In the past couple of weeks, I’ve described how the free Firefox browser (from www.mozilla.org) is safer and more powerful than Internet Explorer. It’s a better way to use the Web.

Many people have e-mailed me questions about Firefox. Here are the answers in case you had similar concerns:

Q. Do I have to uninstall Internet Explorer after the Firefox download?

A. No, not at all. Web browsers are simply programs, like word processors or computer games, so you can have one or many on your computer. And not only can you have multiple browsers installed on your hard drive, but you can generally run more than one browser at the same time. Each browser program, when started, will open its own window, and will check to see if your computer has an Internet connection, like someone picking up the phone to see if there’s a dial tone. Or like two televisions, side by side, each picking up the same broadcast or cable TV signal.

Then the browsers can share the connection, each getting and sending bits as it needs. You may not be able to run multiple versions of the same browser at the same time, such as Internet Explorer 4 and Internet Explorer 5, but then there’s really no good reason for anyone but a software tester to ever do that.

In fact, I think you should keep Internet Explorer installed on your computer, because there are some Web sites – such as a few banks and online shopping sites – that won’t work with Firefox. Yet. The programmers of those Web sites have used special parts of Internet Explorer that aren’t in Firefox, features that aren’t better but are different from what non-Microsoft programs offer. (These same special parts are often the parts of Internet Explorer most appreciated by virus makers, which is a key reason Internet Explorer is a lot less secure than Firefox.)

Q. Can I still use my Yahoo e-mail and home page with Firefox?

A. Yes, certainly. Firefox will work with Yahoo just fine. And you can set the home page to anything you want, in the Tools, Options, General menu. After you set that, you probably won’t even notice that you’re using a new browser. (Well, if you turn on Firefox’s built-in pop-up blocker, and use some of the other advanced features, you’ll notice a change, a good change.)

Q. Do I need Windows XP to use Firefox? (Upgrading would mean spending a lot on upgrades of many of my programs.)

A. No way. One of the best parts of the Firefox life is not having to upgrade. You can stick with your Windows 98, ME or XP, with Macintosh OSX or Linux. And it should remain true as new versions of Firefox come out. It’s a key part of the mission of the Firefox team. Contrast that with the Internet Explorer approach, where Microsoft says you can’t get new versions until and unless you upgrade your entire Windows operating system. And that will mean paying to upgrade many other programs too.

Q. I’m an old guy. Can you explain things in more detail, and simpler, for old guys?

A. I get this kind of letter a lot, in response to all topics. I don’t know if it’s the humility of age, or the media bombardment that only young people who grew up digital can really understand computers. But it’s just not true. The only connection I see to youth is that young people often have a lot more time on their hands to fiddle with computers, to play with them, which builds up a mental library of ways to guess how to operate new programs and hardware.

Even then, technology still isn’t designed right. I grew up digital and have been using computers for a long time, nearly every day, analyzing, building, studying them. And yet I regularly bump into problems.

Just this weekend I spent way too many hours trying to figure out why my wireless Internet connection would not work. I kept switching from one wireless card to another, reinstalling and reconfiguring software, testing at home and at a WiFi hot spot, reading tips online and suggestions in books at the bookstore, and I still can’t make it work right.

What I really wanted, needed, was someone expert in this particular part of technology, someone I could call. Because the easiest way to fix something is to talk to someone, not e-mail questions, not look into book indexes, not google for the answer online.

Computers and their software are still far, far too difficult to use. It’s not getting easier and it won’t soon. Yet technical support is vanishing instead of growing stronger. Don’t tell me that an industry that has created so many millionaires and billionaires couldn’t have afforded to have spent a little more of that wealth actually serving its customers.

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(Phillip Robinson is founder of the OpenMinds.us Internet service. He can be reached at techviewsmyway.com.)

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(c) 2004, Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

AP-NY-10-20-04 0624EDT