I'm a developer that switched back to Firefox, after I gave up on it during the 3.5 days. Firefox almost died in its transition to version 4, however now it is back on track.
I prefer it over Chrome because Firefox is a platform, not a product that treats me like a dumb user.
I use it on my Android too. It's a little sluggish and still uses too much memory, however it has a killer feature - it syncs everything with my desktop. It syncs my bookmarks and my saved login data for various websites I use. Saves me from a lot of manual typing and it is so addictive I can't give it up. Plus I'm seeing progress and they've promised a native interface that will be more efficient.
The desktop version is pretty stable these days too - I'm on the Beta channel (version 9) and I don't have problems. Even the versioning problems for the plugins I use have been sorted out.
I still recommend it to people, I would recommend it even to my hypothetical grandma.
If people from Mozilla are reading this - thanks for all your hard work.
You might try the mobile nightly. The UI got rewritten as native and should be much faster. Still a little rough last I checked but surprisingly smooth.
> So far, Bott's inquries to Mozilla about whether or not the Google deal has been renewed haven't yielded a straight answer. It's entirely possible that Google won't renew the deal, which would put about $100 million of Firefox's revenue at stake. [..] Google doesn't need Firefox anywhere near as much as Firefox needs Google.
This is completely mistaken.
What Google mainly cares about is search market share. Even 0.1% there is crucial, and worth a lot of money. Google would be willing to throw almost any amount of money at anything that would increase its share in search or keep it at its current height. The same is true of Microsoft with Bing.
Consider what happens if Google drops the deal with Firefox. Google will no longer be the default search engine in Firefox, and a lot of goodwill towards Google from Firefox users will be lost. Those two factors can easily account for far more than %0.1 of search. Worse, it is very likely that Microsoft would step in and pay the same amount to Firefox, so Google would be helping its main competitor in search.
Google wants people to use their services, and to use browsers that are up to scratch to do so. They also want to influence web standards so that they can build better products. This is why they built Chrome.
Firefox helps them to achieve these goals by being another alternative to IE, and having similar views about evolving web standards.
Firefox isn't doomed. Not only is it still a good web browser that many (myself included) continue to use daily, inertia will keep it installed on millions of PCs.
As far as I know, Mozilla and Google maintain good relations. Even if the deal that provides money from Google to Mozilla isn't renewed, I doubt they will entirely disentangle themselves from each other.
Firefox is doomed because its lost its developer foot hold, anecdotally most devs I know refer to it as a joke and use Chrome instead. Its a browser that relies on recommendation to exist, and it no longer is getting recommendation.
On a technical note each version isn't really getting any better, historical problems have never been addressed, version fragmentation is occurring, on several matters its in direct conflict on the w3c standards with other major players.
The UI is polarising (its the major complaint I actually here next to 'laggy behavior'), the options to change it rely on 3rd party modules which are often bugging and not supported between versions. It's never nailed OSX, it just doesn't 'feel' the same as the rest of the operating system and is slightly jarring at times.
Personally if you take a base install of Opera 11 it is exactly how I want FF to be set up, everything works smoothly, fast, and 'clicky'. I'd recommend any FF user to try the new version of Opera for a few days, then go back to FF and see just how different it feels even though they are aesthetically quite similar.
I hope not. Currently nothing beats Firefox with Pentadactyl, Adblock Plus, Firebug, Tabmix plus combination. For real VIM geeks this is an insanely fast way to navigate the web and do online research.
Same here. I'm using all of those extensions, plus a number that help increase web privacy/security, such as BetterPrivacy, Ghostery, HTTPS-Everywhere, LastPass, and OptimizeGoogle.
There's no way to replicate that level of customization in Chrome. In fact, it's much worse because of all the tracking functionality Google's included.
Google benefits from being the default search engine in Firefox. They wouldn't pay $100 million per year to Mozilla if there wasn't some reasonable return on that investment. I imagine that the search traffic generated by Firefox will remain valuable to Google until FF's market share drops into the single digits.
The article implies that Google is charitably allowing Firefox to exist ("Google doesn't need Firefox anywhere near as much as Firefox needs Google."). I'd like to the think the Google-Mozilla relationship is mutually beneficial.
Firefox may become a viable alternative to Android's built-in browser once the native UI version is complete.
Opera made $50M last year in search revenue from Google, Bing, Yandex, Amazon, and a few others. They did that with about 53M users -- 2-3% usage share according to StatCounter and Net Applications http://grab.by/blcC
Google isn't giving money to Mozilla just because they're nice and they like Firefox. Google often makes money when someone uses Firefox's search box to do a Google search: the search results page may have ads and if the searcher clicks on one of those ads, Google makes money, which they share with the referrer. The referrer in this case is Firefox but Google has a similar arrangement with tons of other referrers (through their "AdSense for Search" program).
I suspect Google's deal with Mozilla hasn't been renewed simply because renewal time hasn't arrived yet.
I would be surprised if Google didn't renew their contract. There are still a TON of Firefox users out there, and I'm sure they would love to market to them.
It's the same reason they still make iOS apps. They don't care about what software you use, just that you're searching with Google.
If Microsoft can be sued (and lose) for making IE the only/default/integrated browser on millions of copies of Windows - why does not the same apply to Chrome/Safari on Android/Iphone?
The issue with IE came from the notion that Microsoft already had a monopoly on operating systems and was using that monopoly as unfair leverage in the "browser market". (This made more sense at the time than it does today, as now the idea that a desktop OS would ship without any browser seems silly).
As long as Android and iOS both remain strong competitors, neither can really be seen as a smartphone (or tablet) monopoly. This is part of the reason I think Apple going "thermonuclear" on Android is counterproductive for them -- if they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and Android disappeared tomorrow, Apple would essentially be assured of having the government (not just the US, but perhaps even more so in Europe) come in and force them to open up iOS far more than they would be comfortable doing.
Because neither Apple or Google have a monopoly on the browser market anywhere near what Microsoft had. Also, Microsoft was sued for actively thwarting competition[1] in order to maintain it's position.
Having a monopoly in a market is not illegal. Using your monopoly in one market to win another (by not competing fairly) is illegal. This is precisely what Microsoft was convicted for.
At the time, there was pretty much only one category of personal computing device and Microsoft's OS ran on nearly every one sold. Legally, they were considered to have a monopoly in the consumer OS market and to be abusing this monopoly to stifle competition in the web browser market.
Now we have a variety of devices and platforms and I think it's fair to say that there is no comparable conglomeration of power in the industry. Not yet, anyway.
At least on Android Firefox works really well, and thanks to the intent system can replace the default browser regardless of where in the system you open a link.
This doesn't mean we wouldn't be in the old IE monopoly of "nobody downloads browsers"
Android and the iPhone don't have a monopoly on mobile phones. So long as you aren't a monopoly, you are free to restrict the software on your phone as much as you'd like.
Plus, you can have a different browser on both the iPhone and android.
Firefox wins on only two feature, but important ones: privacy and advertising addons. It is the only reason I tolerate the rest of Firefox's slowness and memory hogging. 95+% of the market doesn't care about privacy and half don't care about ads though.
Mozilla is a non-profit foundation. It isn't out to be the best at everything in every market, it's out to encourage competition and provide a solid FOSS solution to a difficult problem. As far as they're concerned, they've already won.
That's a bit of an oversimplification. Non-profits are interested in "providing a solution to a difficult problem", but they are also interested in self preservation.
It's not doomed but it's not doing to well. The last versions have not been different enough to warrant new version numbers and Firefox 8, while being decidedly quicker for some tasks, has been incredibly slow for my mundane tasks.
I'm a hardcore Firefox guy, I've been using it and Mozilla since M6 but I changed to Chrome yesterday and, while it's not flexible and customizable as Firefox, it's Good Enough.
I hope it gets better - perhaps focusing on the browser instead of higher version numbers and striving to look like IE or Chrome. Until then, I'm a Chrome guy.
Don't worry about the version number -- a higher number doesn't mean there's a ton of new features; it merely means 6 weeks has passed. Pretty soon, upgrade dialogs will be completely suppressed and it won't matter what version you're on (much like Chrome). I like the rapid release; it means as a developer I can play with new features much sooner.
Firefox is as fast or faster than any other browser (assuming you don't load it up with add-ons). [1] So it's not like everyone at Mozilla stopped programming and started focusing all their energy on merely incrementing the version number from 7 to 8.
I don't know why you're so worried -- version is just a number.
There is something incredibly funny about a post incriminating Firefox for not having enough new features to justify a new version number at the same time declaring Chrome as awesome at the end of the post
Becoming the #3 browser doesn't make Firefox anywhere near "doomed". It's just back where it was a few years ago, as far as market share is concerned. The desktop and laptop userbase isn't going to disappear anytime soon, either.
I don't know much about the search engine partnership issue, but it seems that the author suggested his answer to that. No search service can afford to ignore a browser with over 20% market share.
I think the issue here is that Mozilla can't afford to still exist without that 100 million from Google a year. But yeah, I don't see why someone else wouldn't come in and swoop on that.
It actually does seem pretty likely that someone else--Yahoo, Microsoft, who knows--and use Firefox to their advantage in some way. But yeah, I don't see Google renewing the deal.
it's doomed since Google withdrew its support [1] to Mozilla foundation, and decided to focus on its own browser instead. Firefox was Google's skunk works project in its competition against IE until 2008.
That article explains that Google renewed its contract with Mozilla in 2008 for three years. The current discussion relates to the future of that contract. There is no evidence that Google has permanently withdrawn support for Firefox.
last year ff started to make changes that are becoming visible only now. they lost a lot of users, but are getting better all the time. i've been using chrome exclusively for the past year and now i've got both chrome and ff open.
i guess the biggest feature ff now lacks compared to chrome is the silent autoupdater. it can be optional, just stop asking me for admin rights every time it wants to update.
[+] [-] bad_user|14 years ago|reply
I prefer it over Chrome because Firefox is a platform, not a product that treats me like a dumb user.
I use it on my Android too. It's a little sluggish and still uses too much memory, however it has a killer feature - it syncs everything with my desktop. It syncs my bookmarks and my saved login data for various websites I use. Saves me from a lot of manual typing and it is so addictive I can't give it up. Plus I'm seeing progress and they've promised a native interface that will be more efficient.
The desktop version is pretty stable these days too - I'm on the Beta channel (version 9) and I don't have problems. Even the versioning problems for the plugins I use have been sorted out.
I still recommend it to people, I would recommend it even to my hypothetical grandma.
If people from Mozilla are reading this - thanks for all your hard work.
[+] [-] michaelcampbell|14 years ago|reply
I use both Chrome and FF, and I never felt like a browser was "treating me" like anything. They're both tools.
Maybe because I AM a dumb user? ... Oh god.
[+] [-] abraham|14 years ago|reply
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Platforms/Android#Download_N...
[+] [-] jshen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azakai|14 years ago|reply
This is completely mistaken.
What Google mainly cares about is search market share. Even 0.1% there is crucial, and worth a lot of money. Google would be willing to throw almost any amount of money at anything that would increase its share in search or keep it at its current height. The same is true of Microsoft with Bing.
Consider what happens if Google drops the deal with Firefox. Google will no longer be the default search engine in Firefox, and a lot of goodwill towards Google from Firefox users will be lost. Those two factors can easily account for far more than %0.1 of search. Worse, it is very likely that Microsoft would step in and pay the same amount to Firefox, so Google would be helping its main competitor in search.
$100M in that context is a laughably tiny amount.
[+] [-] ch0wn|14 years ago|reply
Considering that Google spent $2.11B on traffic acquisition last quarter[0] it seems even less.
[0] http://investor.google.com/earnings/2011/Q2_google_earnings....
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] gujk|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nfm|14 years ago|reply
Google wants people to use their services, and to use browsers that are up to scratch to do so. They also want to influence web standards so that they can build better products. This is why they built Chrome.
Firefox helps them to achieve these goals by being another alternative to IE, and having similar views about evolving web standards.
[+] [-] Bo102010|14 years ago|reply
As far as I know, Mozilla and Google maintain good relations. Even if the deal that provides money from Google to Mozilla isn't renewed, I doubt they will entirely disentangle themselves from each other.
[+] [-] rjd|14 years ago|reply
On a technical note each version isn't really getting any better, historical problems have never been addressed, version fragmentation is occurring, on several matters its in direct conflict on the w3c standards with other major players.
The UI is polarising (its the major complaint I actually here next to 'laggy behavior'), the options to change it rely on 3rd party modules which are often bugging and not supported between versions. It's never nailed OSX, it just doesn't 'feel' the same as the rest of the operating system and is slightly jarring at times.
Personally if you take a base install of Opera 11 it is exactly how I want FF to be set up, everything works smoothly, fast, and 'clicky'. I'd recommend any FF user to try the new version of Opera for a few days, then go back to FF and see just how different it feels even though they are aesthetically quite similar.
[+] [-] super_mario|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] w1ntermute|14 years ago|reply
There's no way to replicate that level of customization in Chrome. In fact, it's much worse because of all the tracking functionality Google's included.
[+] [-] paul9290|14 years ago|reply
It's a more stable browser but I need Tab Mix Plus!
[+] [-] polyfractal|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tux1968|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _bbs|14 years ago|reply
The article implies that Google is charitably allowing Firefox to exist ("Google doesn't need Firefox anywhere near as much as Firefox needs Google."). I'd like to the think the Google-Mozilla relationship is mutually beneficial.
Firefox may become a viable alternative to Android's built-in browser once the native UI version is complete.
[+] [-] sliverstorm|14 years ago|reply
Even if true, that doesn't mean Google doesn't need Firefox.
[+] [-] asadotzler|14 years ago|reply
(screenshot from this Opera report PDF http://media.opera.com/media/finance/2011/3Q11_presentation.... )
[+] [-] troymc|14 years ago|reply
I suspect Google's deal with Mozilla hasn't been renewed simply because renewal time hasn't arrived yet.
[+] [-] ticks|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jarcoal|14 years ago|reply
It's the same reason they still make iOS apps. They don't care about what software you use, just that you're searching with Google.
[+] [-] ck2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] georgemcbay|14 years ago|reply
As long as Android and iOS both remain strong competitors, neither can really be seen as a smartphone (or tablet) monopoly. This is part of the reason I think Apple going "thermonuclear" on Android is counterproductive for them -- if they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and Android disappeared tomorrow, Apple would essentially be assured of having the government (not just the US, but perhaps even more so in Europe) come in and force them to open up iOS far more than they would be comfortable doing.
[+] [-] olivercameron|14 years ago|reply
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft
[+] [-] super_mario|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] extension|14 years ago|reply
Now we have a variety of devices and platforms and I think it's fair to say that there is no comparable conglomeration of power in the industry. Not yet, anyway.
[+] [-] bergie|14 years ago|reply
This doesn't mean we wouldn't be in the old IE monopoly of "nobody downloads browsers"
[+] [-] mbreese|14 years ago|reply
Plus, you can have a different browser on both the iPhone and android.
[+] [-] gujk|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mappu|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thedaveoflife|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] smudgy|14 years ago|reply
I'm a hardcore Firefox guy, I've been using it and Mozilla since M6 but I changed to Chrome yesterday and, while it's not flexible and customizable as Firefox, it's Good Enough.
I hope it gets better - perhaps focusing on the browser instead of higher version numbers and striving to look like IE or Chrome. Until then, I'm a Chrome guy.
[+] [-] gkoberger|14 years ago|reply
Firefox is as fast or faster than any other browser (assuming you don't load it up with add-ons). [1] So it's not like everyone at Mozilla stopped programming and started focusing all their energy on merely incrementing the version number from 7 to 8.
I don't know why you're so worried -- version is just a number.
[1] http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browser-speed-tests-firefox-7-...
[+] [-] theshadow|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djbender|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kijin|14 years ago|reply
I don't know much about the search engine partnership issue, but it seems that the author suggested his answer to that. No search service can afford to ignore a browser with over 20% market share.
[+] [-] jyrkesh|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jyrkesh|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cft|14 years ago|reply
1. http://techcrunch.com/2008/11/19/google-makes-up-88-percent-...
[+] [-] _bbs|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baq|14 years ago|reply
i guess the biggest feature ff now lacks compared to chrome is the silent autoupdater. it can be optional, just stop asking me for admin rights every time it wants to update.