11 ms·

Firefox fades in popularity

23 points by duck 17y ago

bdfh42 17y ago
I stopped using FireFox recently as I was getting a bit fed up with it freezing and/or running at very high CPU utilisation and memory levels. I will miss the "add in" support infrastructure but for the moment it is Google Chrome for general browsing.
- tseabrooks 17y ago
  Ultimately, I had to stop using FireFox because of these types of issues. I'd leave a few tabs open for a couple hours and find firefox at over a gig of memory use making everything run extremely slow. I don't have this problem with Chrome so I use Chrome.
  - robin_reala 17y ago
    Trouble is, it’s usually add-ons in the first place that are causing these issues. I recently uninstalled Invisible Hand and noticed an immediate improvement in speed for example.
    - tseabrooks 17y ago
      That's what I thought. I tried removing various plug-ins to figure out which one was the problem. I got down to only having ad-block enabled and I didn't want to disable it.
      - robin_reala 17y ago
        Fair enough. At that point I usually recommend trying a new profile, but honestly a jump to Chrome is probably going to be more of a performance benefit at the moment.
wedesoft 17y ago
Does the statistic include Google Chrome Frame for Internet Explorer?
- robin_reala 17y ago
  Honestly, who uses that?
arnorhs 17y ago
I'm a bit skeptical on the source for those numbers. "according to a new set of data crunched by NetApplications" - At least he mentions the source, even though he doesn't link it. He also doesn't mention what those statistics are based on. The number of users, on which websites they were measured, etc.
Roridge 17y ago
I use FireFox for work and Chrome for surfing function/speed respectively. FireFox keeps all my tabs nicely open, I can have all the helpful plugins installed on it. Chrome is completely fresh install, with only xMarks plugin to remain fast.
- duck 17y ago
  I noticed the other day how I was using Chrome basically all the time at home even though I have Firefox setup with some very useful plugins that work well. I think it all comes down to speed. Anyone know of any good metrics on performance of chrome vs. firefox?
- cake 17y ago
  I just noticed that I'm instinctively using 3-4 browsers too at work and at home on a single machine. At work I'm using Chrome for everyday browsing, Firefox/Firebug for heavy development and Opera for personal stuff (Gmail). At home I use Safari for everyday browsing, Chromium for news/social web and Firefox for Google Reader. i really like the fact that if the browser crashes or wants to update I don't loose everything I'm doing, only a part of it. It also allows me to focus on a task rather than a bunch of unrelated websites. Is that a general trend ?
nirai 17y ago
Mozilla should get their act together before its too late. Once they loose their mind share it will be over. Firefox on Linux is freezing and sluggish.
- greyman 17y ago
  I am afraid it already is too late. Google just plainly out-innovated them, and there isn't any quick fix to revert that.
  - nailer 17y ago
    I'd wait until FF 4, FF for Android, Weave, and a few of the other labs innovations are out before writing Firefox off yet.
    - timwiseman 17y ago
      Agreed, I am a huge fan of Weave and FireFox. While I do agree that Chrome is also an excellent browser, I would hardly say it is evident that Chrome has out innovated FireFox, especially this early in the process.
- robotron 17y ago
  It really is about speed - both load time and rendering. Sadly, I can start Firefox and while it's loading I can start Chrome, IE and Opera and they all finish before Firefox (not an accurate metric, I realise). I love Firefox but speed rules sometimes.
  - giu 17y ago
    The only reason I'm keeping Firefox installed on my machine is Firebug. Although, I have to mention that during my last small JS project I only used Google Chrome's built-in developer tools, and I liked what I saw. Maybe FF 4.0 will be a game changer, but for the moment the actual FF is just too darn slow for a daily usage.
    - 17y ago
mgrouchy 17y ago
The main issue with firefox currently is that its not webkit. Webkit is faster and thats what people care about mostly. That and the fact that firefox itself(the application) is slow or at least I find it to be in comparison to chrome and safari.
- ilitirit 17y ago
  > Webkit is faster and thats what people care about mostly. Not really. It really depends on the end-user. I'm sure there are lots of people like me who prefer Firefox because of the addons.
  - mgrouchy 17y ago
    Chrome has plugins too, not as many, but I am sure it will grow as the number of users grows as well.
gchucky 17y ago
I'm probably going to get downvoted for this, but I'm going to keep using Firefox. If nothing else, my paranoia senses are tingling with regard to Google. These days I'm heavily invested in Google - their software runs my phone, handles my email, and is my main way of searching. If nothing else, I'd rather not put all my eggs in one basket, and would rather diversify a little.
- robotron 17y ago
  (I was tempted to downvote you just for saying "I'm probably going to get downvoted for this") That's a reason that is probably shared among a significant group of people. It doesn't address the failings in Firefox's need to keep up with the competition, though.
- notauser 17y ago
  At least it'll be better to use Firefox with a majority WebKit share than it was to use Seamonkey with a majority IE6 share back in '0X!
- bruceboughton 17y ago
  It's interesting that out of all the services Google offer you, the one you decide to turn down is their web browser. Is that an indication of the relative importance to you of these services?
- berntb 17y ago
  I will get scared of Google when I see a Microsoft style "strategy tax" -- e.g. when it gets hard to use GMail from non-Google web browsers.
  - loup-vaillant 17y ago
    What about being scared of Google doing semantic analysis of your e-mail? Or Google remembering your search results during several months? Google doesn't tax your money, but it does tax your privacy. To me that sounds just as expensive.
sunkencity 17y ago
The beauty of Firefox is the openness of the XUL platform. It's an amazing idea to make it possible for anyone who can hack HTML/CSS and javascript to be able to tweak the browser, bootstrapping web viewer with web tech. The webkit browsers doesn't have this, but most users doesn't care, and they don't care about the level of data google gets from chrome either. But yeah, this firefox instance I am running now is pretty laggy. Something needs to be done about that.
- nailer 17y ago
  How many popular XUL apps are there really? Songbird? Flock? Are they really popular or game changing? The engineering effort for XUL slowed down Netscape 6 and Mozilla browser for years until it was of decent quality. No real apps have come out of it. In 2010. Apps belong inside the browser. Browsers don't belong in apps.
  - sunkencity 17y ago
    not the apps, the firefox plugins. basically any web developer with enough perseverance can hack theorin own browser.
    - gnosis 17y ago
      Opera uses the same open plugin interface as Firefox. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/the-opera-plug-in-interface/ http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/the-opera-plug-in-interfa...
ZeroGravitas 17y ago
I often wonder if the network effects in our profession leads to this desire for one product we use to win, or if our natural tribalism exacerbates the network effects. I don't really care if one particular browser is going up or down, I just want a competitive market based on open standards so that I can use whatever the hell browser I like and not be locked out of anything. At the moment that means I'm rooting for IE6 to die, and IE in total to fall to around a third or less globally so that they're forced to compete. Chrome stealing alpha-geek users from Firefox doesn't matter to me as a) there's not that many of them, and b) it doesn't reduce IE usage (nor IE6 in particular).
scotty79 17y ago
For me it's all about speed. Funny thing is that the same thing made me to switch from IE to Firefox. Only things that may keep me with Firefox are now Firebug and FirePHP.
- Groxx 17y ago
  I've been the same way. I switched to using Firefox first because it was way faster than IE. Since then, it sped up a bit, and has since been bogged down by the same things that bogged down the Mozilla browser to begin with... which is why Firefox was made... Full circle, anyone? And people are surprised they're having trouble compared to their booming, speed-oriented days? For me, Firefox is around for compatibility tests and the Web Developer toolbar (Web Inspector in Safari works better for a number of things, though, so it rarely gets used).
gte910h 17y ago
Chrome was catching up. The h.264 idealism was the last straw.
jbellis 17y ago
It's worth pointing out that almost all of Chrome's share has come at IE's expense, not FF's.
- k0n2ad 17y ago
  It's like saying that voting for Nader was taking votes away from John Kerry :P
  - Groxx 17y ago
    Or from Mickey Mouse.
bmunro 17y ago
The address bar in Chrome works so much better than the separate address and search fields in Firefox. This is the main reason that I switched to Chrome.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
duck 17y ago
And Chrome will keep gaining with things like Google Chrome Beta Browser Adds Translation, Privacy Features - http://bit.ly/baCeoV http://bit.ly/baCeoV
samd 17y ago
Another advantage of Chrome: extremely fast JavaScript engine. That puts them at a distinct advantage for the coming deluge of web apps.
Groxx 17y ago
What's wrong with Firefox? Their biggest innovation for a long time has been Greasemonkey (was that done by Mozilla, or a plugin? Dunno, doesn't really matter). And it can't even run JS before the page loads.
sireat 17y ago
At work I test on Chrome and Opera(and on IE in VirtualBox), but my main workhorse is still Firefox (on Ubuntu 9.10). Why? The wide choice of extensions. I do try to disable most of the ones I am not using at the moment, some tend to crash things. Still, one has to admit Firefox has bloated quite a bit since early days pre 1.0.

23 points by duck 17y ago

I stopped using FireFox recently as I was getting a bit fed up with it freezing and/or running at very high CPU utilisation and memory levels. I will miss the "add in" support infrastructure but for the moment it is Google Chrome for general browsing.

tseabrooks 17y ago
Ultimately, I had to stop using FireFox because of these types of issues. I'd leave a few tabs open for a couple hours and find firefox at over a gig of memory use making everything run extremely slow. I don't have this problem with Chrome so I use Chrome.
- robin_reala 17y ago
  Trouble is, it’s usually add-ons in the first place that are causing these issues. I recently uninstalled Invisible Hand and noticed an immediate improvement in speed for example.
  - tseabrooks 17y ago
    That's what I thought. I tried removing various plug-ins to figure out which one was the problem. I got down to only having ad-block enabled and I didn't want to disable it.
    - robin_reala 17y ago
      Fair enough. At that point I usually recommend trying a new profile, but honestly a jump to Chrome is probably going to be more of a performance benefit at the moment.

wedesoft 17y ago

Does the statistic include Google Chrome Frame for Internet Explorer?

robin_reala 17y ago
Honestly, who uses that?

arnorhs 17y ago

I'm a bit skeptical on the source for those numbers. "according to a new set of data crunched by NetApplications" - At least he mentions the source, even though he doesn't link it. He also doesn't mention what those statistics are based on. The number of users, on which websites they were measured, etc.

Roridge 17y ago

I use FireFox for work and Chrome for surfing function/speed respectively. FireFox keeps all my tabs nicely open, I can have all the helpful plugins installed on it. Chrome is completely fresh install, with only xMarks plugin to remain fast.

duck 17y ago
I noticed the other day how I was using Chrome basically all the time at home even though I have Firefox setup with some very useful plugins that work well. I think it all comes down to speed. Anyone know of any good metrics on performance of chrome vs. firefox?
cake 17y ago
I just noticed that I'm instinctively using 3-4 browsers too at work and at home on a single machine. At work I'm using Chrome for everyday browsing, Firefox/Firebug for heavy development and Opera for personal stuff (Gmail). At home I use Safari for everyday browsing, Chromium for news/social web and Firefox for Google Reader. i really like the fact that if the browser crashes or wants to update I don't loose everything I'm doing, only a part of it. It also allows me to focus on a task rather than a bunch of unrelated websites. Is that a general trend ?

nirai 17y ago

Mozilla should get their act together before its too late. Once they loose their mind share it will be over. Firefox on Linux is freezing and sluggish.

greyman 17y ago
I am afraid it already is too late. Google just plainly out-innovated them, and there isn't any quick fix to revert that.
- nailer 17y ago
  I'd wait until FF 4, FF for Android, Weave, and a few of the other labs innovations are out before writing Firefox off yet.
  - timwiseman 17y ago
    Agreed, I am a huge fan of Weave and FireFox. While I do agree that Chrome is also an excellent browser, I would hardly say it is evident that Chrome has out innovated FireFox, especially this early in the process.
robotron 17y ago
It really is about speed - both load time and rendering. Sadly, I can start Firefox and while it's loading I can start Chrome, IE and Opera and they all finish before Firefox (not an accurate metric, I realise). I love Firefox but speed rules sometimes.
- giu 17y ago
  The only reason I'm keeping Firefox installed on my machine is Firebug. Although, I have to mention that during my last small JS project I only used Google Chrome's built-in developer tools, and I liked what I saw. Maybe FF 4.0 will be a game changer, but for the moment the actual FF is just too darn slow for a daily usage.
  - 17y ago

mgrouchy 17y ago

The main issue with firefox currently is that its not webkit. Webkit is faster and thats what people care about mostly. That and the fact that firefox itself(the application) is slow or at least I find it to be in comparison to chrome and safari.

ilitirit 17y ago
> Webkit is faster and thats what people care about mostly. Not really. It really depends on the end-user. I'm sure there are lots of people like me who prefer Firefox because of the addons.
- mgrouchy 17y ago
  Chrome has plugins too, not as many, but I am sure it will grow as the number of users grows as well.

gchucky 17y ago

I'm probably going to get downvoted for this, but I'm going to keep using Firefox. If nothing else, my paranoia senses are tingling with regard to Google. These days I'm heavily invested in Google - their software runs my phone, handles my email, and is my main way of searching. If nothing else, I'd rather not put all my eggs in one basket, and would rather diversify a little.

robotron 17y ago
(I was tempted to downvote you just for saying "I'm probably going to get downvoted for this") That's a reason that is probably shared among a significant group of people. It doesn't address the failings in Firefox's need to keep up with the competition, though.
notauser 17y ago
At least it'll be better to use Firefox with a majority WebKit share than it was to use Seamonkey with a majority IE6 share back in '0X!
bruceboughton 17y ago
It's interesting that out of all the services Google offer you, the one you decide to turn down is their web browser. Is that an indication of the relative importance to you of these services?
berntb 17y ago
I will get scared of Google when I see a Microsoft style "strategy tax" -- e.g. when it gets hard to use GMail from non-Google web browsers.
- loup-vaillant 17y ago
  What about being scared of Google doing semantic analysis of your e-mail? Or Google remembering your search results during several months? Google doesn't tax your money, but it does tax your privacy. To me that sounds just as expensive.

sunkencity 17y ago

The beauty of Firefox is the openness of the XUL platform. It's an amazing idea to make it possible for anyone who can hack HTML/CSS and javascript to be able to tweak the browser, bootstrapping web viewer with web tech. The webkit browsers doesn't have this, but most users doesn't care, and they don't care about the level of data google gets from chrome either. But yeah, this firefox instance I am running now is pretty laggy. Something needs to be done about that.

nailer 17y ago
How many popular XUL apps are there really? Songbird? Flock? Are they really popular or game changing? The engineering effort for XUL slowed down Netscape 6 and Mozilla browser for years until it was of decent quality. No real apps have come out of it. In 2010. Apps belong inside the browser. Browsers don't belong in apps.
- sunkencity 17y ago
  not the apps, the firefox plugins. basically any web developer with enough perseverance can hack theorin own browser.
  - gnosis 17y ago
    Opera uses the same open plugin interface as Firefox. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPAPI http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/the-opera-plug-in-interface/ http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/the-opera-plug-in-interfa...

ZeroGravitas 17y ago

I often wonder if the network effects in our profession leads to this desire for one product we use to win, or if our natural tribalism exacerbates the network effects. I don't really care if one particular browser is going up or down, I just want a competitive market based on open standards so that I can use whatever the hell browser I like and not be locked out of anything. At the moment that means I'm rooting for IE6 to die, and IE in total to fall to around a third or less globally so that they're forced to compete. Chrome stealing alpha-geek users from Firefox doesn't matter to me as a) there's not that many of them, and b) it doesn't reduce IE usage (nor IE6 in particular).

scotty79 17y ago

For me it's all about speed. Funny thing is that the same thing made me to switch from IE to Firefox. Only things that may keep me with Firefox are now Firebug and FirePHP.

Groxx 17y ago
I've been the same way. I switched to using Firefox first because it was way faster than IE. Since then, it sped up a bit, and has since been bogged down by the same things that bogged down the Mozilla browser to begin with... which is why Firefox was made... Full circle, anyone? And people are surprised they're having trouble compared to their booming, speed-oriented days? For me, Firefox is around for compatibility tests and the Web Developer toolbar (Web Inspector in Safari works better for a number of things, though, so it rarely gets used).

gte910h 17y ago

Chrome was catching up. The h.264 idealism was the last straw.

jbellis 17y ago

It's worth pointing out that almost all of Chrome's share has come at IE's expense, not FF's.

k0n2ad 17y ago
It's like saying that voting for Nader was taking votes away from John Kerry :P
- Groxx 17y ago
  Or from Mickey Mouse.

bmunro 17y ago

The address bar in Chrome works so much better than the separate address and search fields in Firefox. This is the main reason that I switched to Chrome.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

duck 17y ago

And Chrome will keep gaining with things like Google Chrome Beta Browser Adds Translation, Privacy Features - http://bit.ly/baCeoV http://bit.ly/baCeoV

samd 17y ago

Another advantage of Chrome: extremely fast JavaScript engine. That puts them at a distinct advantage for the coming deluge of web apps.

Groxx 17y ago

What's wrong with Firefox? Their biggest innovation for a long time has been Greasemonkey (was that done by Mozilla, or a plugin? Dunno, doesn't really matter). And it can't even run JS before the page loads.

sireat 17y ago

At work I test on Chrome and Opera(and on IE in VirtualBox), but my main workhorse is still Firefox (on Ubuntu 9.10). Why? The wide choice of extensions. I do try to disable most of the ones I am not using at the moment, some tend to crash things. Still, one has to admit Firefox has bloated quite a bit since early days pre 1.0.