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interesting ..
for google cheap way to achieve what IE achieves for microsoft.
Wonder how they convinced the firefox people to do it?
but GREAT STRATEGY.
firefox will never be mainstream
I suppose it depends on your definition of mainstream. Does that mean 10% of internet users or 50%. I think (or hope) 10% is possible. And for me that would make it mainstream.
As a css website designer, it makes my life easier anyway.
when linux kernel has 40% of the desktop market share and firefox comes bundled with it.
or Think 2006?
When longhorn is released and google pays affiliates $5 for firefox downloaded and installed on a users pc.
Still think firefox will never be mainstream.
btw a lot of my friends i got hooked on to firefox dont know how to change their home page.
STROKE OF GENIOUS.
i think it would need to be bundled with an operating system that is commonly used.
a linux distro is not going to have 40% of the desktop any time soon, for all kinds of reasons, not least of which are support issues.
[edited by: NuffRespect at 2:10 pm (utc) on Nov. 11, 2004]
Firefox doesn't do anything more than IE for the average user. What incentive do they have to waste their time downloading it?
I don't think this move is anything more than the "we have to start with a search engine as our homepage" and them picking the tech favorite, Google.
Security, privacy...
"Rivals to IE got a boost in late June when two US computer security organisations warned people to avoid the Microsoft program to avoid falling victim to a serious vulnerability."
If administrators start installing it in large companies as a "safe" alternative to IE, then the trickle could slowly begin.
I don't see corporate IT departments rushing to install it for security reasons. Unless Firefox cracks 25 or 30% of the market, we'll never know what its vulnerabilities are. I'd say most corporate IT chiefs will stick with "the devil you know" vs. the alternative.
Tabbed browsing not groundbreaking? I can't surf w/out it and can't imagine how i ever did. ;)
Not to mention the built-in pop-up blocker and other cool features IE doesn't have.
The only thing I think IE is still better at is load time - both for the app. and pages once it's up and running...
I reccomend it to my friends and customers.
It just doesn't seem to crash, or be suseptable to browser hijacking, as much as IE does. Granted, all this could change in time. But for now it is like a breath of fresh air.
Then again I may also have a grudge against Microsoft for its past mis deeds.
Go underdog.
- security: check out secunia.com. they rate IE as extremly critial
- customization: all these free extentions and little helpers assist you all the time (search toolbars, webdeveloper tools, download managers) (little problem: since there are so many, it takes a while to find the one you need ;-)
- skins: there is something for everybody: fancy moving icons, or simple straight design
- updates: microsoft hasn't really released a new version of IE for over 2 years now. Firefox (like all Open Source Projects) keeps going and going.
[eweek.com ]
"Microsoft’s English reiterated that features such as tabbed browsing were not important to IE users."
[url]
[zdnet.com.au...]
[edited by: penfold25 at 3:34 pm (utc) on Nov. 11, 2004]
Security, privacy...
Average users don't care enough about security to educate themselves and seek out solutions to potential problems proactively. The mass internet worms were a result of patches that were up to a year old not being applied to systems in a timely manner.
What makes you think they'll actively seek out a new browser?
As far as privacy goes, without getting political, users don't have clue #1 about privacy.
I agree with Roger that it may gain steam if OEMs install it - but they'd need to uninstall IE first.
I know many non-tech people who have switched to FireFox (or Mozilla) and wouldn't consider going back to IE. They get hooked on the features. So even if Dell began installing FireFox and leaving IE shortcuts, I believe FireFox would still rapidly pick up users (particularly FireFox was preconfigured with a few non-default options and extensions).
I agree that privacy and security will never be big reasons for most people to switch to FireFox. On the downside, I just mentioned that I know some non-tech users who switched to FireFox for its features . . . well, I also know the IT guy for a medium-sized corporation, who had tried FireFox, liked the features, but went back to IE because that's what everyone else on his network used. He had no clue about the security issues involved - and he's the one entrusted with the entire security of the company.
FireFox still has some improvements to make also. A university department that I've worked with tried to switch to FireFox for security reason, but had to switch back becasue there were some websites that just would not work properly.
That was three months ago.
Anyone know if FireFox has improved ist support of DOM?
Fact is, there are a great many products you use every single day that are non-commercial. Bind, wu-ftpd, Perl, and the Gnu compliers all come to mind. Most Web servers you meet are all running Apache, a non-commercial application, running on Linux, FreeBSD or other volunteer run operating systems.
I trust Firefox as a principle browser the same way that I trust Apache as a principle web server. To counter the "private is better" argument, I know that the browser will never go away simply because the parent company is not making money or is purchased, as has happened with other commercial packages I've used.
Understand that with many programs such as these, work is not done by "random folks in volunteerland", but paid employees of companies like Google, Yahoo!, IBM, and other large organizations and universities that see the value of such applications. There are also any number of folks that are truely volunteering their time and effort, but that's their choice.
I'm not a big fan of Mozilla's integration with Google because it put open source engineers under NDAs (as non-employees) and because it effectively "branded" an open source product. It would be like Yahoo! making their servers the default MTA of sendmail. But, again, Google also worked very closely and spent a lot of money with the Mozilla team, so they do deserve some reward.
"Average users don't care enough about security to educate themselves and seek out solutions to potential problems proactively. The mass internet worms were a result of patches that were up to a year old not being applied to systems in a timely manner."
I think the above is an argument for switching. Every time one of my relative's computers poops the bed from spyware exhaustion, and I switch them to Firefox (which is a lot easier fix than goofing around with IE), I just created a firefox user for life. Take a look around and notice what a large percentage of the population of people who know what they are doing are using as a browser. That's going to filter down to the average user eventually.
Please don't welcom me to webmasterworld, btw, this is just a new username, I feel like I've been here since the late 50's.
Average users don't care enough about security to educate themselves
But they care enough about the junk on their PCs to ask for help. (anti-scumware, anti-virus, firewall... and now, firefox)
firefox will never be mainstream
It might be used by the anti MS group but not in big numbers any time soon.
No one's about to go download a browser when they already have one that works perfectly fine.
And few paid attention to Google when they first came out. If you improve on something people will use it verses the un-improved model.
A certain 14 year old I'm close to uses FF partly because it has a "cool" name.
BTW, I downloaded 1.0 yesterday. When I type in a site to visit it doesn't work. The hour glass briefly appears next to my pointer then disappears. Is that only happening to me?
won't happen, not if they are shipping with oem windows
er, opera have been doing this or better for years
