PCWorld Dubs Firefox Best Product of 2005

Peaceful_Patriot writes "PCWorld's list of the 'Best Products of 2005' is out and Firefox tops the list. Also notables are GMail at number 2, Apple OS X, Tiger at number 3, Skype ranks in at 8 and Ubuntu at 26!" From their Firefox article: "Are you sick and tired of Internet Explorer? Have you grown weary of the constant vulnerabilities and patches? Do you scratch your head at sudden program lockups and crashes? Are you dismayed that Microsoft hasn't lifted a finger to improve or enhance IE since it buried Netscape's Navigator browser at the dawn of the century? Yeah, me too."

iPod at 78 and Rio at 13 and no Nano?

[ericdano]

Something is fishy. No mention of the iPod nano, and Rio's crappy Carbon player is at 13? WTF?

More PC bias going on here....

Stuff that mattered.

[teslatug]

This was published in July. Is the story a dupe?

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Wow, Dell!

[mboos]

47. Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 Media Player

Of course, I'm not endorsing this product. Haven't used it myself since I stopped using Windows a year and a half ago (and I use iTunes now when I'm forced to).

Re:iPod at 78 and Rio at 13 and no Nano?

[jonfelder]

It could be that this story is a dupe and this article was written in July before the Nano was released. Also, it must be my imagination that an Apple product is #3.

Naaaa...must be PC bias.

Not quite with the times?

[cbuskirk]

I understand the list is quite long, but surely PC World could have done better than use their July 2003 review for the Itunes Music Store. 200,000 songs? Mac Only?

Dupe

[Doomstalk]

Not only is this article from June, but it's been reported [slashdot.org] on before.

No Competition = No Innovation

[serutan]

Are you dismayed that Microsoft hasn't lifted a finger to improve or enhance IE since it buried Netscape's Navigator browser at the dawn of the century?

Some people would label that statement hollow cynicism. But in fact, a Microsoft manager told me straight out when IE 6 was about to be released that it wasn't really going to have any new features, because with Netscape pretty much dead there wasn't much point in developing IE anymore.

Microsoft had already introduced XmlHttpRequest as an ActiveX object with IE5. They had all the pieces in place back then to promote the off-channel request technique and give it a nifty name like "AJAX." Web apps could have been 5 years ahead of where they are today, and MS would have had a huge head start instead of now scrambling to catch up with Google.

Firefox 1.5 supports Pango with Cairo,

[Anonymous Coward]

so that I can see Chinese in bold style now, which I have been waiting since I first use Linux:

http://wangxiaohu.org/#post-64 [wangxiaohu.org]

You mean like opera does by default?

[SmallFurryCreature]

It sure is handy even if it leads to me currently having an embarrising amount of tabs.

It is a live saver however because the one thing that killed windows/IE for me years ago was that just as you found the site with the real free porn, eh I mean real usefull bit of info IE or windows or both crashed forcing you to start searching from the start again.

Opera on Linux went through a bit of problems at first but the crashes didn't matter, just restart and continue were you left off.

If only MS had at any point in its history realized that people are not upset about crashes, they are upset about lost work, they would not now be ..... eh top IT company with a strangle hold on the desktop, office software and internet browser market......

Where was I going with this?

Re:Wow, Dell!

[Fusen]

If you have any problems with WMP10 then try out VLC videolan.org, and they should go away pretty quick ;D

Re:Wow, Dell!

[Malor]

Well, I ended up with both the 2405FPW and the 3100CN laser. The 3100CN is just okay.... decent, nothing too great.

The 2405FPW, on the other hand, is really quite remarkable. It's HUGE, vivid, and lovely to look at all day. Excellent color. Good for gaming. If you're a really topflight FPSer, you may not like it, but for normal humans, it's just superb.

Out of the box, the brightness is INSANE, burn-out-your-retinas bright. After you've had it a month or two, it fades to more reasonable levels. When I first had it, I had the Brightness set at 40 (out of 100), and even that was a bit uncomfortable. Over time, the monitor dimmed quite a bit. I now have it at 80 brightness, and it's perfect. I haven't had to change anything for quite awhile. I still prefer having the overhead light on, even now... there's still so much lightt that it's more comfortable with lights on. (I used to sit in the computer cave, all lights out, like many geeks I've known... not anymore.)

Probably the biggest downside to the 2405 is that the colors change as you move your head around; the perfect viewing cone is very narrow. It's much worse when you first get it.. whatever method is used to cut the brightness down also worsens the color response a great deal, off axis. Once you've had it awhile and can turn the brightness back up, the off-axis response is better, but it'll never be as good as a CRT.

On the whole, it is just dynamite, and you can often get it at around $750-$775, if you wait for the coupons and sales. (in other words, DO NOT buy it now, you'll pay the full $1200 list price.) I got mine for just under $1k and still think I got a heck of a deal. $775 would have been sweet, indeed.

I haven't heard anything bad about their QC, either... I have one dead pixel in mine. Out of 2.3 million pixels, I can handle one dead one. :) They have a fairly good return policy, so if you get one you don't like/can't stand, you can always ship it back and try again.

I don't like Dell very much for computers, but this is a GREAT monitor.

Firefox deserves #1?

[hkmwbz]

Maybe, but your post certainly doesn't support that remark.

"Yes, it has bugs.Yes, it sometimes uses huge amounts of memory.BUT so does every other peice of software ever written."

So because other programs are buggy that excuses Firefox's bugginess, and it deserves to be #1 even if it is just as bad as other programs when it comes to crashing and gobbling up memory? Strange logic.

"And I think what most people miss while comparing Firefox to Opera or IE is that Firefox is a much younger project than the others."

It is you who are missing the point, actually. Firefox as project is relatively young, but it is built on years old technology. It is the true successor of Netscape. In fact, it is based on the open sourced next generation Netscape code.

As a program, Firefox is built on mature technology, and it's had things go smoothly because older browsers have tried and failed various approaches, and therefore Firefox could easily learn from these mistakes and avoid them.

"Opera has been around for a number of years and has only just started to add better features."

You have got to be kidding me!

If you look at the changelog for Firefox 1.5, guess which browser had most of those features first? Opera.

Also, Opera was one of the first (if not the first) browser with MDI. Popup blocking was also built into Opera before anything else. And the search field to the right of the address field in Firefox and IE7? Yet another Opera invetion from ages ago. Not to mention things like sessions, that let you continue where you left off, and so on. Bookmark nicknames? Opera. Easy deleting of private data? Opera.

Heck, even the built in e-mail client in Opera was lightyears ahead of others, like Gmail, which borrowed Opera's concept of virtual folders/labels.

I'm not even going to go into Opera for mobile phones...

You obviously don't know much about Opera, or you wouldn't have made a remark like that.

"So if you equate the amount of time these products have been in the market and the innovation/features they have been able to produce...Firefox wins hands down.Given a little time more, I dont think there will be any comparison to it."

So what exactly has Firefox brought to the table in terms of innovation? Silly me, I thought Firefox was supposed to be a lean and mean browser, not a feature beast!

So how exactly does Firefox win "hands down"?

Also, I've already answered the "amount of time" comment. Obviously Firefox has a huge advantage, in that it could start off clean, and look at older browsers to cherry-pick features and functionality. It doesn't have to make all the mistakes older browsers have made. Then again, it has made serious mistakes, some of which are being fixed or have been (extensions support).

"All this without considering the financial aspects of software development(IE & Opera are commericial FOR PROFIT projects)."

So you think Firefox created itself for free? That no one has paid any money for it?

Let me give you another history lesson. Mozilla was funded by AOL, and then AOL gave it a few millions in cash and sent it on its way. In other words, AOL's customers paid for it. Now others started donating to Mozilla - Google, Sun, Nokia, and so on. Now their customers had to pay the bill for Mozilla's development.

Now Mozilla has created its own corporation - the Mozilla Corporation - because they want to be able to make more money.

If you think Firefox or Mozilla has not had to consider the financial aspects of software development, you are dead wrong.

Re:firefox ? WTF

[koreaman]

Opera [opera.com], now gratis

Re:Wow, Dell!

[mr100percent]

No way man, Safari is the best browser for the Mac. Firefox is slower on the mac for some reason, which is why they have the Camino fork.

Re:Wow, Dell!

[Malor]

After thinking about it some, I realized I've had this monitor longer than I thought. I got probably the very first run... it arrived in early March. I think the last time I changed the brightness was probably early August. Currently, at brightness 80, it's Very Bright instead of Crazy Retina-Scorching Bright like it was out of the box.

I'm SURE it'll last longer than a year or two, at least if it's working properly. Without checking, I think the warranty is three years, so to protect themselves against premature bulb failures from heavy users, they'd want to spec them for at least twice that long. So 5 years should be a reasonably safe bet. And the bulb(s) can most likely be replaced, although in five years I'm sure there will be better monitors, and it may not be worth fixing. (double-check on that warranty before buying, I could be wrong.)

You shouldn't have to pay that much, if you watch for sales. Watch the Ars Technica Audio/Visual club, and the deals sites. If you're willing to be patient, you should be able to get it under $800. It may take two or three months, but that extra $150 is three games or a half an iPod... or just money you can, you know, save and not spend. *grin*.

Also, keep in mind that you'll probably be happiest with a 6800GT class (or better) video card to drive it. It takes a beastly GPU to drive 1920x1200 at 60fps. That's partly my perfectionist streak talking... you can use lower resolutions, and have the monitor scale it up. It looks surprisingly good, not at all like the blocky pixel-doubling of earlier generations. The new interpolation algorithms/hardware are much better. You can still tell it's an LCD, but you have to LOOK... it's nearly as good as a CRT. So you could use it comfortably with lesser cards if you wanted. That said, it's always nicest running in native resolution, and 1920x1200 needs a VERY fast card.

If you wait for a sale, the money you save could be a good chunk of a 7800..... :)

I'm confident you'll like it... but remember that if you're disappointed, Dell has a good return policy. I think you'll be out the shipping, but it's not that heavy and shouldn't be that expensive to send back if you decide to.