Changing my browser

I have to admit to being one of those stubborn types who insisted on using Netscape despite those occasional problems when websites didn't display or work properly. For some people Internet Explorer represents the horrible dominance of Microsoft, but with Netscape now owned by one of the biggest media organisations in the world (TimeWarner AOL), that really is no reason for continuing to stick with Netscape.

So my reason is this: a cute little function hidden away in Netscape that allows you to have more than one homepage. This is how you do it: open up all the webpages you want as your homepages (the other nice thing about Netscape is the way it allows you to have a series of pages on different tabs, rather than as separate windows as in Explorer). Go to Edit > Preferences and select the Navigator tab. Under Home Page click Use Current Group. Want another reason? How about security issues with IE?

The one problem is it does mean your browser takes longer to boot up (which is why at home I use Explorer and set the homepage to Blank).

Meanwhile, Mozilla's Firefox is making up significant ground on the two big names, as it hits version 1.0. It includes a clever little search function, apparently. I finally tried it today and have to admit to being an instant convert. It's fast, intuitive in design and combines the best of both Netscape and Explorer. This includes multiple homepages too.

UPDATE (23.Nov.04): Firefox is already cutting into IE's market, according to CNET - although IE still has 90% share.