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Firefox May Already Be Dead

pcworld.com

21–30 of 67 posts

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#21
I've tried chrome and it is ok, the new safari rocks my socks, but I still use firefox dunno why.

I'd call it loyalty for all they've done to the community and the web in general, and I am grateful for that.

Rock on, foxy, rock on.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#23
post #19

It's not just about the browser by itself. Don't forget all the great extensions built on top of Firefox. Until Chrome has attracted developers to build great extensions on it, Firefox is going to stay as my main browser.

Yes, firefox is a platform. The total value is higher than the thing itself, and that makes it hard to displace. Like DOS and Windows. Adblock is very popular, and although I use Greasemonkey (and scripts accumulated for that platform) and others, I doubt that many of the userbase do. And so for them, this isn't a factor. It's worth remembering that Google doesn't care to win this war - they just want faster browsers…

But doesn't that give Google an even better chance of succeeding? Unlike Firefox, they're not blinded by competition - all they want is a superfast browser. And that's what most users want.

As for Adblock and Greasemonkey, neither plugin is particularly complex. Once plugins for Chrome get big, I'd give it 3 weeks before we see a working version of each.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#24
post #17

Ad Block Plus. Once Chrome has it, I'm switching full time. I realize there's other ways to block ads with chrome, but they don't seem as efficient as ABP

.. that and NoScript. There are plenty of FireFox plugins I use (primarily FireBug, but Chrome has good debugging tools and it's only a matter of time before someone builds an equivalent of FireBug for Chrome). AdBlock Plus and NoScript give me not only less junk but block an awful lot of attack vectors. I feel kinda vulnerable without NoScript. Oh, and a full linux-build, please. I've tested Chrome on Windows and am…

How hard is it to engineer scripts like that? Won't those come pretty quickly to Chrome?

The OS X battlefield will be interesting because Safari is so prominent. If Apple/Webkit decide they want to compete with Chrome, they're in an excellent position to do so - and they already have Javascript disabling, ad blocking, and GreaseMonkey support in Safari, not to mention a browser that's incredibly fast.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#25

but firefox has so many addons like: QuickNote, FlashBlock and Mycroft Project to add any search for your search bar. While we are comparing speed of browser here there are other considerations you are not taking into account

How many Firefox users care about plugins versus the ones that only care about tabs and speed? In my department in college, the number of people using plugin'd Firefox is pretty slim - and we're a department of hackers and designers.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#26
post #20
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100 Million? Really? Got a source for that? If it was something more like 10 Million, I would find it much more believable.

Not quite 100mil, but fairly close: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2007/10/the-future-i...

$66.8 Million isn't in the neighborhood of $100 million. Yes, they're both huge sums of money, but not close enough to go "meh, close enough." Thanks for the link though - I'm somewhat surprised Mozilla made as much money from a non-Google source as they did.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#27
post #24
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.. that and NoScript. There are plenty of FireFox plugins I use (primarily FireBug, but Chrome has good debugging tools and it's only a matter of time before someone builds an equivalent of FireBug for Chrome). AdBlock Plus and NoScript give me not only less junk but block an awful lot of attack vectors. I feel kinda vulnerable without NoScript. Oh, and a full linux-build, please. I've tested Chrome on Windows and am…

How hard is it to engineer scripts like that? Won't those come pretty quickly to Chrome? The OS X battlefield will be interesting because Safari is so prominent. If Apple/Webkit decide they want to compete with Chrome, they're in an excellent position to do so - and they already have Javascript disabling, ad blocking, and GreaseMonkey support in Safari, not to mention a browser that's incredibly fast.

CreamMonkey support is provided by an Input Manager hack; they may go away in a future release of OS X and would need to be redone completely. A better alternative is to make a WebKit plugin with WebKit's API, see ClickToFlash.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#28
post #26
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite 100mil, but fairly close: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2007/10/the-future-i...

$66.8 Million isn't in the neighborhood of $100 million. Yes, they're both huge sums of money, but not close enough to go "meh, close enough." Thanks for the link though - I'm somewhat surprised Mozilla made as much money from a non-Google source as they did.

That $67 million dollar figure was from 2006, and that was up 26% from 2005. I can only assume 2 more years of continued growth and more market share have brought that number up substantially.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#29
post #26
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite 100mil, but fairly close: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2007/10/the-future-i...

$66.8 Million isn't in the neighborhood of $100 million. Yes, they're both huge sums of money, but not close enough to go "meh, close enough." Thanks for the link though - I'm somewhat surprised Mozilla made as much money from a non-Google source as they did.

[deleted]

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#30
post #26
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite 100mil, but fairly close: http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2007/10/the-future-i...

$66.8 Million isn't in the neighborhood of $100 million. Yes, they're both huge sums of money, but not close enough to go "meh, close enough." Thanks for the link though - I'm somewhat surprised Mozilla made as much money from a non-Google source as they did.

I was going from memory, and perhaps I meant total over time, not annual.

But the point remains - It's a lot of money.

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