilliant little tools and ideas found for you to use. Here’s a list of the extensions I use:

Adblock - quite simply, you see a flash ad or a normal ad? Click on it and block it. After a day’s browsing hopefully all the servers where these things come from will have been hidden. Surf without adds, popups or embedded into the actual page. Only content for me.

Gmail Notification - I use gmail if you want an invite tell me I’ve got loads. This little extensions basically has the gmail logo in the bottom of my screen nice and cute with a ( 0 ) or whatever number to tell me how many e-mails I’ve got. If I get a few then hey, bang just double click, got my details saved check my mail.

Foxytunes - I like this. Basically small plugin that connects to any of the music players you’ve got on your machine, loads are listed, and you can control them from your web browser. All the buttons are nice and cute next to my g-mail symbol. If it gets too cluttered I can hide the bar and it’s all good.

Final plugin I’m currently using is Google Preview - Go search in google, when the results come up, next to the search you get a small thumbnail of what the actual site looks like. I mean how many times have you searched for something only after clicking do you realise that it’s a pile of crap and not a pro site or whatever so you end up pressing back?

Do you really need any more reason to stop using Internet Explorer?, FIREFOX 1.0 IS HERE. USE IT DAMMIT.