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Firefox May Already Be Dead

pcworld.com

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Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#51

Post by whopa »

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…

It seems that nearly every post about Chrome results in a multitude of comments like this one, about how extensions are key and Chrome is useless without them. Google realizes this and is working on bringing extensions to Chrome. Mozilla, on the other hand, isn't working on bringing process-per-tab to Firefox at all. It almost seems like willful ignorance.

Firefox may be dead simply due to Mozilla not having any long term strategy vision about how to stay relevant. The issue isn't that Chrome doesn't have extensions now, but what is Mozilla doing now to plan for the future when they no longer have the extension advantage. So far it looks like nothing.

Even Firefox's vaunted new JS engine in 3.5 isn't going to be turned on for extensions, only web content. Meanwhile not only does Chrome's extension code get the V8 love, they also run as a separate process, which means they won't impact performance of browsing as much as Firefox's extension framework does.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#52

Post by halo »

antirez wrote: post #11

I think this guy is right, because unlike the IE -> Firefox switch that is slow, Firefox -> Chrome switch can be really fast. And this is just the start. From the user point of view Firefox is almost unchanged since 1.0, I wonder what they really did in all this time: stability, new parts of the standard implemented, better page rendering, and so on, but this is not a DNS server or an SMTP server, it's a browser. You…

Firefox has changed lots since 1.0, you probably just don't realise it because it's taken a while. Off the top of my head:

* Major look and feel changes in 3.0

* Spell checking in 3.0

* Performance improvements throughout the browser.

* Improved support for adding/removing plugins

* Allow searching of addons from within Firefox

* Improved Mac OS X integration.

* The Awesomebar.

* Completely revamped everything to do with bookmarks.

* Improved options window

* Revamped Downloads window, with download progress in the bottom right.

Coming soon in 3.5: Private browsing, dragging tabs into new windows. For a lightweight browser, this adds up.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#53

Post by screwperman »

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

I'm actually looking for somehing a lot simpler: vi/Emacs keybindings and a better mouseless browsing experience in general.

EDIT: Sorry, I'm looking for such features in Chrome.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#54

Post by unalone »

GeneralMaximus wrote: post #40
unalone wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

GlimmerBlocker is a nice ad-blocker for OS X that works across browsers. I'll let the website do the explaining: http://glimmerblocker.org/ IMHO, these guys need to do some more marketing.

That's the one I was talking about, yeah. On OS X ad blocking isn't such a big necessity since GlimmerBlocker does all of it no matter what browser.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#55

Post by indiv »

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

SRWare's Iron is Chrome with all the privacy-compromising stuff turned off. It also has adblocking similar to ABP via an adblock.ini file in the installation directory.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#56

Post by forkqueue »

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

Pfft. I can (and do) easily cope without Ad Block Plus, but until there's a Vimperator alike Chrome won't get a look in for me..

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#57

Post by chairface »

screwperman wrote: post #53
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

I'm actually looking for somehing a lot simpler: vi/Emacs keybindings and a better mouseless browsing experience in general. EDIT: Sorry, I'm looking for such features in Chrome.

Have you tried the Firemacs extension for Firefox? I use it with Emacs bindings, but I think it should be able to do an approximation of vi bindings as well.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#58

Post by dmix »

screwperman wrote: post #53
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

I'm actually looking for somehing a lot simpler: vi/Emacs keybindings and a better mouseless browsing experience in general. EDIT: Sorry, I'm looking for such features in Chrome.

I use the Mouseless Browsing add-on in Firefox. It basically adds a number next to all the links on a page, for example you press ctrl + 21 and the link opens. It also can be turned on/off with a shortcut.

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#59

Post by [deleted] »

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?

[deleted]

Re: Firefox May Already Be Dead

#60

Post by bobbyi »

10ren wrote: post #19
snowstorm wrote: post #5

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…

The latest builds of Chrome support greasemonkey scripts: http://www.ghacks.net/2008/10/18/google-chrome-adds-greasemo...

There is also greasemonkey support in safari (with greasekit) and opera (no extension needed).

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