There are so many blogs out there that run on Wordpress and depend on its user interface and functionality: Pulse 2.0, TechCrunch, GigaOM, StartupSquad, Profy and Mashable just to name a few. When new versions of the software are released, you should expect that its major functionalities are bug free. I wish I could say that about Wordpress 2.1 which I have been not too happy with since upgrading. I may be the only one who is having this issue, but the biggest problem is that it does not work with Internet Explorer 6.0 or 7.0 correctly. Below is a screen shot of the back-end of Wordpress when writing a blog post whether you are TechCrunch or GigaOM and using Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox.

The difference is that when you’re using Internet Explorer, shows up and you can’t even click on the form to write the post. This is a major problem because this forces publishers like myself to switch to Firefox when writing posts. As a developer myself, I understand that ensuring compatibility with Internet Explorer can sometimes be tricky because the browser may not follow W3C standards. But the reality is that Microsoft Internet Explorer still has the largest market-share for Internet browsers.

Sometimes you may end up on computers that will not allow you to install Firefox because you may not have admin privelages. Does that mean I should be stuck not having the ability to update my own blog because of Wordpress flaws? This is a call to all Wordpress developers to integrate Internet Explorer compatibility. I’m certain that the publishing community would appreciate it.

I finally concocted the perfect mix of Firefox 2.0 add-ons including themes, plug-ins, and toolbars.

First is selecting a theme that is aesthetic and also complies with the text color of other toolbars. Rhetorically speaking, how cool does this theme look [screen show below]! The Firefox theme is called Metal Lion - Vista and is available for download [here]

[The scrollbars look like iTunes and the navigational scheme looks like Internet Explorer 7.0]

Secondly, there is a plugin called the Tab Effect which was Life Hackers’ Download of the Day on January 11, 2007. Here is a sample image of switching between tabs from the Mozilla web site:

And lastly are the toolbars…

Make sure to get the Google Toolbar, FoxyTunes Toolbar, and Facebook Toolbar. I used to have the Compete Toolbar, but uninstalled it because of its interference with Google search results. And also because the Alexa Toolbar is only supported for Internet Explorer, the alternative for Firefox is Quirkbiz’s SearchStatus which displays the Alexa and Google PageRank information at the bottom-right.

There you have it, folks. Firefox can’t get any better when you have those add-ons.

At the beginning of the year, Firefox was used by 9.6% of all Internet users.  By the end of 2006, Firefox was used by 14% of Internet users, which is a 50% increase in one year.  Despite releasing a new version of Internet Explorer (IE), Microsoft took a hit in the browser market this past year.  Internet Explorer marketshare dropped from 85.1% to 79.6%.

Apple Computer Inc.’s Safari browser jumped from 3.1% to 4.2%.  Opera Web browser grew from 0.6% to 0.9%.  Lastly, AOL LLC’s Netscape dropped from 1.24% to 0.9%.

In October, Firefox Version 2.0 was released and since then Firefox users have been continuously growing.  I believe that part of Firefox’s growth is also responsible for Internet Explorer’s application slower load time.  I noticed that Internet Explorer 7.0 was exceptionally slower than Firefox.  However, the new build of Internet Explorer definetely has catered to users that prefer tabbed browsing.  For PC/Mac users that have 2.0 GHz+ processors, I believe that the application load time difference between IE and Firefox may not be as noticeable.

[Source: Computerworld]

It wasn’t too long ago when Mozilla released Firefox 2.0, but now the company has released the specifications that will be placed into Firefox 3 in a wiki format. The software development life cycle is expected to complete within 12 months. The team is developing Firefox 3.0 based on the Gecko 1.9 Roadmap format which is what Mozilla had followed for the Firefox 2.0 development as well.

One of the new expected features of Firefox 3 is called “places” which will be placed to the left of the tabs. This is similar to the “Add to Favorites” and “Favorites Center” feature in Internet Explorer 7.0.

As far as tabbed browsing goes, Firefox will also implement a feature so that new tabs will open to the right of the active tab, which is also similar to Internet Explorer 7.0. However, a new feature that is unique will allow a group of URLs to open on one click of bookmarks.

According to TGDaily.com, another feature that will be improved from Firefox 2 is a feature that the new Internet Explorer lacks, which is auto-saving data in forms and posts. As a blogger, I have experienced the loss of data when writing posts by accidentally clicking on a link that replaces the page that I am writing the post on. Microsoft has added an alert button to alleviate this problem, but in some circumstances the alert does not show up. TGDaily reports: “version 3.0 will have increased session saving capabilities, including the ability to save all data logged in a single session, such as data entered into forms and posts, and the entire page viewing history.”

Mozilla and Microsoft has been having a browser war for quite some time now. In my opinion, I think that it is somewhat frustrating that between both browsers, one supports a tool that another browser doesn’t, so it is difficult to settle on one browser.

The tools I am referring to is the Facebook and Alexa toolbars. Internet Explorer supports the Alexa toolbar, but Firefox doesn’t. However, Firefox supports the Facebook toolbar, but Internet Explorer doesn’t. In terms of speed though, Firefox is clearly the winner.

Yet when it comes to embedding videos from YouTube on Wordpress and having it work properly, I have had the most luck with Internet Explorer. If anyone has had luck embedding videos on to Firefox while using Wordpress, definitely let me know.