A couple of disclaimers:
I don't usually get involved in this debate. I have never had any issues with spyware or attacks caused by my use of IE. I am a Microsoft Partner and am by no means a Mozilla Fanboy or anti MS Zealot.
With that said, I can't believe how addicting the extensions to Firefox can become. I've been testing the IE alternative for a few months now and through that time I've added some extensions to it including:
- Foxy Tunes: Allows me to control my media player from within the browser.
- Gmail Manager: Unintrusive monitoring of my gmail accounts lets me know when I have new mail without having to keep tabs open to each page.
- del.icio.us Bookmarks: Easy access to my shared bookmark library both in the sidebar and from the toolbar.
- MeasureIt: Grab pixel dimensions of any object on a web page - very handy.
- Web Developer: A myriad of useful tools for the developer. Allows you to quickly examine structure and style of any web page.
- GreaseMonkey: Allows page side scripting. I imagine that it is very powerful although I only use one script which shows additional charting options on my last.fm profile.
- Roboform Toolbar: Allows access to my roboform login passcards.
A recent upgrade glitch to the roboform extension caused me to revert to IE for a few days until I could devote time to try to recover.
I can't say that using IE was a bad experience - it performs well for me, I like the tabbed browsing, and I find it rather intuitive really. I just really missed this extra functionality that I had grown so accustomed to having available.
I did a cursory check for addons for IE and while the list is small but growing, the sheer number of extensions that are available for Firefox make it a much more customizable tool - and one that I will continue to keep using.
SB
