HTML and CSS Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURE 1.5
Microsoft
Internet Explorer
(Windows 7).
1
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free, open source web browser that enjoys more than 30% of the
browser market as of June, 2010. Netscape Navigator was the first popular commercial
web browser. Version 1.0 was released in 1994. In 1998, Netscape Communications
opened the source code to its web browser and assigned some staff members to work on
making it better. Seven years and many releases later, the result of that effort was Mozilla
Firefox. Netscape Communications, since acquired by America Online, no longer has
any official ties to the Mozilla Foundation, which is now an independent nonprofit
organization.
Firefox has become popular in large part because it is free from the security issues that
plague Internet Explorer. In addition, a large number of Firefox extensions improve the
browser experience, and Firefox has done a good job of keeping up with web standards
as they have evolved. Firefox is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux and is a
free download at
http://www.mozilla.com.
I recommend that you use Firefox as you work through this topic, for two reasons. The
first is that there are a number of Firefox add-ons that will make your life much easier
when you develop websites. I discuss them in Lesson 2. The second is that getting your
pages to work in Firefox is a good place to start before you test them in other browsers.
Generally speaking, it's easier to make a page that works in Firefox work in Internet
Explorer than it is to make a page that works in Internet Explorer work in Firefox (along
with the other browsers).
