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Mozilla The Internet Internet Explorer IT

Firefox Slides, IE Gains? 228

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the daily-salt-intake dept.
limber writes "InformationWeek is reporting that a Dutch Web metrics company is stating that Microsoft's Internet Explorer has gained market share, contrary to other recent studies, while Firefox has lost market share, during the last two months. 'People are not switching so often to Firefox as before,' said Niels Brinkman, co-founder of OneStat."
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Firefox Slides, IE Gains? More

Firefox Slides, IE Gains?

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  • In Other News (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Slashdot viewers are slipping against other sites, prompting the editors to post more articles about Firefox vs. IE in a hope to gain eyeballs.

    • Actually (Score:5, Funny)

      by halcyon1234 ( 834388 ) <halcyon1234@hotmail.com> on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @09:56PM (#14613099) Journal
      Actually, this is just a dupe of an article posted five months ago [slashdot.org].

      Edit: Upon further inspection, that article seems to refer to a completely different market slide by Firefox.

      Edit to the edit: Upon even further inspection, it seems that there were about six articles between that one and this one saying that Firefox has gained marketshare. Now I'm confused.

      Edit to the edit of the edit: Yet another further inspection reveals that there is no consistant definition of "gain", "loss", "market" or "marketshare" amongst all the articles, making them appear to be completely unrelated, unreliable, and possible questionable, if not outright self serving. But this is Slashdot, so that can't be.

      Final edit: Upon yet another even further again inspection, I've come to a conclusion. Fuck it.

      PS To The Final Edit: I just reread my own posting, and realized that I did explicitly point out that this is Slashdot. I had almost forgot that! So, I'm editing the post to that fact.

      All Your Base Are Belong To Firefox! After all, oonly old people use IE! In soviet russia, my new beowolf cluster of Web Browser overlords welcome me.

  • Statistics.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by garrett714 ( 841216 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:39PM (#14611427)
    I'm so sick of statistics. Who really cares whether IE or Firefox has more market share? Even if Firefox has .005% market share, and IE has 99.999% market share, I will continue to use Firefox. If 99.999% of the world jumped off a bridge, would you do the same thing?

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:41PM (#14611452)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • But seriously, yeah, statistics don't mean much.

        That is only true %66.7 of the time.

        -matthew
      • 60% of the time, statistics works every time.
      • you forgot to take into account that Opera has a negative market share.

    • Hey, be kind! (Score:5, Funny)

      by jd ( 1658 ) <imipakNO@SPAMyahoo.com> on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:50PM (#14611539) Homepage Journal
      I think it very important if 99% of the world's population jumped off a bridge. For a start, the tsunami might damage my Internet connection.


      Now, if you were to talk about 99% of Internet Explorer die-hards jumping off a bridge, that would be another matter. I'd even be willing to help them look for a suitable bridge.

      The browser distribution does matter, however. At the present time, many sites are IE-specific and will not function under Firefox, SeaMonkey or Konqueror. I do not accept the argument that to be good, browser-specific code must be used. Nor do I accept the argument that nobody can test on all the browsers in use - that is why we have standards. And I definitely don't accept the argument that you'd design for the browser most in use, because a good design will work just as well on IE as a specific design, it'll just work everywhere else too.


      Think global and long-term, not just next-cube-down and next-week.

      • And I definitely don't accept the argument that you'd design for the browser most in use, because a good design will work just as well on IE as a specific design (Assuming this was in the article I didn't feel like reading)

        From what I can tell, good design works on everything *but* IE. My proper XHTML pages which are served as mimetype application/xhtml+xml simply will not load on IE. My SVG widgets (necessary because the only alternative would be -involuntary shudder- flash or **retching** java) would have
    • Thanks, mom. I actually would rather that nobody else used Firefox. If it gains usage, then it starts being targetted with code for popups etc.

    • Yes (Score:2, Funny)

      by cowboy76Spain ( 815442 )
      I mean, if 99.999% of the world jumps off a bridge, the corpses should be at least at the height of the bridge, so it should not be a hard fall. And then you can examine the bodies of those who jumped before searching for money, jewels and i-pods.

      Maybe a little off-topic, but so I am too.
    • If 99.999% of the people jumped off a bridge, I wouldn't need to.
      Now the ecological ramifications of all that biomass decaying at the same time.... I wonder if any enviroterrorists have calculated that one yet....
    • If 99.999% of the world jumped off a bridge, would you do the same thing?

      I'd go last. Everyone else would break my fall.

    • Re:Statistics.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by diegocgteleline.es ( 653730 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @09:02PM (#14612813)
      are you serious?

      Firefox is _the_ reason why many pages work today with other browser others than iE. Plus, if microsoft controls the browser market, it controls a big part of the internet. RSS? standars? CSS? We need firefox to keep microsoft away from controlling people like they've done in the desktop market....

    • Re:Statistics.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by mcrbids ( 148650 )
      Who really cares whether IE or Firefox has more market share?

      Web developers. Like anybody else, they don't want to have to work any harder than they have to. When IE has > 95% marketshare, you end up with stupid things like checks for browser ID string, and then displaying a "You must upgrade [sic] to IE X.0 or better to use this site". They would have every motivation to use Microsoft specific HTML extensions, and your lovely Firefox browser slips into irrelevance and uselessness as a result.

      By having a

  • FP (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 42Penguins ( 861511 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:40PM (#14611433)
    Do we really need an update every 2 weeks of the status of FF vs. IE?
    I love my phoe-firebird/fox/something, but that's my choice.

    Alternatively, could slash include a ticker on the frontpage?

  • What's the cause? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by omeg ( 907329 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:40PM (#14611438)
    What I'm interested in is the CAUSE of such numbers. Why do people switch to Firefox or, like in this case, favor Internet Explorer? Is it the new Internet Explorer 7.0 beta? Maybe it's just that important governmental issues are coming up which allow people to check out sites about them that only work with Internet Explorer. Are there any known reasons out there?

    • Re:What's the cause? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @06:02PM (#14611631)
      I work at CompUSA in the tech department, and having dealt with numerous customers, I'd say one major reason many users (who don't specifically need IE for web based "apps") don't switch to Firefox/Mozilla/etc is because of a combination of two factors (1) they haven't even heard of it (much less the security concerns IE brings about that exist minimally in Firefox), and (2) many people equate the "e" icon on their desktop AS the Internet as opposed to a browser. Yeah, it may seem funny to us /.ers, but it is true more often than not for the average computer user. MS has made that little "e" icon synonomous with the Internet in their minds. I can't begin to list the number of times a customer has said "When I click on the Internet..." referring to IE's little "e" icon.

      - RobM
      Tech Lead
      CompUSA #531
      • You've to admit it, "internet explorer" is a good name. "Firefox" sounds like.....huh.....nothing.

        We need a internet-related name: "mozilla www explorer"....whatever. "firefox" is a stupid name.

        And then, the firefox installer could include some tweaks, like for example tweak the registry to start firefox when you double click in the blue e or something if you set firefox as default browser...

      • Easy solution (Score:5, Interesting)

        by thepotoo ( 829391 ) <thepotoospam AT yahoo DOT com> on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @09:16PM (#14612875)
        Phase 1: Install Firefox
        Phase 2: Right click FF icon --> properties --> change icon --> select IE icon
        Phase 3: Delete old IE Icon from desktop
        Phase 4: Rename Mozilla Firefox icon to Internet Explorer

        Before you mod this funny, I have done this to at least half a dozen people's computers. They arn't smart enough to realize the difference (all they need is an address bar and bookmarks), so FF stays. Their computers get less spyware, they see less popups, I get less "OMG HELP ME" calls. Which brings me to Phase 5, which is profit.

      • AOL (Score:2, Interesting)

        by uptoeleven ( 845032 )
        The girlfriend was concerned when I used "Internet Explorer" to do windows update. "That's not the internet, I'm with AOL"
        Patiently explained that the browser wasn't the internet, just used to view it and browse it. Hence being called a browser.

        Haven't tried explaining why Firefox should be used instead. Something along the lines of "well, whenever you use IE, likely as not a load of hackers can look at what you're doing"

        "So why do you use IE for windowsupdate"

        erm...
    • Since I use IETab [mozdev.org], the phrase "only works with IE" no longer holds much meaning for me.

      (Well, actually, if there's an IE only page, I guess I have to click one button to make it work. But that's all.)

      When I use IETab, I wonder if it reports my browser as IE or FF for these statistics?

    • All I can say is that as bad as MSIE might be, it's "comfortable" for users to use. I'm not saying it's "more comfortable than firefox" either. I'm just saying that it's always there for most users and everything works with it. (Because everything is made to work with it.) Until web developers get a conscience, standards will be ignored in favor of what the larger market uses to browse with. Microsoft has done their damage and it's to their advantage to keep it that way.

      I can say that I've done my part
      • Standards aren't a matter of morality, they are a matter of consensus. A web developer develops for whatever his customer complains about the least. Occassionally, some spend a bit more devoloping for the widest market share and audience. Even more seldom, a developer develops to published standards, sometimes screwing his customer in the process, sometimes not.

        If no one uses the standard, it's irrelevant. The only relevant standard is the standard that is used. It makes everyone's life easier when eve

    • Re:What's the cause? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by okmnji ( 791276 )
      You want to know the cause of the numbers?

      Ok, how about this; every day, there are a lot of computers sold. A large percentage of these computers have Windows XP pre-installed. All the computers with Windows XP installed have IE. I have not yet seen any computer that had XP pre-installed that also had Firefox pre-installed. I know it pains you, but computers sold with desktop Linux just aren't that popular among the general population; they want their Play-skool Windows, with the nice big 'e' that says 'Int

  • And thus shall it always be (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TFGeditor ( 737839 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:40PM (#14611442) Homepage
    I suspect Firefox et al will always ride a +/- 2 percent sinewave with IE displaying a similar leading edge ripple. Rolls Royce and Ferrari do not think or speak in terms of "market share." They have a core following that will always remain, and will always be small. The masses will always drive Chevys, Toyotas, or whatever.

    • However, the problem with that is that Rolls Royces are made and designed for a small group of people (the very rich) but Firefox is supposed to be for mass consumption. One of the main purposes of FF is to make the internet a better place, b/c so many unscrupulous vendors are using adware/spyware/worms/viruses to take advantage of the security holes present in IE, and converting to FF will eliminate many of those holes. If the vast majority don't use IE then FF has failed in this very important purpose.
    • A better analogy might be comparing those Rolls Royces and Ferraris to a Hyundai, as long as the Hyundai came with your driver's license, and those better cars only seemed to be driven by the folks who spend every weekend working on their cars. Many of that crowd would never switch, even if both cars were free (or the Rolls and Ferraris were "freer" in the sense that you didn't have to pay for your driver's license if you drove them, also), no matter how much better they were.

      Remember, there are a lot of r
      • I think the parent "gets it."

        The point was not related to cost, but to a specialty market. We (geeks, nerds, et al) like Firefox because we can tweak it to suit our needs. The designers made it that way. Not everyone can use Firefox to its full intended potential.

        You do not just jump behind the wheel of a Ferrari and drive it to its full potential. It takes an on-going investment of time and learning (dollar cost is irrelevant) that most people are unwilling or have no desire to make. Anyone (well, almost)
    • Indeed, and the reason for that is that Rolls Royce and Ferrari are pretty much unaffordable for the unwashed masses - it's not like people don't *want* Ferraris, it's just that they don't have the money for them.

      That obviously isn't a concern with Firefox, so the example isn't a good one.

  • Seamonkey (Score:2, Funny)

    by strcmp ( 908668 )
    Could it be that everyone using Firefox switched to Seamonkey?

  • School's in, SUCKA (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Brunellus ( 875635 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:41PM (#14611457) Homepage

    ...which means that all those new computer sold to students are using IE. Not all those students are migrating to FF.

    Every new computer that runs Windows is a new IE user. Not so for Firefox or any other browser. Nothing to see here. Move on.

  • Maybe, maybe not. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gasmonso ( 929871 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:42PM (#14611459) Homepage

    Many regular users of Firefox like myself are forced to use IE for some things like Launchcast and many other nonFF friendly sites. Also, many people employ FF extensions like IE Tab to use IE within FF. Of course, this may also have something to do with the IE 7.0 beta usage.

    http://religiousfreaks.com/ [religiousfreaks.com]
  • Seems that people really love these stupid statistics.. it really does not matter what the exact Procentages are..

    The big things like if something had 1% 10% to 100% share.. yes those might matter, but is something 11.2% or 11.5% in things like this... totally irrelevant.

    • You'd be right, if we were talking about my 1990 Ford Bronco with a six-inch lift and 34" tires. I calculated *precisely* that it got 13.4mpg highway, 13.3mpg city. But Firefox vs. IE? One-tenth of a percentage point of internet users is probably somewhere between a few hundred thousand and a million internet users. That's not insignificant.
      • Each test/sample will be a certain size as you cannot sample what everyone on the planet with a computer is using. Thus from the sample and methodology used we get different results. This is the reason that people like professional pollsters give an error margin and sample size and methodology of getting the sample.

        In this case they did none of the above, thus in general one can assume that for the subsection of the market they are using the thing is true, but says nothing at a level that is more precise

  • I love Firefox... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by JMZero ( 449047 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:44PM (#14611483) Homepage
    But I'll admit I've slowed down on my evangelism.. Honestly, Firefox seems to perform worse now for me than it did at .9 (or so). It's getting to be fairly regular that I see the "Firefox is already running - go kill the process" dialog. It's getting to be fairly regular that I see All-In-One Gestures in wacky mode where it's building a huge string while I don't have the button down (and then usually crashing). It's a little annoying, too, that the association with QuickTime (for playing .WAVs or .MP3s) doesn't ever "just work". I was thinking about writing a little game based on the Canvas object - but when it came to adding sound in a manner that was going to work for people I just gave up.

    Maybe I've just had bad luck, but Firefox seems bigger, slower and less stable than it did a year ago - and I can't think of any added feature that I've cared about during that same period.
    • There used to be unzippable official version of Firefox for Windows, but now I've to use the bloody Windows installer.
    • I agree. firefox is my primary browser, but I've started using Opera a lot more. Since 1.5, FF crashes 4-5 times a day, not counting how many times I need to kill the process manually.

      Last time I dared mention that, I was told that FF is perfect, it's probably just a buggy extension, which may be true, but if the extensions I like (adblock plus, html tidy, and web developer) don't work, I might as well use Opera or IE.

      • I had this experience on Windows. Ya know what? I'm using IE for most of my regular browsing. I'm even using it right now. It doesn't crash, it supports all of my plugins, and I've never really been a huge fan of tabs (at times, yes, but mostly I ignore them). I don't click on random executables, I don't install arbitrary ActiveX controls, and I've never been infected... IE, like XP, is pretty much "good enough," for a whole slew of people who just want to render them some HTML.
    • Not just you...I saw a slowdown too in the last few versions. I started to notice lags when switching tabs, something I had never seen before. Decided to recompile Firefox and Java to see if that would help. While doing that, I fired up Konqueror to check it out, and was amazed at how much faster and more responsive it seemed. I'm starting to worry that Firefox is getting a little Netscaped. I still use it, but it's not as zippy as it was during the .9 versions.
    • Maybe I've just had bad luck, but Firefox seems bigger, slower and less stable than it did a year ago

      Face it, Firefox is a terrible browser. Sure, it's better than IE, but that's really not saying very much. I hate the fact that it's so useless out of the box -- the defaults are awful, and you need to resort to a whole bunch of extensions to get it to work even halfway sanely, and then half of those don't work with the version of Firefox you're using. I hate the fact that it crashes so much, and it's way

    • Running firefox on windows is like having a Ferrari with a 2 cycle lawnmower engine. And don't blame weirdassed extensions on firefox... you oughtta see what my alpha extension can do.
  • In other news, all statistic that is done on a small sample are really susceptible to noise.

    Also, note that many of Firefox users will block any advertising and counting scum, thus reducing the visible usage. IE users tend to be non-technical, and thus they simply don't have the means to do so, at least until the bad evil sysadmin at their company blocks the relevant spies on DNS/squid level.

  • Who f*cking cares? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by undeadly ( 941339 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:45PM (#14611494)
    It's a nice browser, so why don't you just use without beeing "concerned" that your neighbour and the cat uses it as well.

  • Not real gain (Score:5, Insightful)

    by imoou ( 949576 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:46PM (#14611498) Homepage
    I think it's more a case of more new PC purchases during the Christmas/New Year periods, that's why IE (preinstalled with most new PCs) "gained" some market share.

    I can't imagine anyone would actively download and install IE, so unlike Firefox, IE's gain is not a real gain, but a side effect of its parent -- Windows.
    • ...probably what parent said. That was my first reaction - I'd love to compare next Christmas if someone big (Dell maybe? HP?) starts packaging other browsers, or the Google Pack takes off. Also, what about all the Mac sales in the past two months? Apple posted pretty good numbers (for them, but still), and I sure hope none of those new Mac users dug through their Applications folder to find IE5 for Mac...sheesh.

    • Probably more like people shopping on line in the Christmas period. There are a lot of extra hits from people who normally only surf one or two sites (CNN, Fox), but suddenly start looking all over the place for good deals at Christmas time. Hence the 'drop' (1.4%) in Firefox in the USA, but stable in Europe. Although it's interesting that IE usage remained constant. I wonder if there was a jump in old or wierd browsers like Netscape or WebTV.

      The article is mostly trash though. Anyone who thinks that

  • Very normal with such high novice user rate (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stikves ( 127823 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:51PM (#14611546) Homepage
    It's sad, but it's expected.

    Firefox, Opera, etc (and even avantbrowser [avantbrowser.com]) for advanced users only. Nowadays it's considered "difficult" to install software by clicking "next, next, next".

    Do not get me wrong. It's not that Firefox is not user friendly or easier to use, however there are so many "PC users" below "novice" level which will disable an antivirus if they're unable to open an infected file. And there are many "system admins", (which are in charge of internet cafes or school labs) who only knows how to install Windows and Office (and probably from "recovery CDs"). Times are different now.

    (Previously everybody not only knew what every file in their C:\DOS and C:\WINDOWS were for, they could also program in at least in one language).

    We cannot expect any more growth until PC users are more educated.

    • however there are so many "PC users" below "novice" level which will disable an antivirus if they're unable to open an infected file.

      I refuse to believe anyone could be that stupid. This is a problem that needs natural selection: No, I won't fix your computer again because you screwed it up doing exactly what I told you not to do last time. Fix it yourself.

      As long as people know that when they frack their computers up they can get a nerd to fix it for them for free, they will remain ignorant because

    • I'm not sure why tech-savvy people expect all others to know their computer inside and out. PC users will not become significantly more educated because in all honesty why should they need to? Computers are just a tool, a complex tool but still a tool.

      People dont' get a computer cuz they want to run Firefox or Office (at least most don't); they do it because they want to check stocks, read the news, talk to family members world wide, share photos and videos, type letters, etc. A lot people on here give Mi

      • Re:Very normal with such high novice user rate (Score:4, Insightful)

        by el_womble ( 779715 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @05:40AM (#14614551) Homepage
        Because computes are a tool and ALL tools require a certain amount of training.

        Now do they need to know when and how to implement a radix sort? No. In the same way as I don't need to know how to do and oil change, or tune the engine in my car. But I am expected to fill it up myself and check the tyre pressure, maybe even fill the screen wash. I'm also obligated to drive safely, and act with courtesy towards other road users and pedestrians.

        It doesn't even need to be as complicated as a car for this analogy to work.

        Take a sledgehammer. You don't need any formal training, or a license to operate it. You do have to be strong enough to lift it, and look halfway responsible when you buy it (more than a computer). In the right hands a sledgehammer is a wonderful tool that can be used in a variety of different ways. In the wrong hands it can be used to destroy your house and kill people. The difference between a computer and a sledgehammer is that when a sledgehammer is used by a moron, its the moron that gets blamed.

        Its not even like there arn't equivalents to viruses and malware. Sledghammers are suseptable to variety of attacks: fungal wood rot, rust, termites. Still, if a moron gets hurt, or does damage with a damaged sledgehammer its the morons fault.

        This is why nerds think that people who use computers should have at least a basic understand of how they work, before they use them. Computers are tools, and tools need training and care if they are to be used without damaging the operator and those around them.

  • Well, of course! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Hikaru79 ( 832891 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:55PM (#14611574) Homepage
    Haven't you guys heard? The new IE7 beta has such revolutionary features as Popup Blockers, and even Tabbed Browsing! Of course Firefox can't compete. They'll have to come to their senses if they want to lead the pack.

  • They're right (Score:5, Funny)

    by Feanturi ( 99866 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @05:57PM (#14611588)
    People are not switching so often to Firefox

    Yeah I never switch to Firefox anymore, once was enough. The same is true for most of the people I know using it. Something about switching to it that first time, they never switch to it again, I wonder what causes that. For awhile I tried downloading it from mozilla.org every time I wanted to surf, but that got tedious rapidly. I'm sorry I guess I'm just not doing my part. Hey I know, I could load up IE then close it, then load Firefox again, would that count as another switch? I promise to do it more often if it will help.

  • Skewed data? (Score:5, Informative)

    by lostboy2 ( 194153 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @06:04PM (#14611643)
    Hmmm... OneStat is a company that provides website analysis for a fee. According to the blurb about their enterprise service [onestat.com],

    To track visitors you have to implement a small piece of javascript in your HTML pages. This browser-based tagging method is proven to be the most reliable and effective way of tracking your visitors. Measurements are based on IP number, cookie and browser string.

    Each day thousands of new IP addresses are added to OneStat's growing database which is based on 2,3 million IP ranges. Nowhere else you can achieve such an accurate picture of where your business visitors are coming from.
    So that would suggest that their statistics only count people who visit their customers' websites. I don't think I'd count that as a complete, objective picture of the Internet as a whole. Plus, whether or not you accept cookies from a site might skew their data further. [For the record, I use Firefox and only accept cookies when I have to].

  • you get counted as buying IE.

    Every time you download Firefox, you get counted as "buying" Firefox.

    Of course:

    1. if you have twenty boxen like we do, you only download Firefox once and then roll it onto each boxen internally - 20 copies, one download.

    2. if you stop using IE on your laptop and use Firefox, noone REDUCES the count of IE users by one, they only INCREASE the count of Firefox users. Thus, IE will always have more users, since they never LOSE them when you switch to Firefox or Opera.
    • annoying.

      Secondly, they count browser usage based on network traffic, not based on number of downloads/PC's sold.

      RTFA.
    • 3. If you download every minor and major version, alphas, betas and specially optimized builds of Firefox (as I have done in the past), you've what, "bought" FF 20 times for one computer? Download counts for Firefox are obvious overcounts not undercounts of its users.

      (Note: Your point 2 applies to every other browser, as well.)
    • 2. if you stop using IE on your laptop and use Firefox, noone REDUCES the count of IE users by one, they only INCREASE the count of Firefox users. Thus, IE will always have more users, since they never LOSE them when you switch to Firefox or Opera.


      Depends on if you're trying to track downloads and installations, or trying to track users based on user agent strings. Both have problems, but the second method doesn't suffer from the problem you mention.

  • Bundle Extensions with Firefox (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Omega1045 ( 584264 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @06:11PM (#14611717)
    There are four reasons I like Firefox better than IE:

    1) Its faster,
    2) Tabbed browsing,
    3) Adblock,
    4) More secure.

    Items 1 & 4 are difficult to present to new users. Item 2 is also in IE7. Item 3 does not come standard with Firefox.

    In addition to Adblock, there are several other really great extensions that make Firefox the browser for me. I use other extensions to sync my bookmarks between computers, provide thumbnails of all open tabs (available in IE7), and to more tightly lock-down pop-ups and javascript.

    What Firefox needs is a bundle that includes several "essential" extensions pre-installed. As MS plays catch-up with where Firefox was a year ago, the Mozilla Foundation could stay way ahead bundling these great tools. The average user is not going to go out and find these free additions on their own. By adding only a couple of MBs for the initial download, I bet you could bundle several great extensions and market the additional functionality.

    • Re:Bundle Extensions with Firefox (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Yahweh Doesn't Exist ( 906833 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @06:20PM (#14611814)
      my reason for using firefox was adblock, but now I have safariblock so use safari.

      the thing that made me delete firefox was realising how it managed passwords. as far as I can tell you have 2 options:
      1. you passwords are free for everyone to see by looking in the preferences (secured only by a "are you sure?" box), or
      2. you must enter a master password every time you start a new session.

      this is absolutely insane. I guess it's because firefox isn't OS-integrated so can't use OS-protection such as Keychain to keep passwords safe.
    • Why just include them as extensions? Extensions are slow to load, so if they're going to include them, they could just merge that into the main code or write a similar feature to replace it. An option during the install would allow the user to select/deselect the parts they need/don't need.

      Of course, this defeats the original purpose of Firefox: to have a simple and fast browser.

  • 1.5 wasn't so good. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Eric Coleman ( 833730 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @06:14PM (#14611743)

    if anything, I'm an old school netscape fanboy. My first browser was Lynx, then I eventually jumped on the bandwagon and got netscape 3, then eventually moved on to long lasting netscape 4.x series. Netscape 6 sucked so I stayed with netscape 4.x during that time. I eventually starting using the Mozilla suite pre 1.0 after stumbling upon it. The lack of AOL branding at the time was a major reason for my jump from Netscape proper. Since then I've been using Mozilla, then Phoneix, then Firebird, then eventually Firefox. When 1.5 came out, it really sucked major ass for me. FF1.5 would crash at least 7 to 10 times per day. I'm fairly computer savy and I followed explicit instructions on making sure it was a clean install. I was browsing with hardly any extensions at all, which sucked.

    There have been other major changes behind the scenes that might not be so apparent to the average user. In my attempts to create an extension for FF1.5 extension contest I came accross a shitload of bugs. Very simple XUL markup could make the browser disappear by simply clicking on a hyperlink. And by disappear I mean as in invisibile, except for plain text. And there are others, but my attempts at using Bugzilla have sucked. I've reported bugs in the past only to have them recently deleted because no one want's to fix them.

    OSS is fine, but it seems to foster a mentality that if a developer can't reproduce a bug then the end user must be stupid. That's annoying, especially for a company that's marketing its browser to everyone, including urging people that don't know what a browser even is to upgrade.

    The feeling I've gotten from this open source netscape project is that I'm using a product, such that if it ever gives me serious problems, I'm left with no recourse since there is no focused method for attaining a definitive solution or fix for something. It's like the bystander effect [wikipedia.org] when it comes to fixing or even acknowleding problems.

    • I had problems with 1.5 too, which is the main reason I'm not using it right now.

      When I installed 1.5, it took over the Windows file associations for URLs in a different way than it did before. From that point on, whenever I typed a URL inside of Internet Explorer itself, it would open a new Firefox window and go to the site. I literally couldn't use Internet Explorer at all. As a developer, I really need to make sure my programming runs on both, since this was a web based project.

      I uninstalled Firefox, and

    • Re:1.5 wasn't so good. (Score:3, Informative)

      by dtfinch ( 661405 ) *
      You can try the 1.5.0.1 nightlies, which are supposed to contain a lot of crash fixes and other major bugfixes. http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/ni g htly/latest-mozilla1.8.0/ [mozilla.org]

      I used to get occasional crashes starting with the Deer Park builds before it was called 1.5, but they seemed to go away completely after I installed the flashblock extension and disabled java. Lots of flash ads across several tabs is a recipe for disaster. There's still a Linux-only tab dragging bug (drag doesn't end when
  • Well, this morning I read on /. that IE 7 beta two is out. I'm now running (and liking) this new browser. In typical MS fashion, it takes the best of other browsers (firefox / opera) and makes it nice and tidy.

    Now if it only ran on my SUSE 10.0 laptop....

  • Firefox is the most unstable program in common use (Score:5, Informative)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @07:21PM (#14612269) Homepage
    It's an ugly fact, but Firefox is the most unstable program in common use. For me, that's ugly because it is my favorite browser. Perhaps people get tired of the crashing and CPU hogging, and have moved to Opera, which has no stability problems that I'm able to detect.

    The CPU and memory hogging bug in Firefox 1.5 is well known. In two extensive articles, Information Week reports that opening and closing many Firefox windows and tabs causes crashes and CPU and memory hogging. That kind of heavy user often sees Firefox consuming 99% CPU while idle and/or more than 400 Megabytes. See Firefox 1.5: Not Ready For Prime Time? [cmp.com] and Firefox 1.5 Stability Problems? Readers And Mozilla Respond [cmp.com].

    The bug seems to be due to insufficient allocation of resources inside Firefox, such as inadequate stack space. Those who use a browser to do extensive research, for example, are likely to have more windows and tabs open than the average user. Apparently Firefox developers did not plan for that.

    The bug has been reported to Bugzilla, and is very easy to reproduce (see below), but Firefox developers have marked it invalid because there is not enough specific information! The bug has existed in Firefox for more than 2 years, and several people report that it is worse in Firefox 1.5. Firefox's Bugzilla does not allow direct links from Slashdot, so copy and paste Bugzilla URLs into a new tab. Remove the space:
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=131 456
    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=222 660

    See comments #48 and #49 of bug 222660 for an example of the symptoms under Windows XP. A typical Windows Task Manager screen shot attached to comment #49 shows the "I/O Other Bytes" increasing by 20K/second with no program activity. At that point, the bug was not yet showing the worst symptoms.

    The huge memory use, and 94% CPU use or more with no activity, normally occur after opening and closing many Firefox windows and tabs, as happens when researching something on the internet over a period of hours or days. The bug symptoms are worse after putting the computer on standby or after hibernating. My experience has been that the memory and CPU hogging always occur together, so they appear to be the same bug. However, the CPU hogging symptom takes longer to appear. If the computer has perhaps 256 Megabytes of memory, the most obvious symptom at the beginning is hard disk thrashing.

    You can demonstrate the memory use problem quickly by loading and closing the following large web page into multiple Firefox tabs a few times:
    http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/manual/html_mono/ libc.html [gnu.org]. To see the memory and CPU percentage used in Windows, right-click on the Taskbar and choose Task Manager. Choose the Processes tab.This demonstrates one aspect of the bug, but is not representative of big occuring in normal use, since that web page is huge.

    Maybe the only solution is for a developer who knows the code to reproduce the problem and see what causes it. It is not clear to me why they are unwilling to do so. This bug seems especially interesting to me. It is likely that fixing this bug will fix other issues. It is likely that fixing this bug will make it easier to work on the Firefox code.

    The bug has often been reported on Slashdot. Here are a few examples:
    " >http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169676&cid=14 143632
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 62501 [slashdot.org]
    http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=168683&cid=140 62671 [slashdot.org]

    • Re:Firefox is the most unstable program in common (Score:4, Funny)

      by sootman ( 158191 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @08:38PM (#14612691) Homepage Journal
      "Those who use a browser to do extensive research, for example, are likely to have more windows and tabs open than the average user."

      Not to mention people who look at pron. Note to Mozilla: must fix!!!!!11one :-)
    • You raise a good point. I hate to say it (no, really, I do), but Firefox - and Mozilla in general - is a piece of crap. I'm using the monolithic Mozilla suite (tried Firefox, but didn't like it), and it crashes or locks up on my pretty much daily; and when it doesn't, it typically eats about 200 to 300 MB of RAM, unless I close it every day (which is possible, of course, but inconvenient).

      I have filed bugs in the past for crashes, too - those few cases where I could actually work out a consistent trigger co

  • Obligatory Sony Rootkit Joke (Score:4, Funny)

    by tclark ( 140640 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @07:42PM (#14612375) Homepage
    Maybe we could get Sony to include it on some new CD's...

  • Gatta love those double standards (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Spiffness ( 941077 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @08:36PM (#14612677) Homepage
    Nothing quite like a 'Firefox Gains!' story. 100's of replies about how awesome firefox is.

    A 'Firefox slips this month' story and what do you get? 'GOD STOP TELLING ME WHATS UP WITH FIREFOX ALL THE TIME I DONT CARE'

    Hmmmm...

  • Yeah, Well I Got Another Client Interested (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Master of Transhuman ( 597628 ) on Tuesday January 31, 2006 @11:58PM (#14613614) Homepage

    after going through yet another marathon spyware cleaning yesterday and today.

    Goddam Spystrike and a dozen or two other trojans...

    The Spystrike bitch is just that - people everywhere, according to various spyware Web sites, are having one hell of a time getting rid of that one. New variants every other day and almost no antispyware or antivirus vendor is up to speed on it yet; estimates are it's infecting 2,500 PCs an hour. Rides in on various conventional trojans, then is extremely hard to get rid of without specific knowledge of how - and even then.

    I had to use a special removal tool, plus a-squared, Ewido, SpybotS&D, spywareblaster, Windows antispyware, a repair install, SFC, and one hell of a lot of reboots to get rid of this fucker.

    Somebody find the fuckwads who put this one out - I got something for their asses - and Bill's.

    OTOH, I made some money out of it, so maybe I love those guys...

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