5 ms·

Users in richer nations upgrading to newer generations of Android and iOS devices has resulted in a huge number of used devices ending up in developing nations.

by Pacabel 13y ago

Users in richer nations upgrading to newer generations of Android and iOS devices has resulted in a huge number of used devices ending up in developing nations. These devices are extremely inexpensive, yet still quite capable. How are Firefox OS and these near-unusable devices supposed to compete with the imported used Android and iOS devices that are far more capable? When somebody in a developing nation can get a 2 or 3 year old device for $25, and it runs Android or iOS, and it gives a pretty good experience, I just don't see why they'd subject themselves to the comparatively poor experience of a equivalently priced Firefox OS device that gives a worse experience. And it wasn't Firefox that "dethroned Microsoft's browser monopoly". It was very clearly Chrome's doing, thanks to the 40%+ share of the market it now holds. Firefox played second fiddle, only ever capturing approximately 30% of the market at its peak. With Firefox likely accounting for less than 20% of all browser users today, it's even more apparent that Chrome is mostly responsible for IE's loss of popularity.

nnethercote 13y ago
Whoa. Let's not rewrite history. Firefox deserves all the credit it gets for resurrecting browser competition in the 2000s. To "dethrone a monopoly" you don't have to knock it down to less than 50% market share, you just need to reduce it enough that the monopoly has to react to competition again.
- camus2 13y ago
  Yet these experiments like Firefox Os are exactly the reason why Mozilla is not what it used to be. And Firefox browser did not came out of the void neither, it wouldnt have existed without Netscape.
asadotzler 13y ago
If you'll read what I wrote more carefully, you'll notice that I didn't say Firefox dethroned Microsoft. What I wrote was that Mozilla dethroned Microsoft's browser monopoly. There's a significant difference. To your mostly off-topic point, I'll note that it was actually that toppling that made Chrome possible. Back in the day, the Firefox team included many the guys that would later go on to start Chrome. A couple years earlier Mozilla's team also included the guys that started Safari -- which, you'll remember, emulated Mozilla's rendering and asked for Gecko content in its UA. The other browser back then, Opera, took a different rout and emulated IE user agents and tried tackle most of the IE DOM in both core code and client JS hacks. Look where they are. Apple said "like Gecko" in Webkit's user agent and look how that turned out. That Safari and then Chrome could ship and most sites "just worked" for most users is not some accident. Google did some great work with Search back in those days, but they absolutely did not carve those Web standards paths or even pave those roads. That's what Mozilla spent 1998 to 2004 doing. We moved the Web to standards with our browser effort and made it possible for other players to come to market with a focus on features and performance confident that sites would mostly "just work." Mozilla isn't simply Firefox. When you confuse that as you did above, you miss the most important thing about Mozilla. We exist to improve online life for everyone, not just people using Mozilla products.

by Pacabel 13y ago

nnethercote 13y ago

Whoa. Let's not rewrite history. Firefox deserves all the credit it gets for resurrecting browser competition in the 2000s. To "dethrone a monopoly" you don't have to knock it down to less than 50% market share, you just need to reduce it enough that the monopoly has to react to competition again.

camus2 13y ago
Yet these experiments like Firefox Os are exactly the reason why Mozilla is not what it used to be. And Firefox browser did not came out of the void neither, it wouldnt have existed without Netscape.

asadotzler 13y ago

If you'll read what I wrote more carefully, you'll notice that I didn't say Firefox dethroned Microsoft. What I wrote was that Mozilla dethroned Microsoft's browser monopoly. There's a significant difference. To your mostly off-topic point, I'll note that it was actually that toppling that made Chrome possible. Back in the day, the Firefox team included many the guys that would later go on to start Chrome. A couple years earlier Mozilla's team also included the guys that started Safari -- which, you'll remember, emulated Mozilla's rendering and asked for Gecko content in its UA. The other browser back then, Opera, took a different rout and emulated IE user agents and tried tackle most of the IE DOM in both core code and client JS hacks. Look where they are. Apple said "like Gecko" in Webkit's user agent and look how that turned out. That Safari and then Chrome could ship and most sites "just worked" for most users is not some accident. Google did some great work with Search back in those days, but they absolutely did not carve those Web standards paths or even pave those roads. That's what Mozilla spent 1998 to 2004 doing. We moved the Web to standards with our browser effort and made it possible for other players to come to market with a focus on features and performance confident that sites would mostly "just work." Mozilla isn't simply Firefox. When you confuse that as you did above, you miss the most important thing about Mozilla. We exist to improve online life for everyone, not just people using Mozilla products.