Why I Like Firefox

Frequently, a client will lament how long it takes Internet Explorer to load, and I will suggest that we check out Firefox. Almost all mention immediately that Firefox is much faster. Speed alone is ample reason to prefer Firefox. Recently, however, I encountered another compelling feature of Firefox.

A client suddenly started getting certificate errors when attempting to access web email. IE cheerfully states the web site's certificate is expired or not yet valid, and when you click on "More information," it does warn about entering private information, but does not give a clue regarding the cause of the problem. One could logically conclude that the web site probably had an expired certificate, based on the information at hand.

Conversely, Firefox cut right to the chase, and stated that the certificate was set to become valid on a "future date," and displayed the date/time to which the client's computer itself was currently set. As it turns out, the client's computer was set to three years earlier. No wonder the certificate was not yet valid! Thanks to Firefox, the problem was easy to diagnose and fix. This is just another reason I like Firefox.