Until Mozilla Firebird was released, I'd always used Internet Explorer. And why not? It came pre-installed, and it did what I wanted. I occasionally looked at the alternative - Netscape - but its excess baggage (mail client, newsreader etc) annoyed me, in the same way that "do you want fries with that?" does.

Then Tim pointed me at Mozilla FireBird. (It was called Phoenix, but a certain BIOS manufacturer released its pack of winged monkeys and forced the name change).

I was hooked - it had everything I'd wanted from a browser -- tabs, so I could surf without filling my task bar with windows; automatic pop-up stopping and banner-ad blocking. Cookie and password management. And best of all, a search bar that not only worked, but was customisable with plugins. Adios, IE!

And there's more ...