I have used Internet Explorer (I.E.) for more than ten years prior to using Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. These are the three browsers in comparison and the parameters for the comparison are speed, cost, graphic interface, tabs features, additional softwares like Add-ons, and their recovery modes.
Of all three, Mozilla Firefox is my favourite. My reason for choosing firefox is cost, familiar graphic interface, security, add-ons and session restore modes as it has the best in each class. Firefox is an alternative to I.E. after the famous legal battle of Netscape Navigator and I.E. As it started in the open source camp, it embraced the philosophy of freedom from cost and free license. Chrome, a new comer in 2008 is the new kid on the block. Although Chrome has a distant relationship to Konqueror and is a cousin to the Safari web browser (mostly used in MAC OS), both share the speedy WebKit rendering engine. Chrome on Windows is my second choice.
I have been using Firefox on Windows and now on Ubuntu. Its features have improved over that of I.E., retaining certain familiar graphic interface like I.E. For example, 'Favourites' is 'Bookmarks' in Firefox. However, It is much faster compared to I.E. no matter how many tabs are opened. In fact, the tab-browsing innovation originated from Firefox in the open-source system. The tab feature increased the speed of opening image files without leaving the current window, and less disturbing as it avoids filling your desktop with new, loading and unorganised windows.The loading time is also much shorter and no background click noise, which is annoying with I.E.
My recent experience using broadband service of TIME Telecommunication Sdn Bhd differentiated the two browsers greatly. I.E. often encounters “The page cannot be displayed” notice when opening up a new window. It is frustrating to encounter such incidence, prompting to restart the browser again and again. We have encountered incidence of one successful connection every 3 wasted attempts for a new web page. Conversely, there is no such issue with Firefox running on Ubuntu at all.
Hence, I suspected that Internet Explorer being a Windows based browser is more suitable for home users. As most servers are running on Linux based OS, Firefox on Ubuntu is superior in compatibility on corporation computers. In fact, TIME Telecommunication Sdn Bhd is niche in cabling for internet lease line in major corporate buildings in Malaysia.
Firefox 3.5 is the most recent release which claims to load in 1.5s! It is almost instant in browsing frequent sites like search engines, and such demand of speed is justified with the recent upgraded broadband connections to 1.0Mbps (megabit per second) to 2.0Mbps by Streamyx. A plain page of Google Search at www.google.com.my is only 3 kilobytes, therefore it should load instantly (3/1000=0.003s!). Thus, a small programme browser would have a shorter time to load rather than a big programme browser like I.E.
Another key feature of using Firefox in Ubuntu is the open-source security strategy that finds and fix security issues in record time, making Firefox the safest way to surf. As Firefox originated from Open-Source development, the security features and continual emphasis is therefore more superior than other browser in Windows OS.
The last feature which is cool with Firefox is the session restore mode. Upon reloading the browser, the tabs will restore to the sites before previous shut down if the choice was to "Save and Quit". In case of a crash, this feature is useful as restarting the browser will restore back the respective site in exact windows and tabs. For Firefox running on Ubuntu, all these features are automatically pre-set. The danger is that the next user of computer need to be aware of such automatic restore as it may compromise personal privacy.
2. Discuss the difference between software you must purchase, freeware software, and shareware software. Why would you pay for software when you can get software free?
Example of softwares are below.
- Proprietary software - Windows Microsoft Office Suite (Small Business)
- Freeware software - Antivirus software: AVIRA
- Shareware software - PDF reader/creator: PrimoPDF
Proprietary softwares are licensed copy of the original software developed by programmers – usually employed by a corporation, with proper copyright patent and sold for a profit. The team of programming engineers are usually deployed to work on the full research and development of the software until the software is being put to use, first as Beta Release and debugged to yield the stable programme later on. The software is updated and refined over time, with the team of programmers fully dedicated to the entire development of its life cycle.
This type of softwares are usually sold at a high cost, supported by a team of sales and marketing personnel. They usually comes packed with after sales service 24, 7 with product warranty. The proprietary softwares have legal ownership thus, are restricted in their distribution. Consequently, legal action can be exercised on its duplication or installation on other machines without specific 'product key' individually assigned to the purchaser.
Freewares like most antivirus programmes are distributed free of charge. They are commonly downloaded directly or through a mirror site like Softpedia or Cnet from the Internet. They come in various stages of the development, some stable and some are at Beta Release of development. Some are debugged and functional near to a proprietary software but many are still with some remnant issues, especially with incompatibility to certain Operating System, or later version of the OS.
Freewares are developed by individuals or corporation not-for-profit. At early stage, they are developed for one of more purposes which may have no relation to the eventual usage of the programme. In recent time, more and more corporation are developing freewares downloadable with intention to boost its presence in the IT world. As they mature over time, these developers later on earn a fee for consultation or selling variants of the freewares which are more stable and staffed with more features.
The term shareware, popularized by Bob Wallace, refers to proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability or convenience. Shareware is usually offered as a trial version with certain features only available after the license is purchased, or as a full version, but for a trial period. I have been using PrimoPDF for half a year, and I keep on receiving pop ups on reminder to purchase, and emails on their promotion.
There are a few reasons for purchasing certain softwares despite the availability of similar softwares for free. A good example is the office suite by Microsoft Office versus Open Office by the OpenOffice.org. Despite OpenOffice which can now run on Windows platform, many are reluctant to change due to the learning curve and the inconvenience of formats between these two programmes
Alignment and fonts changes when the same file is viewed by the two different word processing programmes. User interface may be pretty similar, in fact, better off for OpenOffice.org. For example, OpenOffice Word comes with PDF and Highlighter buttons built-in. Although nearly similar in the graphic interface, the change from Office Words to OpenOffice Word Processor still requires time and effort. Bearing in mind that the saving in cost may not directly yield increased in productivity in such situation as administrative staff are not computer savvy like IT geeks. The cost saving part for using OpenOffice is the ability to open, for example, DOCX without having to upgrade to Office Suite 2007, if the organization choose to keep using the Microsoft Office 2003.
Another major issue is the support that comes along with the proprietary software, hence the 'peace of mind' when it comes to trouble shooting and issue of incompatibility with existing softwares. New security updates and signatures are automatically downloaded when connected to Internet, rendering the programme minimal disruption to daily activities. Upgrades to later version usually are supported as the developer of the proprietary software are dependable to its further sales for business continuity as well as sustainability. More proprietary softwares are also developed on the Windows platform, and though they come with a cost, using them have become a norm nowadays as most computers are running on Windows OS.
Some softwares being so well entrenched in their specialised profession, are developed for such niche and hence need to be running on certain platform only. For instance, AUTOCAD softwares are only running on Windows OS. The architects and engineers familiar with AUTOCAD softwares from their apprentice days would refuse a change that would jeopardize their productivity.
Other examples are Google Earth and Skype. They too, are already matured on Windows OS, yet at their infancy on Linux or MAC OS. Although there are available versions of Google Earth for Linux and Skype for Linux, inconvenience of setting changes and looking for drivers supports are the major obstacles to their common use. I have been trying to run Google Earth for Ubuntu on the same PC which I run Google Earth on Windows, the graphic and performance are greatly compromised.
3. Commercial Products versus Open-source Products
Commercial Product – Windows based Microsoft Office Word
Comparison product in Open-source
1. Word Processor from OpenOffice.org
2. Kword from Koffice.org
OpenOffice.org Word Processor and KWord are the programme I use to create this answer script. Click on the PDF button would enable the document to be printed into PDF format without having to install a PDF Writer like PrimoPDF. The highlighter can add your choice of colours over the text. These are the two most useful features that I like most in OpenOffice.org Word.
Comparison shows that the features in OpenOffice.org are over and above of Microsoft Office Word. For instance, it has extra buttons for PDF and highlighter incorporated in the menu icon bar. In fact, open-source software tends to include all of the major features of the commercial product and in addition, they incorporate further features for free and free of legal entanglements. Using the above example, PDF writer from another developer need to agree to incorporate into Windows Office Word. And for Microsoft, they would rather leave the legal entanglements aside by dropping the extra feature, unless it is native in its development.
Kword by Koffice.org is also an open-source word processing programme which is really 'cool'. Its approach is more graphical driven as the document is generated right from the beginning to incorporate the final print formats of colour or column type. The words are then typed into the space block out for text, with adjustment of inserting pictures, charts into a frame later on.
Kword has a unique way of managing your text and other content using frames. Clip-arts and pictures will be wrapped in a frame which make it easy to move them around, scale and rotate and even skew them in a consistent way. Frames do not have to be square and you can insert a 'smiley' and make the text run around the actual shape of the content. Also useful is that any frame can be anchored to the text flow allowing the image to move with the text while editing.
Supports from the proprietary software are both written and available from the 'Help' pulldown menu – for live help over the Internet, e.g. Microsoft Help and Support. Books are written for the proprietary softwares like Windows Microsoft Office Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. It is harder to find books on Kword or OpenOffice.org Word Processor, though.
For OpenOffice.org, technical support is available at their support site at www.support.openoffice.org, and the community forum is a great source of find the answers to some technical issues. Web based tutorials are also useful, and they are all available via the Internet.
The support for Kword is not as friendly as OpenOffice.org Word Processor. The site at
http://userbase.kde.org is technical and probably not suited to beginners. Again, due to its developers being from the OpenOffice.org movement, they are technically from separate schools.
Open-source software offers a viable alternative to the commercial product. As they have developed better Open-Source softwares running on Windows over the years, the Windows-Linux-MAC divide is coming down. For example, Firefox is a good example of a browser originated from Open-Source now available and stable running on Windows. OpenOffice.org is also available for Windows XP and Vista.
Another significant development is that more people are accustomed to using duo-boot computers nowadays. Apple computers offer the choice of parallel boot with MAC OS and Windows. Windows OS PC can be live boot with Ubuntu, Fedora, etc and installed as 'you feel like it'. In recent time, Linux based OS have been developed with clean graphic interface for home users. In fact, there is a trend towards the use of Ubuntu on Laptops, where DELL may pre-load all their Notebooks with Ubuntu before shipping to their customers. Affected by economic downturn, all are to cut cost and increase more features of the Open-Source Applications to boost sales.
The choice is on the users to familiarize with the new applications. Free softwares, however may come with strings attached. The connotation of 'free' carries various implications in IT. 'Free' may actually means paying more in learning curve later on, or 'a lesson' learned a hard way due to incompatibility or crashes that destroyed the storage data eventually in an enterprise computer. 'Free' may also mean the software are illegally obtained, thus bypassing payment of a fee. Such condition is unethical, but commonly done as 'pirated copies' are freely circulated in the Internet. Such 'free' softwares may be infected with malwares and the consequences can be detrimental, resulting a total destruction of corporation information infrastructure.
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