Firefox 3 Already Rules the Roost 591
Barence writes in with a data point on Firefox 3 adoption: it's been available for 10 days, and already one site is seeing 55% of its Firefox-using visitors on version 3. "Microsoft still has three out of ten people running an old version of its browser more than 18 months after Internet Explorer 7 launched, while Firefox has converted more than half of its users to the latest version in just over a week. That should set a few alarm bells ringing in Redmond."
File under "So what?" (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft still has three out of ten people running an old version of its browser more than 18 months after Internet Explorer 7 launched, while Firefox has converted more than half of its users to the latest version in just over a week. That should set a few alarm bells ringing in Redmond.
Huh? This means absolutely nothing. If you want to give us data that's meaningful, tell us how many converts to IE7 there were in the first week, or wait 1.5 years and see how many people are using FF3 versus old versions. Then we'd have some comparable data. A rapid expansion right off the bat, for example, does not necessarily indicate that the final tally will be in FF's favor.
Furthermore, a decent chunk of IE users are the "computer = magic black box" type, who use IE because it's what came on the computer. If those people aren't doing Windows Updates (likely enough, imo), they won't get IE7. By contrast, the vast majority of Firefox users use it by choice, not because it was there. Those people are far more likely to manually upgrade.
This whole "data point" is utterly worthless for determining what's actually going on.
Which one works? (Score:5, Insightful)
In our business environment, we will not upgrade to IE7 because it breaks business applications. No such limitations on FF3 (of course the apps don't work in FF2/3).
Maybe if MS didn't break the non-standardized technologies that they release and companies build apps on, the community might upgrade faster.
Re:Great (Score:5, Insightful)
You're mad at Mozilla because a bunch of third-party extensions don't work correctly? Maybe you should complain to the right people next time.
Sucked (Score:1, Insightful)
"Microsoft still has three out of ten people running an old version of its browser more than 18 months after Internet Explorer 7 launched, while Firefox has converted more than half of its users to the latest version in just over a week. That should set a few alarm bells ringing in Redmond."
Nah.. it is just that the previous versions of Firefox sucked a lot [of memory].
I've got karma to burn, sooooo bring it girls!
Explanation: IE 7 requires Windows XP SP2 (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft still has three out of ten people running an old version of its browser more than 18 months after Internet Explorer 7 launched
IE 7 was never backported to anything before Windows XP Service Pack 2. How many Windows users are stuck on operating systems prior to Windows XP, such as Windows 2000 or Windows 9x? Like IE 7, Firefox 3 doesn't work on Windows 9x, but unlike IE 7, Firefox works on Windows 2000.
Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
Or, Firefox 2 sucked. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, maybe Firefox 2 sucked that much. I was running the Firefox 3 alphas long ago, only because the RAM situation in 2.x was so atrocious. I had to upgrade my wife as well, because I got sick of hearing from the living room, "I thought you said Firefox was better?" as her system ground to a halt.
Not too surprising... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Microsoft still has three out of ten people running an old version of its browser more than 18 months after Internet Explorer 7 launched, while Firefox has converted more than half of its users to the latest version in just over a week. That should set a few alarm bells ringing in Redmond."
Whatever is the choice of most businesses is always going to lag behind in adoption.
Case in point, my current client is a Fortune 100 company that mandates IE6 as the browser of choice and is planning to move to IE7 sometime next year. There's thousands and thousands of people right there still using IE6 essentially through no choice of their own.
Big, non-software business is always about the last to adopt any technology.
The reason why (Score:3, Insightful)
Firefox users, on the other hand, tend to be more computer savvy. They are the kind who pay attention to tech news, and most likely they've known about Firefox 3 since before it came out.
Not apples to apples comparison (Score:5, Insightful)
While I am a happy FF3 user myself, comparing the adoption rates of Firefox and IE is misleading. IE is installed when the computer arrives, and the people still using it either:
1. Don't care what they use
2. Have no choice since it is locked down by work
3. Prefer it over the alternatives.
People in buckets 1 and 2 (which I would argue is the vast majority of IE users) are unlikely to upgrade IE beyond whatever version is on their machine now. People in group 3 are the only voluntary upgraders to IE7.
In contrast, Firefox has the same three buckets, but since it is not preinstalled very few are going to fall into buckets 1 and 2. Almost everyone using it is using it because they want it, and that means that they are far more likely to upgrade to the latest and greatest.
IE8 Download Day (Score:1, Insightful)
What? Are you expecting Microsoft to hold a download-IE8-break-the-world-record event?
Re:Great (Score:5, Insightful)
Yawn... (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to diminish the impact of Firefox, but this is not surprising. Firefox users are almost by definition more proactive. They've already taken the step of replacing their default browser. Why should it be any surprise that they're also quicker to update?
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
Do a clean install instead. You probably have some odd settings remaining from FF2 that are giving you problems, and the problem with other sites could be poor browser detection...which is not Mozilla's fault at all.
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll try a fresh install, thanks for the suggestion.
I'm Shocked! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is the ever-present threat of Operating Systems being marginalized to a role of providing a portal to a web-based OS. Whomever controls the browser will get a good chunk of ad revenue.
Spin and counterspin (Score:5, Insightful)
"Microsoft still has three out of ten people running an old version of its browser more than 18 months after Internet Explorer 7 launched, while Firefox has converted more than half of its users to the latest version in just over a week. That should set a few alarm bells ringing in Redmond."
"Microsoft still has over seven out of ten people satisfied with running a previous version of its browser more than 18 months after Internet Explorer 7 launched, while users have abandoned Firefox 2 in droves with over half converting to the bleeding edge version in just over a week. That should set a few alarm bells ringing at Mozilla.org."
Personally, when I see a very fast migration I tend to think the last version must really have sucked. If it did what people wanted already, they'd not be in any big hurry to upgrade. Sure, there's been some exceptions where the new version is the best thing since sliced bread, but they're few and far between by comparison.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
Note the implicit constraint on operating system.
Re:Great (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure I see the problem. You want something that extremely stable and well-supported, then it's usually not a good idea to jump to the newest version of software directly after its release. That just seems to me to be a standard rule, across the board, no matter which developer you're talking about. When you're using the cutting-edge stuff, it tends to have a couple hiccups and break 3rd-party interactions.
So sure, go back and use FF2 for another 6 months. And then give FF3 another shot, see if it's up to speed for the things you need.
Re:Who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
They won the first browser war. But failed to meet their victory objectives.
What they were hoping if the won the broser war they were able to push their Technologies such as ActiveX, VB Script forcing people to say on windows to browse the web aka MSN v.2.0, having Web Servers use IIS as it would be the only server that will have the IE particular features Slowly replace HTML MS Office formats having all development need to be in done in Front Page for simple stuff or Visual Studios for more complex stuff.
Why did they fail to meet these objectives. A couple of unforeen side effect.
Linux and Apache. While Linux has a small marketshare for the Desktop, for servers it is much larger and far more common. And Apache is still the #1 web server. Being the programmers for these systems tend to have Unix/Linux experience with Apache for the most part for more popular sites they made sure that their code was as much platform independent as possible, by making the justification if we don't pay an extra $5,000 for these features then we won't isolate 10% of the market, an easy sell.
There was DOJ case which put Microsoft in the bad eye of the public. No longer was it considered an exciting company inovating the future. But a big corporation out for itself, squashing others. Making them less likly to use IE only features.
Next was right after the browser wars and Microsoft won, the Bad people who make spyware, malware started targeting IE the victor using easy holes such as ActiveX and the such making many browsers weary of using them, causing the rest of the people who use such features in their site to take them off. As well viruses and hacks against IIS.
Microsoft then needed to shift gears and make thier system reasonably secure now. Causing a huge delay in IE 6 production time until IE 7 leaving both IE 6 and 7 years behind its competitor and causing developers to stick with the tride and true universally compatible methods.
Adobe/Macromedia Flash (Love it or hate it) Killed Java Applets as it was faster and looked better and Active X (for over the internet (Active X survied a lot longer for intranet and extranet apps)) because it was more secure and didn't even think about writting to your disk. Being used by advertisers insured flash was installed widely.
And on and on. IE won it Browser War but it didn't get the riches.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
IE is not a hyped-up product (Score:3, Insightful)
Internet Explorer is more of a utility and is generally presented as such. If you think Microsoft, with its coffers of gold, is unable to create a wild buzzed-up marketing campaign for IE that competes with Firefox's you're wrong. Firefox is a marketing behemoth while IE's footprint is rather subdued. For this reason, IE will generally get more Automatic Update customers than technology enthusiasts or web enthusiasts who will be using Firefox. To think that many web and blog sites' viewers are not web enthusiasts would be simply naive. Imagine what the web stats would like on samsclub.com, walmart.com, or maybe even amazon.com.
Microsoft needs to have IE because it underlines the Microsoft platform as an Internet platform- if they were to concede the browser market, little would separate the usage scenario between Microsoft Windows and Ubuntu Linux for most modern (especially younger) users. I think Microsoft seeks to deliver a platform rather than just an operating system and the web is an integral part of that.
Otherwise, as long as most open source projects like OpenOffice and Firefox still run in Windows (and they run well in Windows), it will continue to be a thorn in Microsoft's side but not fatal. I think Sun invests very heavily in these cross-platform open source projects because they realize that if enough Windows users start using something cross-platform... well... they might just not see why they're needing to buy Windows anymore.
And that's the real game as I see it.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:0, Insightful)
douche-fag
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't mind ads. What I mind is intrusive ads - like the ones where they put a major overlay (that fails to dismiss in some browsers). Or the ones hosted on some obscure adserver that fails to respond in reasonable time hindering the browser in rendering the page. Or the adsites that have been spewing up virus infected ads.
I never block locally hosted ads - unless they are flashy or intrusive.
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
So, Mozilla didn't upset their most loyal customer, the add-on developers did...
Actually, Mozilla did a fine job upsetting their loyal customers -- just look at the "AwesomeBar" which is anything but.
Protip for Developers: When I type in a place for URIs, I want the AutoComplete to auto complete URIs. Not try to do some hairbrained plaintext search of bookmarks/history/uris. When I type in "Youtube.com" I should be finding the most common Youtube videos I have opened, not bookmarks from 3 years ago talking about YouTube.
They get downright rabid on the Mozilla forums if you mention you don't like the "AwesomeBar". And yes, there's a plugin to undo the GRAPHICAL CHANGES of the AwesomeBar -- but it still searches the history/bookmarks files paintext.
Another BIG annoyance: 4chan has a browse button. Upon hitting browse, you can select a lolcat image, and hit OK. This populates a filename field right next to browse.
Now, say you hit back, and want to post a reply WITHOUT an image. Well, guess what, you can't -- there's no way to click on that field and empty it out by hand, clicking on it opens up the Browse field "for you" and there's no "Select No File" or other such option.
There's also an annoying bug about restoring previous sessions, in FF2 you could force quit the process and the next time you opened it, FF2 would ask you to reopen all your tabs. In FF3, it asks, but then reopens the tabs from the FIRST session you ever opened. It does not properly save the tabs you have open as it goes.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just ignore ads, and do so with ease. I never understood the need for an addon to do it, but maybe I'm just really good at ignoring ads or something.
Are you so good at ignoring ads that they no longer are transferred over the wire? AdBlock is. I'm on a modem on some antique, crap copper, and without AdBlock Plus my ~26.4kbps modem connection would be unusable for general web surfing.
I used to also use imagelikeopera, but it doesn't work on FF3 yet (or does it? someone please tell me if it does.) And of course I use noscript, which is pretty much 100% protection from automatic attacks from malicious javascript on first visit (although you can of course accidentally permit something which will hose you, or be hosed by a site owned after you first used it and decided to allow it permanently.)
But hey, I am impressed that your psychic powers permit you to prevent all that data from being transferred over your link... or jealous that you have so much bandwidth that you don't care. Of course, you're wasting bandwidth for no good reason, which makes you kind of a dick, but I guess 2girls1cup has done more senseless damage to internet throughput than you, so carry on.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
Come to think of it, that'll be a good comeback to the snarky "Oh, TFA has ads? I didn't notice, cause I use adblock" comments... "Oh, you use adblock? How quaint, I trained my mind to do that ages ago."
When they convinced you that that was true, that was when you became owned.
The military doesn't employ advertising-I-mean-propaganda because it's ineffective. The fact that you believe it's not affecting you is a testament to how effective it is.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
Good, Can We Loose the "Awseom Bar" Now? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
how about the flash ads trying to be load from a server that has been turned into a smokeing ruin and locks up the whole page while the browser vaining waits for it to download?
Firefox3 vs. IE7 early adoption (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe if you WERE a developer, like I am, then you would understand how innovative FF has been and how much their "lack of innovation" has forced IE to be half as decent as it is today.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole "subliminal" thing strikes me as a giant load of hogwash.
Just think about it.
Coca Cola and Pepsi use lots of money in advertising. The fact that they are leaders in the world, even the fact that people actually buy sugared tap water must mean something.
Nike sells sports clothes at designer prices, and people actually buy them and wear them. To think that advertising has nothing to with it is nonsense.
People respond to advertising, to think you are so special that you don't is both arrogant and naive.
Aside from that, I don't care either about ads, I have learned to live with them, but I don't think they do not affect me.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
When faced with 10 different choices, and having no data by which to differentiate them, humans choose the familiar. If you've never had a Coke in your life, but you've seen the logo everywhere you go for a decade, when faced with 10 unknown colas and no opportunity to do research, you're most likely to pick the Coke because it feels like a known element even though it isn't.
No one is immune to that. Including you.
something wrong with your math? (Score:4, Insightful)
55 % on 1 site != 55 % of all firefox users
don't get me wrong, i like and use firefox, but come on!
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have touble with both of your examples...
1. Coca-Cola freaking tastes really good. I don't care if it had a big picture of a turd on the front... I would still drink it like crazy.
2. Nike makes really good products. Their sports gear is really high quality. Sure, some of the stuff is priced way higher than what it's worth... but most of it is high quality sports gear that's worth it's pricetag.
People respond to _good products_. Advertising really only helps (for me anyway) with the _initial_ trial. That is, if I had never heard of Coca-Cola before, I might never pick up a bottle in the first place to find out how good it is. But after that initial "tasting"... it's all on the product's merit.
I'm sure that there are people out there that are complete sheep... but there are a lot that aren't.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:4, Insightful)
And so will you, with your statements.
As much as I hate to defend Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Which one works? (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe if companies didn't build applications on brain-dead, proprietary, single-vendor platforms they wouldn't run into these kinds of problems.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is like trying to convince someone to use a pen instead of opening a vein with a razor so that they can write with their own blood. Clearly this guy enjoys the pain of using Internet Explorer.
Seriously, Firefox is faster, uses less memory, has tons of cool add-ons, and it is less likely to attract mal-ware. Heck, it even has a cooler name and logo. Even over a modem Firefox is worth the download.
So far bigstrats arguments for IE have been things like "I filter out ads in my head," and "I don't mind wasting time waiting for Internet Explorer." Wow, that sounds like a nifty deal. I think I'll switch to IE too.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
I really doubt the interface has much to do with it, the intranet explanation holds more water.
IE7 is simply not backwards-compatible with the psuedo-CSS in IE6 (which is a good thing, overall). Most of the well documented IE6 "hacks" break horribly in IE7, so if a site wasn't properly coded in the first place (conditional comments and so on), it could require a fairly heavy overhaul for modern browsers.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or the fact that the "refresh" button is completely separate from the other buttons and there's no way to move it? Or that it takes a registry hack to get the menu bar to show up where it belongs? Or the fact that you *still* can't delete cookies for just certain sites?
IE7's UI is several huge steps backwards, for no apparent reason. Their rendering engine is marginally improved, but Firefox is *definitely* the better browser as far as usability goes.
Re:Which one works? (Score:1, Insightful)
In our business environment, we will not upgrade to IE7 because it breaks business applications. No such limitations on FF3 (of course the apps don't work in FF2/3).
Maybe if MS didn't break the non-standardized technologies that they release and companies build apps on, the community might upgrade faster.
In our business environment, we will not upgrade to IE7 because it breaks business applications. No such limitations on FF3 (of course the apps don't work in FF2/3).
Maybe if MS didn't break the non-standardized technologies that they release and companies build apps on, the community might upgrade faster.
The problem is that IE doesn't follow the standards that are agreed upon, and since 7.0 and upcoming 8 have decided to finally give up on trying to create their own standard. This is why it breaks.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
For clarity's sake, what you're describing is perhaps a subconcious effect, but not a subliminal one. You don't *know* when you've been subjected to a subliminal message. From the GP:
Since the GP *knows* he sees the ads, they are, by definition, not subliminal. Now, if the ads have an effect on him that he's not consciously aware of (e.g., he sees a bunch of ads, never thinks "hey, I'll really ought to buy some coke", but he buys some anyway, when he otherwise might not have), then you might describe that effect as subconscious.
The efficacy of "subliminal advertising" is controversial, at best. Advertising that you actually perceive, on the other hand, has definitely been demonstrated to be effective.
YAS - Yet Another Stat (Score:2, Insightful)
Good job... lets assume the adoption rate is linear. In 18 years you'll have more FF3 users than people on the earth!
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
> 1. Coca-Cola freaking tastes really good
Compared to what? When blind fold tests are done to the people, they rarely know the difference between their favorite brand and any other cheap random brand. Often the cheap brand wins.
> 2. Nike makes really good products.
Again, would you really know the difference if logos would be removed?
> I'm sure that there are people out there that are complete sheep... but there are a lot that aren't.
If you ask a sheep whether he/she is a sheep, do you really think they would know that they are? Are you sure you really like the products or are you perhaps just a perfect example of a person who thinks what marketers what people to think.
Re:Great (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Coca-Cola freaking tastes really good
Compared to what? When blind fold tests are done to the people, they rarely know the difference between their favorite brand and any other cheap random brand. Often the cheap brand wins.
I'm not buying it. I have tried the double blind taste test with soda. I came out 100% on picking out Coke, Pepsi, and store brand. Most of my friends that tried the test did also. As for which they liked the most... It was split between Coke and Pepsi. Not one chose the store brand. I might believe that fountain soda could produce the results that you claim, but that is because fountain soda machines are usually horribly miscalibrated, and it is not uncommon for the soda to taste like cleaning solution because the nozzles are soaked in it and not properly washed before use, or the dishwasher is not properly rinsing all of the soap off of the glasses.
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
Misleading Summary (Score:3, Insightful)
And? We know that MS has 70% of its IE users on IE7, and we know Mozilla has, according to a site, 55% of its users on FF3. We know FF3 reached this benchmark, on a single site, after just over a week. Do we know what IE7's usage rates where after just over a week? No. No conclusions can be drawn. Slashdot should not be posting crap designed to fool stupid people.
Re:Why alarm bells? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't usually comment on moderation, but I will this time. This guy should have been modded funny. Firefox started from zero, a dead stop. Don't talk about the Suite because as a Suite user, we had a couple million users tops. Firefox after 5 years is at hundreds of millions. IE started with Windows 95 and came bundled with 98, so that's a a couple hundred million without the user having to do ANYTHING, while they had to actively go and get Firefox. That's not inertia, that's active participation.
See, this is laughable! Firefox is superior because of better security (and not just in raw numbers of holes, but used exploits, severity, etc), greater standards support, greater flexibility with extensions (which you said nary a one excited you, I'd think greasemonkey alone would be exciting for any geek), being a known quantity across platforms, open source, and yes, tabs.
Also, saying the playing field is level is laughable because while IE7 "has" tabs, the rest of the UI is a clusterfuck. One step forward, five steps back, and fourteen to the side.
Re:The reason why (Score:2, Insightful)
They just see it as "the internet". They aren't aware that their browser needs an upgrade, and they certainly wouldn't know how to actually install it.
Tell them their internet needs an update because of all the viruses flying about on the old one and then install firefox3
Re:Which one works? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's getting better now, but what frustrated me a lot was when Microsoft encouraged developers (perhaps sabotage is a closer word) to make applications IE-only even when there was no reason to whatsoever.
Back in 2000 I joined a small startup company (2 developers total) primarily to work on an ASP/VBScript application that included a lot of Javascript. The other developer who'd been there before me had evidently been pasting and adapting some of the examples from MSDN, because the majority of the Javascript code was using () round brackets instead of [] square brackets as an array lookup operator. (Square brackets being the standard universally supported way, whereas round brackets adding no benefit yet at the same time breaking support for every browser except MSIE.) From there, the broken code had been duplicated and re-used and adapted to other things all over the place.
It probably hadn't been the brightest thing to have copied this code verbatim, but it was rather silly and (imho) malicious that it was even expressed that way within MSDN in the first place. The fact that these little and rather pointless things in the MS documentation broke compatibility with everything except Microsoft, for no benefit, meant that the whole product was restricted in that way simply because someone had naively trusted the documentation, or possibly wanted to save a few minutes early on. From that point on, trying to convince managers that it was a good idea to spend time cleaning up the code was very difficult, and didn't amount to much.
Lately I've been doing some DotNet development and although there are the obvious things that are incompatible (like Silverlight), there doesn't seem to be as much blatant sabotage of people's applications to make the Microsoft only. An ASP.Net web application, if you stick to the basics of HTML, Javascript, etc, without throwing in any proprietary stuff, will tend to work nicely in a lot of browsers.