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Is Firefox Doomed?

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Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#41

Post by troymc »

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.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#42

Post by MatthewPhillips »

eropple wrote: post #34
w1ntermute wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> In fact, it's much worse because of all the tracking functionality Google's included. [citation needed], because as far as I'm aware of there's no such "tracking functionality" anywhere in Chrome. "In fact," claims like this without proof are pretty shitty.

Everything you type into the address bar is sent to Google's servers as a search query.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#44

Post by _bbs »

cft wrote: post #36

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. 1. http://techcrunch.com/2008/11/19/google-makes-up-88-percent-...

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 There is no evidence that Google has permanently withdrawn support for Firefox.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#45

Post by FrankBooth »

rjd wrote: post #20
Bo102010 wrote: post #9

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 confl…

Most of your post is emotion and opinion, so I thought I'd address the part that is factually incorrect:

> On a technical note each version isn't really getting any better

That's simply not true. To take a single example, the type inference engine added to the JS engine in FF9 significantly improved performance. With the new high frequency release strategy, it's not guaranteed that there will be huge new features or improvements in any given release, but the features and improvements are coming as fast as ever.

> historical problems have never been addressed

You can find ancient pet bugs for any project that either take a long time to get fixed or are never fixed. Do you have something specific in mind?

> version fragmentation is occurring

That's more-or-less false. There's some adjustment going on due to the switch to the high frequency release schedule, but the fact is the vast majority of Firefox users are on a small number of versions, almost all that have been offered an upgrade are on the latest stable release.

> on several matters its in direct conflict on the w3c standards with other major players.

Can you point to anything specific to back up your claim? If you pick and choose specs, this is true for all browsers. Nobody implements everything completely and correctly. The specs are being developed as fast as ever, and it's common for one browser to be ahead in certain areas. It's also common for competing implementations to differ as the standard develops. This is not confined to Firefox.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#47

Post by gkoberger »

smudgy wrote: post #38

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…

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.

[1] http://lifehacker.com/5844150/browser-speed-tests-firefox-7-...

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#48

Post by tux1968 »

super_mario wrote: post #23

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.

Hey... thanks for mentioning Pentadactyl... nice addition to the bag of Firefox tricks.

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#49

Post by micheljansen »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #42
eropple wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, it's much worse because of all the tracking functionality Google's included. [citation needed], because as far as I'm aware of there's no such "tracking functionality" anywhere in Chrome. "In fact," claims like this without proof are pretty shitty.

Everything you type into the address bar is sent to Google's servers as a search query.

Only if you turn that on (and by default it is not). See http://www.google.com/support/chrome/bin/answer.py?answer=18...

Re: Is Firefox Doomed?

#50

Post by eropple »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #42
eropple wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In fact, it's much worse because of all the tracking functionality Google's included. [citation needed], because as far as I'm aware of there's no such "tracking functionality" anywhere in Chrome. "In fact," claims like this without proof are pretty shitty.

Everything you type into the address bar is sent to Google's servers as a search query.

That's not a "tracking feature". That's a feature of the Omnibar that can be disabled, and it's a feature I choose to use because the utility of it outweighs the privacy concern for me.

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