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Firefox May Already Be Dead

pcworld.com

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Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#41

Post by maarek »

mpk wrote: post #17
thatguycheese wrote: post #3

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…

Agree. I have a alot of fun add-ons, but I need my AdBlock. The internet just looks funny with all those adds.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#42

Post by GeneralMaximus »

The one reason why Firefox is so slow: XUL.

Has anyone noticed that other browsers using Gecko as their rendering engine (Epiphany, Galeon, etc.) are much faster than Firefox? AFAIK, these browsers are built using native toolkits (GTK+ for both Epiphany and Galeon) of whatever platform they work on. Also, has anyone noticed how slow Songbird is? That's XUL for you.

I don't care about extensions. IMO, a web browser is supposed to let you view and interact with webpages, nothing more, nothing less. Leave the ad blocking, note taking, email checking, photo uploading, iTunes controlling to separate applications. How difficult is it for Mozilla to just wrap up Gecko in a Cocoa shell for the Mac, GTK+/Qt shell for Linux and whatever toolkit is used these days on Windows? Why build the UI using XUL?

I'm an Opera user, but I hate the way they've been piling on feature after feature into the browser. BitTorrent? Speed Dial? If they don't stop now, I'll switch to something leaner.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#43

Post by ojbyrne »

jakfrost wrote: post #13

I would love to use Chrome as my primary browser, but until it supports an addon equivalent to and as feature-rich as Firebug, and is available for OSX, I don't have much choice but to stick with Firefox.

I was despairing about the lack of web devs here (is there one out there that doesn't depend on firebug?). Thanks for redeeming my faith.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#44

Post by known »

thatguycheese wrote: post #3

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

How will Google make money if they roll out ABP for Chrome? It is same as Microsoft trying to make money by rolling out a Linux distro.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#46

Post by 10ren »

unalone wrote: post #23
10ren wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm confused by your first paragraph, because you seem to be agreeing with me semantically, but disagreeing syntactically. I think if you expand a little it will become clear to me. :-) BTW: Most users want features more than speed (otherwise it doesn't do what you want, but fast).

In your second paragraph, I think you're underestimating the power of a platform (which enables MS to make so much money BTW). It's an incredibly powerful competitive advantage. Remember monkeyboy: "developers, developers, developers".

I agree Adblock and Greasemonkey can be duplicated in negligible time (it took 7 iterations to get the latter's security model right, but that work is now already done) - but that's only 2 addons. How many man-hours to duplicate a comparable eco-system of addons? Secondly, Greasemonkey is itself a platform - how many man-hours to duplicate all the add-ons for that?

It's not enough that there's the ability to create the addons - they also have to be created, and that takes time, during which more addons are created and refined for Firefox... I'm not saying it's impossible to catch up, just that it an established platform is a powerful factor. BTW: Chrome isn't even released for Linux yet. It's fast, yes, but...

An exception is if Google can make Chrome plug-compatible with Firefox plugs-ins; and if a Chrome Greasemonkey can be made that is plug-compatible with Firefox Greasemonkey. From my fiddling around with these technologies, they both seem to be to be horrendously tied to Firefox specifics. They don't need to be, but they are. IMO, anyway. :-) NB: even firefox 2 and 3 aren't plug-compatible! :D

However, perhaps none of this matters, because (I think) few people use many add-ons beyond adblock. But I really don't know. Maybe they do? I guess Firefox's extensions page has stats, so it would be easily estimated. Oh well, why not some data? It's so much more fun to argue with facts to throw:

Adblock: 627,380 downloads weekly. That's well over 25 million pa. mmmm... the currently most popular plug-in is actually "Video DownloadHelper", at 701,065 weekly downloads. Here's the 20 most popular add-ons: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search?q=&cat=a...

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#47

Post by trezor »

The author seems to imply we will all switch to Chrome because of speed, and speed alone. You know what? My PC is faster than it ever was, CPU never hits 100% and Firefox runs fast enough for my needs. With my new i7 system I expect this to be truer than ever before.

I switched from Opera to Firefox, despite Firefox being noticeably slower, because of extensions. I love extensions. In fact, right now I'm unable to imagine a web without extensions. It would be like using a OS without the ability to write scripts or code to interact with it. I realize this probably doesn't apply to all Firefox-users, but I seriously suspect it applies to almost all early adopters.

Why would I switch to to Chrome with extensions lacking, when it offers me nothing more than Opera? In fact Opera offers more than Chrome, is just as fast (based on actual machine-to-human metrics, not artificial millisecond wanking) but that didn't stop me from going to another browser.

Speed is only one factor in the equation, and on modern machines it is highly irrelevant. If speed was that important to everyone, why didn't Opera turn out to be the top dog years ago?

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#48

Post by Raphael »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #42

The one reason why Firefox is so slow: XUL. Has anyone noticed that other browsers using Gecko as their rendering engine (Epiphany, Galeon, etc.) are much faster than Firefox? AFAIK, these browsers are built using native toolkits (GTK+ for both Epiphany and Galeon) of whatever platform they work on. Also, has anyone noticed how slow Songbird is? That's XUL for you. I don't care about extensions. IMO, a web browser is…

BitTorrent is only a few kb, and speed dial has propagated to most other browsers.

And why does XUL have to be slow? Couldn't it be sped up instead of throwing it away?

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#49

Post by derefr »

trezor wrote: post #47

The author seems to imply we will all switch to Chrome because of speed, and speed alone. You know what? My PC is faster than it ever was, CPU never hits 100% and Firefox runs fast enough for my needs. With my new i7 system I expect this to be truer than ever before. I switched from Opera to Firefox, despite Firefox being noticeably slower, because of extensions. I love extensions. In fact, right now I'm unable to im…

What extensions do you use, that are so important to you, if I may ask? Of these, are there any that would not also function as either desktop widgets or filters applied by a proxy server to the incoming/outgoing content? I moved from Firefox on a PC to Safari on a Mac, and I'm missing it much less than I thought I would; I never really used anything other than Adblock. How is thine ride pimped?

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#50

Post by trezor »

derefr wrote: post #49
trezor wrote: post #47

The author seems to imply we will all switch to Chrome because of speed, and speed alone. You know what? My PC is faster than it ever was, CPU never hits 100% and Firefox runs fast enough for my needs. With my new i7 system I expect this to be truer than ever before. I switched from Opera to Firefox, despite Firefox being noticeably slower, because of extensions. I love extensions. In fact, right now I'm unable to im…

What extensions do you use, that are so important to you, if I may ask? Of these, are there any that would not also function as either desktop widgets or filters applied by a proxy server to the incoming/outgoing content? I moved from Firefox on a PC to Safari on a Mac, and I'm missing it much less than I thought I would; I never really used anything other than Adblock. How is thine ride pimped?

My list of essential extensions are as follows:

* Adblock plus (with Filterset.G) * Firebug * Gamil notifier * Greasemonkey * Platypus (reformat and edit webpages live, script it, ready for Greasemonkey) * Rikaichan (Japanese dictionary with lookup directly in your browser with a simple mouse-hover) * Linkification (Create links out of any non-linked address on pages) * Mouse Gestures (Not just navigation, things like image-zooming and whatever you feel like) * Ubiquity (which pretty much has "extensions" on its own) * User agent switcher (Because some sites gives you different content than google)

Some of these things can surely be implemented in Chrome or will be implemented sooner or later. Some can probably be implemented outside the browser, but that means another layer of indirection while working with your data. In other words: A step back.

I don't expect all of these extensions ever to be ported to the core of any browser. In fact that would make very little sense as only a fringe share of the market would need it or want it.

However having the ability to have extensions and go crazy with your customized install is what makes Firefox great. And this is where Chrome fails. It wont let you make your browser yours.

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