Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer comes with Windows and is necessary to display some web pages.
But, about 75% of Internet Explorer users have an obsolete version.
Internet Explorer 6 was released on August 27, 2001. The end-of-life support for Internet Explorer 6 is July 13, 2010. If you are still using IE 6 (or, heaven forbid, an older version), you should upgrade to the IE 8. But, you must be using XP Service Pack 2 or 3, or Vista.
To see what version you have, go to the top menu item "HELP" and choose "About Internet Explorer."
You can get Internet Explorer 8 from the Internet Explorer 8 Home Page.
Firefox
We highly recommend Firefox, which can be downloaded from here.
Firefox can coexist with Internet Explorer. Both can be installed. Both can be run at the same time, if you wish.
When you install Firefox, it will offer to copy your Internet Explorer "Favorites" and make them into Firefox "Bookmarks."
Firefox is much more secure than Internet Explorer. It doesn't use Active X, which allows websites to execute programs on your computer--which could be spyware, adware, or other malware. Firefox has also been patched so that it is immune to some critical (as of October 20) security flaws that affect Internet Explorer and some other browsers.
If security isn't enough incentive, Firefox add-ons can customize Firefox in a way that makes your web surfing faster and more enjoyable. From within Firefox, go to TOOLS and then ADD-ONS. Then choose "GET ADD-ONS" and use the search box. At a minimum, we recommend the following add-ons:
- Adblock Plus - Blocks ads and banners on web pages
- IE Tab - Allows a web page to be displayed in a Firefox tab, but rendered by Internet Explorer
- IE View - Allows the current page or a selected link to be temporarily or permanently displayed in a new Internet Explorer window.
There are over 5000 Firefox ad d-ons, so use Google to discover the most popular or most highly recommended add-ons.
Chrome
As much as we love Firefox, you may also want to try Chrome, from Google. Compared to any other browser, it is super fast, and it has one very useful feature: it doesn't have a separate box for searching. Just type your search terms in the location bar at the top (the same place you would normally type a URL such as http://www.google.com). Chrome distinguishes between URLs and everything else, so it treats everything else as a Google search request.
