We here at What's Up have been using the web browser Firefox (the latest and best version of Mozilla, and a superior close cousin of Netscape) for some time now, and highly recommend it. It is stable, safer from spyware and viruses, faster than Internet Explorer, and just as free. When you use Cntl F to search for text on a Web page displayed in Firefox, the search results are displayed without blocking your view of the page itself! That alone is a major improvement over Internet Explorer. Firefox can coexist on your computer with other browsers, and will retain your existing bookmarks or favourites. Click here to learn more about it.

What historian can resist the opportunity to start a new archive? Another advantage of the Firefox web browser is that various free add-on features are available. One that might be of particular interest to historians is called Scrapbook. A free download that sets itself up swiftly and automatically in Firefox, it allows you to save Web pages and easily manage collections. Scrapbook is almost as simple to use as the "bookmark" or "favourites" facility for saving favourite web sites, but instead of linking to the current site, Scrapbook archives particular pages you have chosen to save. So whereas a bookmark or favourite would take you to the very latest front page of a newspaper, Scrapbook allows you to save a particular day's headlines or story: "Liberals Have Nothing to Fear From Gomery Commission", "Bush Says Iraq Has Weapons of Mass of Destruction", "Boston Down and Almost Out", etc. You can save all of a web page or just a snippet. Scrapbook archives the pages in folders you set up, and has a built-in search facility. This could prove a very valuable tool for instructors and students. Click here for the New York Times article on Scrapbook, here for the Scrapbook homepage, and here for an example of how it works.