Mozilla Foundation Seeking Switch Success Stories 537
maggeth writes "mozillaZine has a story about how the Mozilla Foundation is looking to know if any organizations have switched to Mozilla products. Is your organization among them?" Can anyone point out an example of a library system switching? Lots of public libraries use PCs set up as kiosks running a web interface to their catalogs, and they all seem to use IE -- so, no tabbed browsing.
The Switch has been Made (Score:4, Interesting)
When I got home for the summer and started work back at a Jewelry Store in my hometown, I was able to switch three of the people at work over to Mozilla FireFox. The biggest thing they were impressed with is that 99% of the spyware/ad-ware just doesn't work on it because the coders of those products only code for the dominant browser (IE crap-ola). They also love the Tabbed browsing, the nice clean interface, and the easy access to all your privacy controls (cache, cookies, history etc.). Overall, it's been a great experience with FireFox except for the occasional VBScript-using site with which we have to open up the evil IE to use. I look forward to switching more people over to the dark side of th....never mind.
Tabbed Browsing for Libraries? (Score:5, Interesting)
Why does tabbed browsing keep rising to such prominence as a must-have feature more than simple standards-compliance and reasonable security does?
Re:Locking down Mozilla? (Score:5, Interesting)
A minor story (Score:2, Interesting)
Library (Score:4, Interesting)
There were some sites that wouldn't work, although we haven't run across that problem recently. And with the systems set up this way, we can guarantee patrons' privacy from each other (wiped home directory every logout), we can easily synchronize the machines with a central image at night, and we're immune from 99%+ of software exploits on the 'Net. It also means I can spend my time creating new programs and systems for the library, rather than dinking with Windows all day.
Not long ago, every public access computer in the Austin library system was paralyzed for several days by a wandering Windows virus. We were sitting pretty at that point! :-)
Re:Locking down Mozilla? (Score:2, Interesting)
Library browser use (Score:3, Interesting)
Additionally, the majority of catalog lookups are single-item queries--I'm not convinced that throwing a better browser at them would significantly enhance their library experience.
Switch if you can (Score:2, Interesting)
Why would a library switch? Where I am, the inertia is quite obvious because you can see how old the system is. Sure there are upgrades here and there, but seeing brand new equipment and software side by side makes people wonder.
The switches will probably occur if the organization aren't too caught up in other things, and have the resources to change. Of course, being fed up with IE is also another motivation to switch.
Florida State (Score:2, Interesting)
SUNY (Score:2, Interesting)
I always found it interesting, and a tad odd, how at school I see almost as many people using Netscape as IE (especially adults like professors and my boss). I guess to some people, 'Netscape' still is synonymous with 'The Internet'.
And then there were people like my comp sci professor, who would use one IE one day and Netscape the next... that always grated on my nerves. I couldn't figure out if he didn't know the difference between them, or just didn't care, or what...
Re:We're all success stories (Score:2, Interesting)
Everyone else: Take a look at a Maxthon screenshot or three [overseasky.net]. I see a few shots that are extremely cluttered an horrible, some are good though. Nothing really head-over-heels better than firefox. At best I'd say they may be about the same.
Seriously though, I'm curious as to what parts of the UI you don't like. This is open source, if you don't like something, suggest changes! The reason I would consider your post troll or flamebait is that you never justify your argument with parts of the UI you don't like.
One thing I see different is that some of those shots have the tabs on the bottom of the browser window. That's interesting. I wonder if you can do that with firefox... I'm sure someone could figure it out if they really wanted to.
The next big thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Courtesy of Ellen Feiss (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll answer your question with another question: How many
I have 2 in front of me, and made my fiancee build one. She actually enjoyed it!
Exactly: Arcane processes equal frustrated users (Score:1, Interesting)
When someone asks how to do something in Mozilla or Linux, the answer is often one of two things: "Why would you want to do that?", or it's something like what we have here: "hacking JavaScript and messing with lots of configs."
The first answer, to me, is demeaning because it suggests that the way we are accustomed to doing something is wrong. Sure, Mozilla's tabbed browsing is nice, but when I can't figure out how to get features to behave the way I want them to people get frustrated and switch back to what I know how to work. I think one of IE's initial strengths was that it included built-in help specifically for helping users of the then-dominant Netscape switch to IE. Mozilla needs a similar guide to help IE users if it wants to become more mainstream.
And there's the other 'feature' of Mozilla/Linux that will really prevent its mainstream adoption. With Windows/IE, you can do almost anything and configure it almost completely (within its limits, of course) through the mouse and the menus. With Mozilla/Linux, things invariably do steer towards recompliling code or editing script or something similarly arcane on the command line. Heck, I couldn't even get SETI@Home to run on my Linux machine without doing a Google search and entering what seemed like a string of totally random characters into the command line. Regardless of the potential of Mozilla/Linux, that isn't intuitive and it isn't something even many advanced PC users could figure out on their own.
To me, these two flaws are the reasons why, despite some very good efforts by people who genuinely do like Mozilla and Linux, these two non-MS products can never really go mainstream. Users just get too frustrated trying to do simple tasks that they don't care about the unique features like tabbed browsing that Mozilla and Linux have to offer. The 'average user' isn't aiming to support Microsoft, but he does correctly see Windows and IE as the easiest way to get something done and (somewhat reliably) working.
Re:Library (Score:1, Interesting)
Howso "independent"? I don't really know the Texas public library system, but if you have Independent School Districts, I guess you can have Independent libraries
timothy (who needs to brush up on his Texan lore)
Re:apple (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Unfamilliarity (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Libraries (Score:2, Interesting)
Heck, for that matter, they could do without a window manager all together & just have moz/ff in full screen mode.
not true (Score:2, Interesting)
Not true. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh has both IE and Netscape (4.5 I think). Our school library has netscape 4 or 6 installed too. But, they all look like sitting their out of some dumb ass' sympathy for Netscape that to provide a better browsing experience.
Re:Library browser use (Score:2, Interesting)
Of course, this is only possible if the catalogue is not some java-based monster.
I also agree that tabbed browsing is non-intrusive. Some people may not even know about middle-clicking, and not all mice have a middle button.
Re:We're all success stories (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm talking about Firefox actually, last time I tried Mozilla I tried it, that was about 2 weeks ago.
OK those are really hideous, I can see why you think it's cluttered badly. One person has what looks like about 30-40 plugins on the plugin bar, another had their file/edit/etc. menus squished down with the search bar next to it. I'd post a screenshot of mine (which has the various toolbars laid out sanely) but I don't have anywhere to put it, certainly not anywhere that can withstand /.
I've already answered in a few other posts about things I don't like so I really don't feel like doing it again here but I do want to point out that what the AC said is quite true. Unless you're actively involved in the project no one listens. Generally whenever this comes up most Mozilla users don't even want to hear what's said, justification or not. I haven't officially tired saying anything to the Mozilla project but frankly from experiences in the past I fully expect to waste my time trying so I don't. Yes I realize that's a bit of a fatalistic attitude but it's come from experience. Sorry. (While I know it's changed hands since, part of this goes to all the years of being ignored when reporting bugs for Netscape. Kind of a once burned why try again thing.)
I guess I should summarize a bit on things that really turn me off to the Mozilla/Firefox UI. Text sizes on tabs was one, this was also a bit of an issue on other menus/toolbars but it wasn't as pronounced as on the tabs. With about 15-20 tabs up I couldn't see more than a single letter of text. Right now I have 18 tabs up and the default font/text size used in Maxthon lets me see from 5 - 9 characters. 5 on tabs with an icon from the site, 9 on those that don't. Tab management in Firefox at least was useless without Tab Browser extensions, and even with them it was quite broken. Sure it'd remember my groups but it wouldn't remember their order (something criticaly important for me). At best it would keep the first 3 tabs in order, the rest loaded at random. (For instance I had multiple windows to stories on /. up, it didn't even load them together, that'd have made at least some sense.) Also it wasn't always the first 3, it was sometimes just 1, sometimes 2. Closing the browser and reopening would result in a different order nearly every time. Also there are quite a few options I expected to be there that weren't. Installing the extra options extension helped but I think the existence of that extension already shows there's a lot of missing stuff. Also in the download I got at least the ad blocking settings were empty, not a single regular expression or URLs of known ad sites included. That was a huge turnoff.
BTW I do know now you can fix the text size on the tabs with the user css file, but that was one that was incredibly non-obvious. If Firefox would have looked at and used my default system fonts and sizes it would have been better than the default ones it used (although still not quite the right size.)
Switched from Mozilla back to IE (Score:5, Interesting)
We posted several questions/suggestions to the mozilla boards but they went unanswered. We've also had a similar problem with the lack of an msi for mozilla/thunderbird/firebird rollouts. Makes mass migrations near impossible. Mozilla does not seem to want to address large scale use such as terminal services and automated installs.
Re:apple (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Libraries (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think twm would even be strictly necessary; it's probably possible to tell firefox to just start in fullscreen mode and use firefox itself as the "window manager", though that probably has disadvantages (off the top of my head, if firefox crashed or was closed in some way, X would exit, needing to be restarted... it would be easier to have a window manager that would just sit in the background and constantly relaunch firefox if it ever exits, avoiding the problem of X exiting).
Re:Unfamilliarity (Score:2, Interesting)
> to hire an extra person to show people the advantages.
No, it's pretty much a complete non-issue. We use Mozilla.org browsers
exclusively, and the biggest pain is remembering to install the Java plugin
and Acrobat Reader every time we get a new system or have to reinstall
Windows on an existing system. Vanishingly close to 100% of patron
questions are website-specific, stuff like "Where's the link on this
bank website to transfer money to my credit union account" and "Why won't
Hotmail let me get this [malformed] attachment" and "Why does this website
require me to give them an email address to sign up for this service?"
(This last is really common. A lot of our patrons don't have email.)
I switched recently (Score:3, Interesting)
I switched recently from MS IE to FireFox 9.0, and Thunderbird.
I have never seen a popup ad since, and spyware is almost non-existent.
I have also switched my wife's computer to FireFox.
I even switched at work as well, and briefly tested Outlook Web Access from Mozilla, and it worked fine.
At work, I found two other people who switched on their own about the same time I did, after all the exploits in MS IE were publicized. I am talking to a third person about switching his mom because of spyware problems.
I am also talking to another development group that are doing ActiveX plugins for MS IE for a client, and advising them of the pitfalls and the headaches they are getting the client into.
It is not all rosy though, there are issues:
Overall, I am happy with FireFox from the functionality, features, and usability points of view. Can't say the same about Thunderbird due to the bloat and slowing my machine to a crawl.
Re:Courtesy of Ellen Feiss (Score:5, Interesting)
I have also heard of people running mozilla from a USB key!. I am going to try that one myself, sounds like a perfect way to carry your settings and bookmarks along too.
You're overestimating people... (Score:5, Interesting)
Many users simply freeze up when prompted with an small changes to the UI. I've witnessed people lost when presented with Windows XP's classic style control panel (or the catagorical one, if they're used to classic). I think it's a combination of laziness and fear, coupled with the firm, marketing encouraged belief that, by God, this darn here compooter oughta be easy ta larn.
It bothers me, because people want so much from their computers, but put so little effort into them. It'd bother me less if people where willing to pay big bucks for the privilege of ignorance, but they also want their computers cheap and their support free.
Re:Unfamilliarity (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Unfamilliarity (Score:3, Interesting)
This sounds as if starting IE is like signing one's own death penalty (if case you meant "worth"). How about this:
Is it worth trading a tiny bit of security for a tiny bit of perceived usability?
I'd say it depends - I use FireFox because of the tabs (especially Open Link in New Tab - very useful for pr0n, among other things) but it tends to crash/freeze sometimes.
MS IE is definitively better for sites created for it and for multilingual sites.
Because you probably haven't used FireFox in that context (or in many other contexts), you cannot say it's the same good as MS IE.
And finally, I run (freeware) anti-spyware software and am reasonably careful on the Web so I've never had any security problems with IE.
Re:Unfamilliarity (Score:5, Interesting)
Load an IE theme and nearly no one will notice the difference. URL bar, bookmarks - you need nothing more in a public library.
When you use mozilla in office you will have to deal with a lot of extra functionality of mozilla.
Byzantine OS (Score:2, Interesting)
It loads entirely into memory from the CD so that no hard drive is needed and the CD can be ejected after. It basically loads up bare Metacity and Mozilla suite with some modifications. I can see a library set up so that there's no hard drive in the computers and you check out a boot CD from the lab assistant with your library card. Get your library card back when you turn in the CD.
ByzantineOS is the future of the Internet Appliance. I set my parents up with Byzantine. They just hit the ON/OFF switch and it boots right into Mozilla. When they're done just hit the ON/OFF switch and there's no records or maintenance. When it gets updated I just reburn the CDRW.
Re:Unfamilliarity (Score:3, Interesting)
Especially on a kiosk where there is only one webpage they can view? The interface is really the webpage interface, not the browser interface.
Seriously, in terms of security it doesn't make sense to ignore the federal recommentations concerning dumping IE.
But even without that, this would provide the SAME experience to those who weren't familiar with Mozilla browsers, and enchance the experience of those who were.
Libraries are nice and all, but I'd really prefer to see Mozilla loaded on school labs.
In that scenerio one of the kids will inevitably be familiar with Mozilla (since it has become at least that common) and the way kids are the entire class will know the features in a day. After that day of course, like anyone else who has used Mozilla/fire* none of them will be able to endure a browsing session with popups, spyware, browser hijacks, flash ads, and lack of tabbed browsing any longer.
We CAN'T switch - FIX THE CALENDAR (Score:5, Interesting)
FIX the bloody calendar. Make it work. At least make it so where emailed invites can easily be added to the recipient's calendar, instead of opening within a new browser window. Pretty simple stuff like that.
We can't switch because the calendar just sucks compared to what users have unfortunately become quite accustomed to in Microsoft Outlook.
They don't care about the mail - Mozilla works better. They care about the *Calendar* and the basic PIM stuff that Outlook has. We don't even use Exchange, but if another Outlook user sends a calendar request, Mozilla can't do squat with it.
So, they try to cling to Outlook.
Thunderbird/Firefox are not suitable/mature enough replacements, and besides, the Calendar will still suck because it's from the same codebase.
bring back the days of Netscape Calendar - or something. I'm telling you folks, cross platform calendaring applications may very well be the killer app for small businesses.
Right now, Mozilla isn't going too far where I work because of the lack of a serious calendaring application.
And that sucks, really. =/
Re:Mozilla is bloatware (Score:3, Interesting)
You mean it includes a mailer? But we USE the mailer. So when it wasn't included, it would have to be a separate program.
And when that separate mailer wants to display a HTML message, it somehow needs to include HTML functionality that the browser already has.
You mean it includes the composer? But when you want to compose a mail message in HTML you are using that same composer. So it is required anyway.
I think when using browser+mail, Mozilla does not include that much extra stuff you are not going to use.
The newsreader may be of more limited use, but that seems only a small part.
Re:Exactly: Arcane processes equal frustrated user (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean like in IE how you can configure it to be able to download more then 2 files at once? That's right you can use the mouse and menus to go through the registry to fix that right?
http://www.tweakxp.com/tweak764.aspx
or set the default download directory... oops no registry
http://www.tweakxp.com/tweak128.aspx
changing mailto: to load another mail program.. registry again
http://www.tweakxp.com/tweak734.aspx
You try to make it sound like its a big deal to install firefox, it's not any more complex then installing any other windows application you download off net. In the time it takes you to update IE to a stable state, you could already have downloaded, installed, and be adapted to firefox (that's because there basically is no adaption time).
Your rant seems aimed at Linux and not at Mozilla... because there's no reason for the average user (yes even the average slashdot user) to recompile or muck around with scripting (XPI) in firefox. Furthermore Mozilla and Linux have nothing to do with eachother, why you arbitrarily lumped them together is a little odd. The common denominator being that they both compete with Microsoft I guess. While you address only one side of your grouping it makes the argument sound akin to "I don't like cats and dogs... they leave droppings on the lawn, bark at night and they attack the mailman... and that is why I don't like cats and dogs"
Re:This is just toooo easy! (Score:3, Interesting)
This is also the case with a number of the major library system vendor's catalogue web front ends. Sad but true.
Large library services are, hovever oving to federated search interfaces that search across subscribed bibliographic databases, library catalogues and selected web resources, using the Z39.50 protocol. This may mean more open standards for search interfaces in future; it may not.
Interesting aside is a major problem liraries have with their public access machines is locking them down sufficiently to stop kids using them for flash games, etc. Linux/Mozilla combinations would probably be ideal.
Re:Sorry but IE is better (Score:3, Interesting)
This is where the main problem lies. Some sites (whether intentionally or otherwise) simply won't display or work properly on anything other than Internet Explorer. As long as this happens (and as long as people like Macromedia make their plugins install differently to other Mozilla plugins) then people will always complain that "The Internet isn't working" the way they expect it to.
The main problem is that it's a vicious circle. Whether it's a corporate webdesigner or some teenage blogger somewhere, most people write sites that work for what they know. Now professional webdesigners often know better, but not all companies have them and some that do have PHBs with their own ideas. So if the person making the main decisions doesn't know about other browsers then they're not going to write pages for what they don't know about.
TiggsThis causes problems as if they don't know about Mozilla or Opera or anything else then they won't write for it. Then if many pages which people visit don't run in anything other than IE then people will only browse in IE. Then they in turn won't know about other browsers enough to even check how their page looks.
Re:Unfamilliarity (Score:2, Interesting)
I triple checked the default browser setting.
The real solution is just to start using linux full time.
Re:Unfamilliarity (Score:3, Interesting)
The stupidity tax (Score:3, Interesting)
1. More of your tax dollars wasted.
2. More downtime of critical library systems. (there aint no card catalog anymore).
3. The potential for inter-library viruses.
4. The potential for keyloggers, etc.
At your house, feel free to use a browser you coded using VB, but at my library I expect the crap to work. If that means getting rid of MS, then so be it.
Re:Switched from Mozilla back to IE (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Switched from Mozilla back to IE (Score:4, Interesting)
We also have a series of w2k servers running active directory. These are actually required since we run several construction management/estimating software packages that will only run on a w2k server. One of these packages is actually mandated by the government for reporting of the Section 8 housing properties that we manage.
our public terminal - currently Opera on Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
For economy, safety and my convenience I chose Linux and for convenience and actually speed I chose Opera.
I'd be happy supporting Mozilla on it nowadays, or probably just the browser component when it reaches 1.0, and I see no reason to expect people would have trouble with it, they are not at present.
It gets used, lightly.
Re:Switched from Mozilla back to IE (Score:3, Interesting)
The
Unpack the first stage, modify the file, add any additional
Many commercial packages will not be able to do that, or make it very unclear how to do it.
("you should not modify the installation process because the user has to manually agree to the EULA". My *ss. A corporate user is not in the position to agree or not agree to a EULA anyway.)
Re:What about failures? (Score:3, Interesting)
If they want to improve the experience of Mozilla users then asking for failure stories is defintiely half of what they need to do. Find out what went wrong, what was missing, things like that.
Similarly they need to find out what is holding people off from switching - especially organisations. That measn they can find out what bits (that are under their control) they can work on.
There are always going to be some organisations who are unable to switch. And some of those reason are probably outside the scope of what the Mozilla Foundation can do.
Corporate websites and internal web applications that only work under IE are going to be a problem for as long as people write them. But there's also the other aspect. Education.
I don't mean as is "Educate Users that there are other things" here. I mean school and college courses. I've talked to course tutors, and what is important when teaching any computer skills to complete beginners is teaching them one way with one program. Although I personally prefer a more abstract method that isn't reliant on one platform, I can see the point. The problem is that currently teaching people "The Internet" often means IE.
Take the European Computer Driving License [ecdl.co.uk] as just one example. The course material is Windows-centric - in fact it's XP-centric which does cause problems when 98 gives different results on certain tasks. The internet module seems to focus on IE for the web-browsing units. I think the tests have been written solely around IE, as are the course materials. (I've checked, and switching away from IE would need significantly different course material, and I'm not sure they even have any available)
This is a problem, though. As it means that many people who are "qualified" in using a computer are bing started out without a knowledge of anything other than IE. (Or Office, or Windows, for that matter) And unfortunately I think this is outside the scope of what a Mozilla Faoundation "switch" campaign could manage.
(I'd love to look back in 5 years, though, and find out I was dead wrong on that last point)
Users Swapped Over At Home (Score:2, Interesting)
Checked back with each of the users after about a month to see how they went and my biggest surprise was those users who had the net at home had also switched over their home computers to mozilla as well (during instruction I showed them the mozilla web site and gave a brief bit of instruction on downloading and installing it).
I don't know why I was suprised (I know which browser I prefer to use) but it was just unexpected as they all had made the change at home.