4 ms·

This assertion is made almost entirely without support. A good counterexample to his argument is Firefox itself. (edit: although I do see HTML5 as being a pot

This assertion is made almost entirely without support. A good counterexample to his argument is Firefox itself. (edit: although I do see HTML5 as being a potential threat to firefox and open source browsers in general if h.264 becomes the dominant codec for <video>, but this is another matter)

buugs 17y ago
h.264 will probably just be a plugin away and just like that firefox is supported until the user reformats or gets a new computer Firefox has good support by developers and I don't see anything changing until another browser becomes just as extensible and achieves the same developer niche. Not to say another browser won't take over the mass market though.
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  You put too much of a focus on developers. Most people don't care about development within the browser, they care about development within web sites. The philosophy that the browser ought to merely be a window to other sites with as little chrome as possible has been advocated by Chrome's (and Safari's with the advent of Snow Leopard) multithreaded processes. To date, I have still seen no good reason to use extensions, and the majority of people I discuss web browsing with agree. (The biggest sticking points are Greasemonkey and Adblocker, and they're very minority points, particularly when projects like GlimmerBlocker work cross-browser and allow both extensibility and blocking.)
  - jonny_noog 17y ago
    For the average user, I totally agree. But for myself (a web developer/designer and power user), I won't be considering a wholesale switch from Firefox until there are viable alternatives for such Firefox add-ons as the Web Developer toolbar, Firebug, All-in-One Gestures, ColorZilla, MeasureIt and Tab Mix Plus to name a few that I find useful.
    - zimbabwe 17y ago
      That makes perfect sense. I love that Firefox is and always will be an option. I just don't think it'll stay the top (or #2) browser for long.
      - jonny_noog 17y ago
        Yeah well I guess there's always going to be a lot more average users than there are power users. Completely subjective, but I have always loved the Firefox and Thunderbird logos. I've had them somewhere prominent on my desktops for so long now that I almost don't feel right without them. First app that I install on a new machine is Firefox. Maybe Google or Apple should try and snag Jon Hicks, I read he's working with Opera at the moment.
        zimbabwe 17y ago
        His work for Opera's been fun to watch, certainly. The logo's no different (I'm not really a fan of any of the current browsing logos, TBH), but the latest beta has made the first step towards not being entirely painful to look at on the Mac. Not perfect, but leagues better than the bland tripe it was just half a version ago.
        jonny_noog 17y ago
        So he's doing more UI type work for them then?
        zimbabwe 17y ago
        Yep! Check out the beta to see his latest work in action.
        jonny_noog 17y ago
        Can't say I've ever been a huge Opera fan but I just made the big switch to Mac, so I just might check out the beta and experience the not entirely painful appearance :P. Thanks.
zimbabwe 17y ago
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp Firefox is currently the most popular, yes, but Chrome's been growing (slightly) faster and it's still in beta, not to mention it has the full support of Google behind it. How profitable would Mozilla be if it wasn't being paid by Google? (That's not snark, that's a genuine question that I don't know the answer to.) You can't offer Firefox as a counterargument when his point is that soon Firefox will begin to slip. Right now, it's arguably at its peak. It's competing with two browsers that really are seen as experimental among Windows users: Chrome is still in beta and doesn't support several things; Safari really only got production-ready on Windows with its latest version, and Apple hasn't focused much on promoting it yet. Firefox, meanwhile, has 6 years' community behind it, and inertia alone states that it'll spread as Internet Explorer disappears, and IE seems to be quickly dwindling. The real thing to check is what the early adapters are using: Not the pure experimentalists but the people who are "browser enthusiasts", the people who recommend browsers to other people. Three years ago they were all recommending Firefox, myself included, and now we see Firefox is the dominant browser. Now, however, all the adapters love Chrome, and the elitist Mac snobs have shifted from loving Firefox to praising the much more native Safari 4, and for good reason. If we assume "a while from now" means 5 years, his argument is correct: Mozilla can't afford to compete with a company as talented, merciless, and rich as Google.
- calvin 17y ago
  These statistics do not show Firefox is the most popular browser as they are specific only to W3Schools which is primarily a developer/designer-trafficked site. The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools' log-files I'd recommend looking at StatCounter's chart of current browser stats (for the US) as of July 2009 (found this earlier today via TechCrunch): http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-US-monthly-200807-200907 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-US-monthly-200807...
  - zimbabwe 17y ago
    Thank you very much for the link! I'd just Google'd "web browser usage" and took the w3 link.

buugs 17y ago

h.264 will probably just be a plugin away and just like that firefox is supported until the user reformats or gets a new computer Firefox has good support by developers and I don't see anything changing until another browser becomes just as extensible and achieves the same developer niche. Not to say another browser won't take over the mass market though.

zimbabwe 17y ago
You put too much of a focus on developers. Most people don't care about development within the browser, they care about development within web sites. The philosophy that the browser ought to merely be a window to other sites with as little chrome as possible has been advocated by Chrome's (and Safari's with the advent of Snow Leopard) multithreaded processes. To date, I have still seen no good reason to use extensions, and the majority of people I discuss web browsing with agree. (The biggest sticking points are Greasemonkey and Adblocker, and they're very minority points, particularly when projects like GlimmerBlocker work cross-browser and allow both extensibility and blocking.)
- jonny_noog 17y ago
  For the average user, I totally agree. But for myself (a web developer/designer and power user), I won't be considering a wholesale switch from Firefox until there are viable alternatives for such Firefox add-ons as the Web Developer toolbar, Firebug, All-in-One Gestures, ColorZilla, MeasureIt and Tab Mix Plus to name a few that I find useful.
  - zimbabwe 17y ago
    That makes perfect sense. I love that Firefox is and always will be an option. I just don't think it'll stay the top (or #2) browser for long.
    - jonny_noog 17y ago
      Yeah well I guess there's always going to be a lot more average users than there are power users. Completely subjective, but I have always loved the Firefox and Thunderbird logos. I've had them somewhere prominent on my desktops for so long now that I almost don't feel right without them. First app that I install on a new machine is Firefox. Maybe Google or Apple should try and snag Jon Hicks, I read he's working with Opera at the moment.
      - zimbabwe 17y ago
        His work for Opera's been fun to watch, certainly. The logo's no different (I'm not really a fan of any of the current browsing logos, TBH), but the latest beta has made the first step towards not being entirely painful to look at on the Mac. Not perfect, but leagues better than the bland tripe it was just half a version ago.
        jonny_noog 17y ago
        So he's doing more UI type work for them then?
        zimbabwe 17y ago
        Yep! Check out the beta to see his latest work in action.
        jonny_noog 17y ago
        Can't say I've ever been a huge Opera fan but I just made the big switch to Mac, so I just might check out the beta and experience the not entirely painful appearance :P. Thanks.

zimbabwe 17y ago

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp Firefox is currently the most popular, yes, but Chrome's been growing (slightly) faster and it's still in beta, not to mention it has the full support of Google behind it. How profitable would Mozilla be if it wasn't being paid by Google? (That's not snark, that's a genuine question that I don't know the answer to.) You can't offer Firefox as a counterargument when his point is that soon Firefox will begin to slip. Right now, it's arguably at its peak. It's competing with two browsers that really are seen as experimental among Windows users: Chrome is still in beta and doesn't support several things; Safari really only got production-ready on Windows with its latest version, and Apple hasn't focused much on promoting it yet. Firefox, meanwhile, has 6 years' community behind it, and inertia alone states that it'll spread as Internet Explorer disappears, and IE seems to be quickly dwindling. The real thing to check is what the early adapters are using: Not the pure experimentalists but the people who are "browser enthusiasts", the people who recommend browsers to other people. Three years ago they were all recommending Firefox, myself included, and now we see Firefox is the dominant browser. Now, however, all the adapters love Chrome, and the elitist Mac snobs have shifted from loving Firefox to praising the much more native Safari 4, and for good reason. If we assume "a while from now" means 5 years, his argument is correct: Mozilla can't afford to compete with a company as talented, merciless, and rich as Google.

calvin 17y ago
These statistics do not show Firefox is the most popular browser as they are specific only to W3Schools which is primarily a developer/designer-trafficked site. The statistics above are extracted from W3Schools' log-files I'd recommend looking at StatCounter's chart of current browser stats (for the US) as of July 2009 (found this earlier today via TechCrunch): http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-US-monthly-200807-200907 http://gs.statcounter.com/#browser_version-US-monthly-200807...
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  Thank you very much for the link! I'd just Google'd "web browser usage" and took the w3 link.