Should webmasters stop promoting Firefox?

As users can do all kinds of things on our sites with it...

[claus]

I promote very few things -- in fact i try actively not to promote anything at all -- yet, i do occasionally find myself promoting Firefox and the open source tools that go with it.

However, in this thread [webmasterworld.com] geekay asked the excellent question:

In msg 16 FF usage is expected to reach the 20–25% mark this year, and maybe much more later. Many will have that obfuscating PrefBar, which will make claus' and other webmasters' vital tracking and marketing research efforts more difficult. Here is the contradiction I'm wondering about.

(...) why it is in the webmasters' interest to promote FF - as you seem to have the knowledge. I'm just confused over what appears to be a conflict of interests in this tracking issue. Is it right to fake UA, etc?

I promised that i would start a thread on this, as it's really an interesting question. For the moment i will keep my own pro's and con's regarding Firefox in the background, as i would like to hear what others have to say on the matter:

Firefox can be used to block a lot of things, and with certain plugins it can split a website to atoms (figuratively speaking). It enables a user to turn on, or off, all kinds of things: Stylesheets, java, flash, javascript, cookies, images, popups, ads, redirects, etc. Also, it is possible for the user to put things on our sites that we did not put there ourselves - from a custom stylesheet to a Google search box, or a special color for "nofollow" links.

- so, being webmasters; should we stop promoting Firefox because of these things? Is it, or is it not against our interest as webmasters to have users with such powerful tools visiting our sites?

What are the benefits that outweigh the consequences, if any?

---
Please stay on topic. Put the webmaster hat on and leave the personal preferences out, if possible. And please, no IE bashing.

[zCat]

I'd guess most of these features will only be employed by "power users". Most of the common customisation features are already around in some form (e.g. in Opera, Mozilla, even IE extensions); the power users will probably be using them anyway whether or not you have a "Get Firefox" logo on your site.

In my experience too much customisation makes surfing uncomfortable to say the least; ever tried logging on to sites without cookies, referers and redirects? As a power user myself I tend only start mucking about with fake UA strings etc. on particularly "troublesome" sites.

As a website owner I'd rather have "empowered" Firefox users than IE users with spyware / toolbar infections which change the contents of my pages for the benefit of third parties. (Of course it's possible Firefox may also suffer from such things once it becomes very widespread).

[Reflection]

Is it, or is it not against our interest as webmasters to have users with such powerful tools visiting our sites?

Well, powerful tools are useless to those who have no knowledge to use them. Actually, I would guess that as Firefox users increase the ratio of 'power users' would decrease.

I think the largest benefit to promoting Firefox is that you are in turn promoting web standards, something that makes the job of a webmaster much easier.

[tedster]

I try to promote the simple awareness that there ARE choices - that a browser is not just "part of your computer". Just that much information is a bear sometimes.

Most users do use or even know about the features that IE offers, so I doubt that they will magically find an interest in power features on a new browser. But most people I get to change do like the fact that their computers seem to have less trouble.

[geekay]

It appears that this is not a hot issue amongst webmasters. I'm not capable of making a comprehensive analysis either, but I presume I'm expected to post something, and I have indeed made a note of a few FF features seen on my own sites. (Whether the PrefBar is formally inofficial or not doesn't mean much. Most FF users are power web users.)

Disabled/faked referrer: Disturbs my tracking research efforts making user behaviour and desires yet more difficult to understand, especially as I proud myself on having so far been able to manage without cookies. (By the way, with FF it's also so easy to thoughtlessly automate deletion of every cookie.) In addition I note that a significant portion of FF users bypass my images' hotlinking filter by giving no referrer.

Ad blocking made easy on FF: many webmasters depend on ads for income.

Statistics according to user agents are less and less meaningful. Paradoxically it seems that FF users, when disguising themselves, prefer to appear as the enemy, that is IE, maybe partly because many lesser sites are still best surfed with IE. Hypocritical? I suspect FF usage is thus actually somewhat larger than can be concluded from web logs.

Strictly speaking, W3C makes recommendations, not formal standards. Proprietary features of browsers and html editors are thus not really "illegal". E.g. W3C doesn't recommend displaying alt text for pictures on hover, and based on that fact this additional use, by IE, of alt is vigorously opposed by many puristics. FF doesn't show the alt text. Personally I think it's not a bad feature and wish it had been a recommendation.

On the other hand, FF is requesting the favicon with each and every page, making tracking of real bookmarking with the aid of favicon totally useless. W3C still makes no recommendation on favicons. I wish they had, or that FF at least would have totally refrained from requesting this item - hey, it is, after all, "nonstandard". It bodes no good for development if the case is that W3C tends to reject MS innovations (like favicon) and favour those of the open source community. Hopefully I'm wrong here, because it's already a tedious task to make sites work perfectly in all major browsers.

FF is undoubtedly a great browser from the user's point of view. However, my original meditation was why a lot of webmasters seem to promote so unselfishly FF before IE. I suspect the answer lies on a much more lofty level than browser features. But discussing why some folks like to call Microsoft "M$" is futile...

[limbo]

From a Design/CSS Stand point I think it very important to promote all compliant browsers, firefox included - the more users with FF means I have more options, it's robust framework gives me more satisfaction when I design, and it supports a wider range of design features - e.g. Alpha Transparency

But most people I get to change do like the fact that their computers seem to have less trouble

Good point, all the people I have got to switch marval at the lack of spyware pop-ups etc.

I am watching an 'average user' with firefox there is very little they do differently to when they were using IE cept maybe the use of tabs. I do not think there are many people who would want to add/remove/alter elements to a page except those users of accessibility software, and in their case FF is a better choice too.

edited: clarification

[faltered]

The web is meant to be an interactive environment. Even though most users don't take advantage of browser custmization, those that do are doing it because of personal preferences. Isn't that the art of the web?

I promote FF to some people because of standards, and will continue to do so. Knowing that users can possibly change our sites around is just part of the game.

[encyclo]

Hoping that if webmasters don't talk about alternative browsers like Firefox then no-one will download it is really a case of sticking one's head in the sand. A few thoughts:

hardly anyone explicitly disables referer logging

firewall and adblocking software such as Norton Internet Security accounts for far more no-referer hits than Firefox

it is hard to disable referers in Firefox without adding extensions (few users do). It is much easier to disable referers in Opera than in Firefox

hardly anyone disables cookies

IE users are more likely to have spyware - which could be overwriting your ads, adding context links to your content, or even replacing your site by theirs in the serps so the user won't visit your site at all

Users will access your site using the tools that they choose, and you can't just hope that the problem will go away. What would you rather see? A Firefox user or an NIS user?

Having said that I have no intention of promoting Firefox, other than the fact that I promote the idea that there are alternative browser choices. I'm happy to recommend Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Konqueror, Safari... It is browser (and OS) diversity which will help the most, not simply one dominant browser being replaced by another.

[Zephryl]

Webmasters should definitely promote firefox.

webmasters' vital tracking and marketing research efforts

When I read this statement, my inner dialog says: "Waste my time"
Whether it be r/c'ing my step mother's computer for 2 hours because someone uses IE on her computer, closing popups, or wishing I could unistall IE because of some mysterious bar that appeared out of nowhere and keeps taking me to a search page.

Sure, I can understand controlling webmasters being frustrated by their lack of control over firefox user's computers, but it is their computer. I'd like to think that the website they are viewing is a service to them, not the hosting party. I often promote firefox not out of selfishness, but altruism, a dash of pity, and a pinch of compassion.

As a web developer the sheer number of quirks in IE drives me crazy. Promoting Firefox does not solve this issue, but providing excellent alternatives such as Firefox (and Linux for that matter) I believe has forced Microsoft to "get their act together" at least in some form. Who knows, maybe they'll even decide to dust off IE, take if off the shelf, and fix it.

[geekay]

Hoping that if webmasters don't talk about alternative browsers like Firefox then no-one will download it is really a case of sticking one's head in the sand.

Sounds very naïve indeed, I do admit. But actually, what *I* did ask about was: why do many webmasters proactively promote FF, i.e. what do web sites benefit from the increased use of FF (and not e.g. IE)? I'm still waiting to learn that.

encyclo's estimates: "hardly anyone", "hard to disable", "hardly anyone disables cookies" etc. is interesting information, and as it certainly comes from an experienced webmaster it's comforting to know. If so, there's no major problem, for the time being.

Sure, I can understand controlling webmasters being frustrated by their lack of control over firefox user's computers

is also a slight misreading of my text. I was talking about the need to passively track (log) visitor behaviour, but Zephryl thought I wanted to control their computers.

There's also a lot of talking about the benefits of FF to web users and to web designers. But those benefits are not under dispute at all in this thread. So, could we please do as claus said in his OP: "put the webmaster hat on", and stay on topic?

[tedster]

I appreciate favicons more on Opera where the favicon appears on each tab. That is a strong usability enhancement -- much more valuable to me than in the location bar.

IE's implementation of favicons has been so problematic that I never depended on favicon hits for stats. It would be nice to know if someone bookmarks a page, but it's never really been a dependable stat and now it's a goner.

[2by4]

"On the other hand, FF is requesting the favicon with each and every page, making tracking of real bookmarking with the aid of favicon totally useless."

Safari, Konqueror, Opera, all the Gecko/Firefox products use the favicon correctly as far as I'm concerned, they display it with the url, and on tabs, if applicable. Exactly like it's supposed to be. Only IE does not do this correctly. I want users to see my little fave icons, it looks nice, it's a little extra something.

I would forget about using tracking of favicons as any meaningful statistic, that was just an IE glitch as far as I'm concerned from the beginning, corrected by the other browser makers.

As for the rest of the so called potential problems, let's stay in reality. Users have no idea what cookies or javascript are. Standard users are not installing the web developer tool bar, they don't know what a referrer is, or anything else that we take for granted.

I love being able to go to an overly dark on dark site, switch off the page colors, then actually be able to read the content. Note to mac designers: macs have different gamma settings, the stuff that looks cool on your mac may be almost unreadable on windows or linux, check this before putting your site online.

Pop up blocking is great for users, I have never met a user that liked popups, they are annoying, so much so that AOL, which used to be king of infinite popups, finally added popup blocking because they were and are losing huge numbers of subscribers.

Go with the times, what worked yesterday may not work today. Non-user initiated popups are rude, invasive, annoying, etc. And users hate them.

[Farix]

Aren't web designer and webmaster more or less the same thing? ;)

As to why it is in the webmaster's general interests for Firefox to be promoted, well it comes down to one simple concept, the continuing advancement of browser technology. Without Firefox and other "third-party" browsers, there is just no incentive for webpages to take advantages of technology that has been around for several years. Why? Because Microsoft didn't see fit to keep their browser on the "cutting edge", much less up to date with current technology. This ends up hampering the adoption of new ideas and techniques and even a few old ideas, such as PNG's alpha-transparency.

Now let's turn the question around, why shouldn't a webmaster promoting the use of Firefox or any other "third-party" browser?

[geekay]

I would like to give Farix the prize for the best answer. The need for incentives to technological development is indeed an important and valid benefit to webmasters (as well as users). Without FF there would have been no talk about an IE 7 for this year.

2by4 is obfuscating the origins of the favicon. MS intended them to be requested when a user bookmarked a page, so that's the genuinly correct use. Bookmarks are called Favorites in IE...

[2by4]

geekay is right, but I still like how the non ie browsers used favicons in a richer sense, in terms of adding a small element of eye candy that looks nice.

[tedster]

Agreed - and as I mentioned above, having the favicon on the tab is a usability enhancement wheny you've got lots of pages open.