Codefez.com, the Borland community site offers a lengthy and very valuable Review of Firefox 1.0, seen with a developer's point of view. A few extracts:
About Tabbed browsing:
"I know that when I have to use a browser that does not support [tabbed browsing], it is a bit like trying to ride a bicycle that is missing one of its peddles. I can still manage to get around the web, but the experience is not nearly as pleasant or intuitive as when using Firefox or Mozilla."
Open Standards and the need for them:
Mozilla and FireFox are built on top of open standards. Other browsers encourage developers to use proprietary API's that fragment the Internet community and lock unsuspecting users into single platform solutions, thus depriving users of freedom and limiting everyone's options. Proprietary API's can sometimes supply developers with useful tools, but they bind everybody, developers and users alike, to solutions designed to benefit not the public at large, but the needs of a single corporation. Both Firefox and Mozilla support standards developed by internationally recognized committees such as the World Wide Web Consortium.
Document Inspector and Venkman (Developer tools)
Developers will also appreciate the advanced JavaScript and HTML debugging tools that come with Mozilla and Firefox. These tools are greatly superior to anything else I have seen in any browser or toolset when it comes to helping you debug complex web pages. The available tools include a javascript debugger, a DOM inspector, and a number of add-ins that can provide hundreds of custom features for developers. This is not the place to explore these tools, but many of these tools are rich enough to merit exploration in lengthy technical articles. You need not install these advanced features if they do not interest you. If you do install them, they are discreetly kept out of the way, and will not hinder you during normal browsing sessions.
Gecko as a platform:
the Gecko rendering engine is a platform in itself. If you are a developer looking to create advanced, cross platform web applications, there are a number of rich API's available from the Mozilla web site that can help you build standard conformant solutions to complex development problems. Visit the Mozilla developer page to get started on this quest.
Overall, a great analisys of what is Firefox and why it's important. Good job! (thanks to Fred for the link).
