Mozilla Firefox Web Browser Installation 101

There are so many security concerns in the internet today, that choosing the best & secure web browser is the main priority amongst computer end-users. During the early stages of the internet, Microsoft Internet Explorer was winning the adulation of its end-users from its main rivals Netscape & Opera because it has a user friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI). At the onset of the new millennium, several malicious software have surfaced and caused website redirection, hard disk drive data loss, personal information exploitation through data transmittal without consent of the end-user and security threats on the computer.

Of all the malicious software, adware/malware/spyware threats have caused substantial discomfort amongst end-users since it tends not to install software if they know that it will disrupt their working environment and compromise their privacy, spyware deceives users, either by piggybacking in a piece of desirable software, tricking them into installing it and masquerading as security software, while being spyware themselves.

Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser and its rivals faced a daunting task in combating and protecting its end-users against these threats but failed inevitably; this led to the creation of Mozilla Firefox web browser from Mozilla Corporation and a large community of external contributors.

Mozilla Firefox is a cross-platform, graphical web browser providing support for various versions of Linux, Macintosh OS X and Microsoft Windows. Mozilla Firefox uses SSL/TLS to protect communications with web servers using strong cryptography when using the HTTPS protocol. It uses a sandbox security model and the developers use a "bug bounty" scheme, for finding fixes for some security and feature additions. The current stable release of Mozilla Firefox web browser is version 2.0.0.6, released on July 30, 2007.

How to download (Microsoft Windows Operating Systems Only):

1. Click START then locate All Programs, select Internet Explorer and go to http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/ website.
2. If Internet Explorer cannot access any website for any reason, reboot your computer, press F8 during the bootstrap process to access Windows Advanced Startup Options, select SafeMode w/ Networking; then follow the directions in Step1.
   
3. If everything fails both in the Normal and Safe Mode operation, you can still download Mozilla Firefox v1.8.0.2004052009 through FTP.

• Click START then locate RUN, type CMD or COMMAND in the window. A smaller window prompts, which is the MS-DOS screen.
• In the MS-DOS screen, type "cd.." twice to change the directory to c:\
• In the c:\ prompt, type "ftp 204.152.184.113" and press ENTER.
• You will be prompted
  
• Connected to 204.152.184.113.
  
• 220 Welcome to mozilla.isc.org.
• User <204.152.184.113:>: You are prompted for a username, type anonymous then press ENTER.
• 331 Please specify the password. Password: You are prompted for a password, type your email address (noemail@noemail.com) and press ENTER. (Please be advised that it will not display the characters of your e-mail address; please be careful since this is case sensitive)
• 230 Login Successful.
  
• ftp> type "cd pub/mozilla.org/mozilla/releases/mozilla1.8a1" and press ENTER.
  
• 250 Directory successfully changed.
• ftp> type "binary" and press ENTER.
• 200 Switching to Binary Mode.
• ftp> type "lcd c:\" and press ENTER.
• Local directory now C:\
• ftp> type "get mozilla-win32-1.8a1-installer.exe" and press ENTER.
• 200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
• 150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for mozilla-win32-1.8a1-installer.exe <12404944>. During this process it is currently downloading the Mozilla Firefox web browser from the FTP Server, please wait a couple of minutes (depending on the internet connection speed or throughput; for dialup end-users this may take approximately 10-30 mins while for dsl/cable (broadband) end-user this may take approximately 5-10 mins to download on your computer).
• Click START then locate My Computer (XP) or Computer (Vista), select Local Disk (C:) and locate mozilla-win32-1.8a1-installer.exe file.

I truly hope this post would serve its purpose. Enjoy!

Feel free to send me an e-mail at borgy1981@hotmail.com for any concern related to this post.