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Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

arstechnica.com

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Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#201

Post by EdSharkey »

sangnoir wrote: post #186
EdSharkey wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you share some links or blogs or whatever to reinforce what you're saying here? I am not seeing IoT at all on the mozilla website or press releases. Perhaps Firefox itself is integral to the IoT? I was under the impression that FirefoxOS was on the backburner, not necessarily cancelled. FirefoxOS is a great idea, it's Mozilla's version of Android or WebOS. The fact that they didn't have a runaway success doesn't…

> Can you share some links or blogs or whatever to reinforce what you're saying here? Yep, have a look at the leadership page[1]. They have an SVP for Firefox, and an SVP for Connected Devices - who is/was responsible for FirefoxOS. There is no SVP for Thunderbird - and this means politically, Thunderbird has no champion/sponsor at executive level, but FirefoxOS and IoT does. > But regarding the attempt at building F…

> How on earth does putting Thunderbird into cold-storage help that mission?

Yeah, it's not entirely unfair to call it a copout when you hear the excuse that desktop-based mail clients have been supplanted by web-based email. There's a safety and privacy factor to having a robust desktop mail client, not to mention the addon potential of Gecko and Thunderbird that let you do more. I have always been dissatisfied with open source related to email both on the server-side and the client - it has ALWAYS felt unloved.

I didn't know about the IoT initiative at Mozilla, thanks for the heads up. That does seem like a farout goal compared to other better ideas like Persona, FirefoxOS, and Thunderbird. Maybe Mozilla has identified providing IoT code and services as a revenue source? That could further their overall mission, I guess. Nah, on second thought, I'm grumpy like you on this until I learn more. ;)

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#202

Post by acdha »

Aldo_MX wrote: post #193
acdha wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When talking about a piece of software as complicated as a modern browser, “became faster” is too broad to have any meaning at all — you can find specific features where almost any browser is faster. In the case of Chrome and Firefox, they're competitive enough that you really need to say both what you're measuring and how you measured it. People tend to say one is faster than the other when they most commonly mean “…

No, we are talking about the architecture of the browsers in areas where there is significant impact (ie. UI Responsiveness), this has nothing to do with extensions. In Chrome when you load a JS-intensive website (ex. Facebook) you can switch to a different tab while the website finishes doing that JS-intensive task (ex. loading), but in Firefox the opposite happens, the entire browser freezes so you are forced to wa…

That may be what you thought we're talking about but the comment I replied to was simply “Firefox became faster than Chrome quite a while ago already”.

My point was simply that without providing more detail, those comments are so vague to be useless.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#203

Post by pritambaral »

bobajeff wrote: post #102
jedberg wrote: post #66

This isn't entirely surprising to me. For one, Edge only runs on Windows. Windows is losing market share to Mac OS, iOS and Android (Firefox is on all three as well as Windows). For two, I personally use Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Chrome Canary on my box, each for their own purpose, but I have yet to find a need for Edge. There is no site that I go to that works best in Edge.

I won't care about Edge until they've open-sourced it and made it cross platform.

I strongly doubt the browser or even its rendering engine would be open sourced, but at least the JS engine is.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#204

Post by MikeHolman »

Aldo_MX wrote: post #145
JohnTHaller wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course you should be blaming Google. They are a willing participant in deceptive bundleware. And it is specifically included in the download for Adobe Flash for Firefox/Opera Classic (aka, not IE's Flash which is different), so it is setup to steal users away from competitors. At least the last time I checked, and as demonstrated in my screenshot above.

You talk as if you knew the terms of their deal and corroborated that Google asked to target every browser, in my experience these kind of deals are offered as "all-or-nothing", so having Firefox or Opera targeted were a side effect. EDIT: I checked it right now, and it also targets IE, unlike what you suggest: http://i.imgur.com/XuwHs7G.png

IE (and Edge) has some custom build of Flash installed without needing separate download, which I believe is why the parent commenter excluded it.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#205

Post by sqeaky »

EdSharkey wrote: post #120
sqeaky wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the Chrome team really care? Ads in Firefox provide the same revenue as ads in Chrome. What does Google gain by monopolizing? I think they care more about internet explorer, they don't want it dead specifically, but if it sticks around they want it reliable. Using ie used to be a giant pain and nothing worked right, people would use it to accomplish their goal and be done. Now using any of the three is fairly pl…

As long as Firefox has significant share of the market, then yes, I believe the Chrome team would care. Firefox being a viable and high quality alternative means that any short-term misstep or long-term neglect by Google could create a big fall for Chrome. A short-term misstep could be something like a disturbing privacy revelation about the Chrome browser that moves large blocks of normal users over to Firefox. Perh…

I think you missed the whole point of my argument. Let's say Firefox does "win". How is this bad for Google?

My assertion is that Google just wants ad money and they need slick web browsers to enable that. Why do they care who owns the browsers?

As long there is not someone out to get them (like microsoft) in control I do not see their motive.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#206

Post by EdSharkey »

sqeaky wrote: post #205
EdSharkey wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as Firefox has significant share of the market, then yes, I believe the Chrome team would care. Firefox being a viable and high quality alternative means that any short-term misstep or long-term neglect by Google could create a big fall for Chrome. A short-term misstep could be something like a disturbing privacy revelation about the Chrome browser that moves large blocks of normal users over to Firefox. Perh…

I think you missed the whole point of my argument. Let's say Firefox does "win". How is this bad for Google? My assertion is that Google just wants ad money and they need slick web browsers to enable that. Why do they care who owns the browsers? As long there is not someone out to get them (like microsoft) in control I do not see their motive.

Well, they gain a tremendous amount of insight into your thoughts, plans, mood, etc by Chrome being your input/output mechanism for information. They generate really interesting histograms about your browsing behavior, bundle them up, and send it home to the mothership regularly. This is part of the overall strategy of knowing you, and Chrome is an edge they have over their advertising competitors by collecting this data. Google is a creepy voyeur.

I'll turn your question around a bit, though. Perhaps you step away from using Google.com, the search engine, but continue to use Chrome as your primary browser. This gives Google an intimate view of your activities; they still can build interesting trends locally/state/country/globally based in-part on your surfing behavior. In this way, I view Chrome as being just as important as Google Analytics or google.com search engine to Google's ad biz.

I personally deny Google my search traffic (I default to DDG), browser histograms (I'm on Firefox), and some of my browsing patterns on affiliates (via Privacy Badger, etc.) Obviously, they still know a ton about me by my more promiscuous past and due to my network of less privacy-conscious friends and family. But, they aren't intimately in-touch with me day-to-day and they don't know what I am thinking about up-to-the-minute like they do with their other users.

Re: Firefox tops Microsoft browser market share for first time

#207

Post by KaneEdger »

gboss wrote: post #24
gtk40 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the claim that Firefox/Mozilla is in bed with Google sourced by the use of Google for data about safe browsing? Is there any other reason to think this now that they no longer receive revenue from Google?

Actually Mozilla ditched Google as their search revenue partner and now is partnered with select search engines depending on the market. Yahoo for the US, Yandex for Russia and Baidu for China, for example. Mozilla to my knowledge no longer relies on Google for any revenue. See how do we generate revenue question: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2014/f...

The opposite was the case. Mozilla was ditched by Google. It is logically that they say it the other way around, as it does sound much better, and gives the illusion that Mozilla is in control about their fate.

They got ditched after Google enforced minimalism (Australis) on Firefox with giving Mozilla "good design advice's" that of course backfired. And as soon as Mozilla's share dropped enough, Google gave them the boot.

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