Slashdot Mirror
What's Next For Mozilla?
ezberry writes "After releasing version 1.0 of Firefox, what's ahead for the Mozilla Foundation and the venerable Firefox browser? With 6% of the market, and a notable exclusion from Google's desktop search software, PC World states that Mozilla may be thinking about adding desktop searching to the browser. Using plugins from third party vendors (and more), desktop searching may become a regular part of firefox. The article also talks about Mozilla improving firefox's popup blocker and getting OEMs to include firefox on their machines."
If they had on demand porn, it would have a 70% market share.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
getting OEMs to include firefox on their machines.
is all thats needed for world dominance (tm)
My pics.
Which will it be? A plug-in or a regular part of Firefox? I'd be okay with a plug-in, but Firefox doesn't need extra bloat, and I don't need another way to search for things on my own computer.
-Rich
still missing from ns4...
Pre-installed Firefox would be oh so sweet.
Especially if it was with a major manufacturer (Dell, Compaq/HP, or Gateway). I bet IE's marketshare would plummet.
--Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
Not here - integrates into Firefox just fine here.
Jolyon
Please read my Canon EOS tech blog at http://www.everyothershot.com
Continued market penetration is what should be the main focus now Firefox 1 is out - and of course, as we're seeing, it certainly is.
If Firefox can reach the 10% threshold, it should snowball from there.
I'm personally converting everyone I know - usually against thier will - to switch to Firefox.
With a 10% + market share, it'll be a major boost for Open Source !
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Firefox is the app that will save the Internet. From blocking popups to auto-install worms/viruses - if IE was left to roam free, unchallenged, the net would become a niche market for the people who could either a-stand it, or b-were savvy enough to get around it. Firefox is about bringing the 'net back to the people.
pissing off the company that sells them OEM operating systems at very low prices?
Beware of trying to extend a browser into a platform. It may just end up being bloated to the point where people don't like browsing with it. XUL has already made Firefox deathly slow on computers more than 3 years old.
Venerable?! "Commanding respect by virtue of age, dignity, character, or position." Who are you kidding? Yourself, mainly.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Turn sunbird into a really kick-ass iCal / Outlook replacement goddamnnit!
About desktop search, I don't really view it as that important of a feature and not worth too much time. How often do most people search for files on their hard drive - my guess is not that often. I think of it like this - whenever my internet connection goes down either at home or at work, I don't sit there and start browsing my hard drive - that's boring. I turn off my monitor and go do something else. All of my information is tied to the internet - not to my hard drive, so a desktop search feature, for me, is very low on my priority scale.
When I install Firefox on a Windows PC, I replace the standard icon with the IE icon. Then put that icon in the place where the real IE icon is.
if your pants fit well, it's not only because of the pants
I think Mozilla's biggest problem is their marketing strategy, or lack thereof. Of course us geeks know what it is but we only make up what, about that 6% of the market share they have? Talk to anyone outside the nerd world and they will likely stare blankley at you when you mention FireFox or Mozilla. Marketing and consumer awareness should be their next step.
Personally, I think Firefox redefines the websurfing experience. I have Firefox as default browser on all my machines.
However, what is to stop MSIE from copying all the features that made Firefox so good? Are simple features like "tabbed browsing" patented/patentable?
about the browser. They'll just use whatever is easiest. If IE comes with the computer it's what they'll use. John Q Averageuser doesn't care about the politics or rhetoric behind Firefox or the security issues associated with IE. (S)He just wants to buy a new set of hubcaps on eBay. Replacing IE as the default installed browser on new computers is the only way to really get 'the masses' to use it.
Pissing off the company that sells their OEM operating system pre-installed at very low prices?
It's a two-way street. I don't know exactly how much Dell pays MS for their OEM OS's, but something tells me it wouldn't be a major hurt to buck the system. Besides, I imagine Dell and Microsoft have a contract in place for prices-- I doubt Microsoft can just arbitrarily hike the prices up because Dell grows a spine.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
I think Google is going to regret not including Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird in their search features by default. I just don't understand their thinking on this, it's not like Mozilla, et al., use some kind of proprietary/obscure file format. How hard can it be to search what is basically nothing more than a text file?
How long will it take Google to back pedal after Mozilla provides its own solution (or has an extension.)
--Sunbird, the real reason we will all stop running MS somday.
...where the hell did that "6% of the market" figure come from. Yesterday, the statistics all the news sites that were covering the launch quoted that Firefox had 3 percent - I know that the launch was successful, but not enough to double the share overnight.
A day out off the presses, and it's "venerable"?
The adjective "venerable" has 2 senses in WordNet.
venerable -- (impressive by reason of age; "a venerable sage with white hair and beard")
Are you talking about Netscape 7, Mozilla 1.x, Firefox 1.0, or what?
sigs, as if you care.
A big improvement would be if you clicked the popup blocker icon that appears whenever a popup was blocked, instead of getting a dialog asking you if you wanted to allow popups on the whole site, it showed you a dialog to "release" individual popups.
We're already seeing sites like CNN telling us to turn off our popup blocker to use it. Rather than flooding us with popups because we have to turn it off for all of cnn, users would be able to just release the popups that were needed to proceed.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
The only thing that is yours, is your soul; everything else is borrowed.
Perhaps FireFox could examine the page you were viewing, its domain name, et al, and then compare them to the top result in a Google search for the same information. If the content was close to the same but the sites were distinct (and especially if the links were very different coming off of the page) might that not suggest a scam site? At least, a certain kind of scam site. Another flag might be JavaScript showing false URLs in the status bar on hover.
I guess that some of the criteria above might be triggered by mirror sites, but that seems like the kind of thing that might be resolved (in my uneducated opinion, so be kind) by entries in something like robots.txt on the main server -- perhaps in the form of "hey these sites are my mirrors, so don't flag them as scam sites, FireFox!".
*shrug* I'm sure there's a fatal flaw somewhere there.
Sharpies don't just sniff themselves.
Having FireFox pre-installed isn't good enough, take this example and imagine I'm a Joe Six Pack.
In the UK, if I bought a new PC with FF installed and then wanted to connect to the internet, I'd have to pick an ISP. They'd then send me a CD (or I'd pick it up from a shop) and that would auto install their customised version of Internet Explorer and tell FireFox to push off.
Back to square one again.
What is needed is to encourage ISPs such as AOL and BTInternet to provide FireFox as their browser.
Summation 2
The next big step is to continue to market it. Companies will realize how many problems using Firefox can alleviate, and as it gains more users and attention, it will gain more bug reports (you'd hope).
As mentioned in another thread, a vendor might want to include Firefox as the default browser (please include plugins) because they deal with SO many service calls regarding adware/spyware/viruses. I forget the statistic but it's mind-boggling and IE is costing vendors more money than it's worth.
Berto
I know this is a little off topic, but I was surprised to see them do a story about Firefox on Fox News (hmm firefox on fox how ironic). Anyways they did a small story about it on Neil Cavutos business show. They mentioned the fact that firefox is taking away market share from IE.
It's a privacy invader, and probably windows users need it, we Linux users know exactly where files are because of how our filesystem is arranged.
So let's keep it a plugin for people that choose to have it, and not force people to it.
btw I am a XUL developer myself, SiteBar Sidebar is what i make.
1) Feature creep
2) Feature creep
3) Increase market share
This is the point where much software starts to go down hill. It happens with open-source stuff as well as commercial applications. Things that one check box become a whole screen of options. The product goes from 10MB to 100MB. More "non-features" are added that average users don't want.
A better idea at this point is to go back and refactor portions of code that aren't clean. Or to eliminate options by making the browser smarter. Fix security holes.
If they want to add features beyond this point, I believe they should fork the product into some sort of "advanced" version. I don't want desktop searching. I don't want a better popup blocker (AFAIK - It is absolutely perfect as is!). I don't want even one checkbox in the preferences. Mozilla and Firefox do very well with mom & pops, which is very important for gaining market share. For every new feature or option, you alienate them a little more.
Even in a fast-moving field such as software, there is a time to slow down the pace or even stop.
You might think that
- Profit
would be even more efficient, but I've tried it and it didn't work at all.The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
that desktop searching will be added to Firefox, just that they are considering making Firefox work with other people's desktop searching software (such as Google's).
They don't demand it but with some remarks from Balmer about third party apps causing security holes, I believe they are trying to go back to the premise they had years ago that if you install anything on it you "void the warranty" so to speak.
But Balmer's speeches and reality some times diverge greatly.
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said: "I drank what?" - Chris Knight (Val Kilmer)- Real Genius
"Profit" is probably in there somewhere, too.
As a novel idea, they could stick to what they're really good at, and continue to make a browser so good that the buzz gets louder. They're making great inroads and doing the near impossible by taking on MicroSoft and winning. It also means their success is fragile, and should be nurtured with care.
~D
This sig has been enciphered with a one-time pad. It could say almost anything.
you have to wait a couple of month, the bug is fixed en the Trunk.
Workaround:
press Control + and then press Control -
I'm from Argentina: Tango, Asado, Mate, Gaucho, Maradona, YPF
Why in the world would a browser perform desktop searches?
$8.95/mo web hosting
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But what does Dell stand to gain? I don't believe for one second that Firefox comng pre-installed is going to earn then much in the way of extra market share. Meanwhile, pissing MS off enough could be real bad; sure, it might not affect anything *now*, but what about the future? Is there anything to prevent MS from say dropping the price for Longhorn to all major OEMs *except Dell*? It's their product, surely they can sell it to whoever they want at whatever price they see fit? (Serious question - I'm not overly familiar with US anti-trust/monopoly practice law)
Even supposing Dell have nothing to lose, what do they have to gain?
It's official. Most of you are morons.
An extension that gets passed the site domain, and checks the domain against a built in list, and presents an image based on the list. If the image doesn't show, you're being phished.
The list could be refreshed either per day or on user request.
Now, it does mean that someone, somewhere has to be the maintainer for that list.
Why in the world would a browser perform desktop searches?
Because a browser is where most people now go to perform full-text searches on large sets of documents (via Google).
If you think of it as treating 127.0.0.1 as just another part of the internet, it does make a certain amount of sense.
Desktop Search is a must-have for me
Whew, I just can't figure out why people need desktop searching; clean up your icons if you've got so many of the things you need a search engine! Sheesh!
Software patents are pure evil. We cannot use them - even if Moziila would really be the first browser/sw to use them. We cannot use them because the whole idea of sw patents is bad and we are fighting that idea. If we used it to stop Microsoft copy our features, Microsoft would use its patnets to kill free software.
---if anyone still needs a gmail invite, message me, i have few to spare.
But what does Dell stand to gain?
Decrease in support costs.
#!/
It's the moribund Slashcode's output that is broken rather than Firefox itself.
However, you can change your preferences so that Slashdot displays "light" markup. It says that it is intended for limited browsers and/or slow connections, but it also works nicely in Firefox on a fat connection. Give it a try.
This is the option you want:
[x] Light (reduce the complexity of Slashdot's HTML for AvantGo, Lynx, or slow connections)
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Firefox/Mozilla will not make any headway in large organizations without the ability of admins to centrally control settings, features, etc.
There needs to be an easy (pref with GUI) way to define and distribute a policy that, for example, sets and locks proxy settings, sets and locks the default web page, "brands" various portions of the browser and that restricts the ability to load extensions at will. This should work cross-platform in order to make it easier to adopt other desktop operating systems.
It would also make it easer for Windows-based IT shops if patches/updates had an MSI file with just the updated files/settings. If you want widespread adoption, you have to at least make it as easy to deal with as what they have now. Microsoft may issue tons of patches, but they aren't that difficult to get on the boxes.
There may be ways to do some of this via a prefs.js distribution, but that's not going to fly in the hostile corporate IT environments where the sole admin left (due to outsourcing) is forced to find a way to distribute a prefs.js manually across thousands of diverse desktops.
IE settings can be managed by the IEAK and various GPO settings under Windows and that is a big sell. Mozilla/Firefox needs an equivalent.
I'd gladly help but I can barely find the time to work on my own, pathetic, foray in to the open source world, let alone contribute coding time to the best open source browser on the Net today. I'd be glad to share extensive requirements with any folks who have time time/energy to take up this noble effort.
Mind the gap...
I think I need to check this out, then. I have huge piles of paper on my desk, and it takes ages for me to find anything I need. It's usually scribbled on the back of something totally unimportant...
I say we take-off and slashdot the site from orbit... it's the only way to be sure
How often do most people search for files on their hard drive - my guess is not that often.
At home, no. At work, all the time. I have folders with code, folders with documents, archive Outlook folders, and current Outlook folders. All of which Google Desktop indexes, and searches very quickly.
Google Desktop search is far faster than Outlook's search, and will search all the archives at the same time. If I want to find a mail conversation about something, I use the desktop search. If I know I had a peice of SQL that updated a certain table, but can't remember exactly what it is called, I can use the desktop search. Find a presentation, announcement or memo that isn't very recent, search.
Just like on the internet, where these days I don't keep huge numbers of bookmarks, I just search. Now while I try to keep files on my machine reasonably orgnaised, if it is something more than a month or to old it is much quicker to search than to browse.
I know I keep my stuff way more organised than most people at work. I think it is the work environment where the deskptop search is most valuable. People have loads of important information scattered across their hard drives, and search lets them get there easily.
So you weren't alive before a month ago? Man, you're an advanced 1 month old. My daughter's a year old, and all she can do it bang on the keyboard, and screw up my slashdot posts 4itgharweg89 has
glgr34 waecav 3ugae35;
ERIO
I'SG AAS JEG
a'eir zdf
a0350
/. is a bunch of nerds at a million typewriters. It's not a political conspiracy determined to undermine your beliefs.
Firefox can already be built with the SVG option enabled. It does a good job at displaying static SVG right now. With Cairo rendering support taking shape, there will be a solid stable multiplatform rendering engine for it, readily available. And it is not a huge addition to the footprint.
Why not make SVG support a default part of the development build starting now? That way it will be properly stress-tested and debugged before the next release.
IE already dropped support for URLs with an @ in them, and some people accused Microsoft of breaking yet another standard.
For more information, click here.
No, it isn't returned...several E-machines I have came with Netscape 6.2. I've been wondering about that for a while :D
Firefox is outstanding in part because it is just a browser that works well.
Why has Firefox rocketed in popularity when Mozilla has been around forever? Partly because they stripped out the mail/news reader and all of the other bloat that was unnecessary for a good web browser. ~4 MB download for an excellent browser. That's all I want and need.
The direction of Firefox specifically should proceed further down that road. Fix the bugs, make sure rendering is perfect according to web standards, and focus on the browsing experience. Continue to refine security and privacy features.
Plug-ins are fine; they leave the choice of including them to the user. But for Mozilla, just leave the browser lightweight and work on the way it does its job.
Sure thing, we'll just submit a new RFC that gets rid of a legitimate, widly used and useful URI scheme to keep idiots from harming themselves. Anything else we can ruin while we're at it?
Generally concentrate on making a better browser. If you go for world domination, we'll end up with a half-assed mess that doesn't do everything that people would like it to do. I like Firefox because its a web-browser, nothing more.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
This may not be as far away as you think:
MSI packages for Firefox
You can share your requirements for better network deployability in Bug ID # 231062 in Bugzilla (I'm not gonna link directly to the bug since Bugzilla just blocks traffic from Slashdot anyway). That would help the devs improve the packages and get you the sort of thing you're talking about.
Read my blog.
Because a browser is where most people now go to perform full-text searches on large sets of documents (via Google).
The way I see it, I go to google to do searches, not a browser. Should the browser implement e-commerce just because people go to amazon.com to shop?
$8.95/mo web hosting
Anyone with a brain strips html tags (or any tags for that matter) first before doing text searches. You bypassing the forum's filter is simply because the coder was lazy. In php, this can be done in one lineIn perl its nearly just as easy.
Regards,
Steve
Assumeing that most companies use Microsoft products, with most running Windows 2000 or XP.
One thing Mozilla and Firefox really lack is a quick easy way to deploy & maintain them in an orginization. A MSI based installer with security updates provided by MSP (patches to the MSI install) would allow Windows administrators to deploy and maintain Firefox via an Active Directory Group Policy...
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
People often kick around various percentages that Firefox, supposedly, bit off Microsoft's IE. Some say Firefox has 3%, some say 6%, some say already 10%. But it's meaningless and pointless because:
1) It's a free product in a marketplace for free products. Opera is the only company that really needs to care about the marketshare, because each user is either 30$ for them, or a stream of advertising money.
2) All users are different. Do you count downloads, installations, number of users, number of people using, number of companies, number of page visits, number of hours spent using it, etc., etc.?
Because of 1) it doesn't really matter which indicator will you chose for 2), they are all pointless.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
It's amazing how in the huge world of software everyone keeps talking about the same shit over and over again. Now we are doomed for 2-3 years to listen about desktop search on every occasion from every single company. "Hi, I am Gill Bates, the CEO of Useless Widget Software. We are planning to introduce desktop searching capability into the next version of our product for no apparent reason, just because it looks cool". Shit, I can understand why Google wants to create desktop search - they are a search company, after all, and they have a severe case of money-pocket-burnus. And of course Google is too cheap to create a desktop application using Windows API or even something cross-platform like Java, so they use browser to operate the search, which is just a pathetic hack. But why should Firefox do desktop search? Contrary to what many may think, searching personal computer files has nothing whatsoever to do with browser.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
I just wish I could think of a way to add gay marriage to the list. But hell, that dosen't hurt ANYONE.
/. is a bunch of nerds at a million typewriters. It's not a political conspiracy determined to undermine your beliefs.
Try this open source search tool.
I second this, LDAP profiles are a must now days. Bookmarks, etc.
Also, a single place where they can auto force settings in a corp, like proxies, and other settings.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
Instead of wondering what new features should be added, how about fixing the html / css / object plugin support? During some recent development I was frankly surprised and very dissappointed that the java applet support (via the plugin) -sucked- in Firefox and Mozilla (ok in IE). The meta tags don't work like they should, etc, etc.
Too often open source developers run after the next wizbang thing without finishing their work. Thus, only a few great projects with outstanding developer leads actually complete the rigorousness required to make them globally acceptable applications.
I'm sure this will be modded down as a troll, but as a lead on an open source project that requires true enterprise quality, I'm begging you guys to keep at your great project until the kinks are worked out a little more.
As far as the 'next big thing for browser functionality' goes, I'd like to see browsers replaced with a single video/voice/IM/Whiteboard/edit-in-place-HTML application. The web is all about communication. That communication can finally change from simple downloadable text (ala BBSs and Mosaic) to a bi-directional P2P multimedia communication platform. Do that, get rid of the bugs, and the Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird teams will own the web.
You Can also try my system called POPsearch http://www.popsearch.net/
what would make me switch from opera to firefox would be automatic saving/loading of sessions, tabbed browsing to act the same as opera and adblock bundled with the installer.