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The Future of Firefox

Posted by Zonk on from the phoenix-rising-indeed dept.

sebFlyte writes "As Firefox moves swiftly towards 1.1 and Internet Explorer keeps trundling towards IE7, ZDNet UK has an interesting set of articles about Mozilla. Among other things, they look at the history of Firefox all the way from the pre-phoenix days, and have an interview with chief evangelist Asa Dotzler looking at what has driven the browsers success and why he thinks the release of IE7 will cause a massive boost in the uptake of Firefox."

11 of 399 comments (clear)

  1. Main advantage by mfloy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The main reason I like Firefox is that it pushes innovation. Back when IE was the clearly dominant browser, with no real competition, there were very few sensible inovations for browsers. Sure, a few little things here and there, but for the most part it was monopolized. Firefox's popularity will ultimately lead to a better browser market all around.

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    Voice your opinion!
    1. Re:Main advantage by dsginter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Speaking of innovation, someone should innovate an ActiveX IE plugin that simply changes the IE rendering engine to Gecko.

      Then we could all use CSS the way it was meant to be. The drone consumers will never know the difference.

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      More
    2. Re:Main advantage by Zathrus · · Score: 5, Informative

      q[ I'd be happy if firefox can just fix the CPU hammering/memory leak with Flash by 2.0.]q

      Given that the issue in question also occurs in IE, Safari, and any other browser with a flash plugin regardless of OS I'd guess that this is not a browser bug.

      My guess is that it's a race condition inside the Flash code itself. It doesn't appear on all systems, even if they are running the same OS/browser/flash revision (and viewing the same content).

      At least with Firefox you can install Flashblock and not be annoyed by CPU gobbling flash unless you really want it.

    3. Re:Main advantage by dpilot · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You underestimate your argument.

      When competition disappears from ANY market, that market stagnates. For the moment, I'll follow your example and continue to pick on Microsoft, but it's by no means limited to them. Way back in the early PC days, DOS advanced fairly rapidly to DOS 3.3, driven by hardware introductions. There was also a not widely used or known multitasking version of DOS (4?) as well as IBM's much-maligned DOS4. But basically, DOS stagnated after V3.3.

      That is, until DRDOS 5.0 came out, offering much better value. (More features, not sure if it cost less.) Then Microsoft followed, and brought out their own DOS 5.0, and the stakes were upped again with DRDOS 6.0, etc. Somewhere in there, Microsoft slipped the legendary AARD code into Windows 3.1 to chill the DRDOS uptake, and also around that timeframe they "incorporated" disk compression, courtesy of Stac Electronics. (lawsuits followed, on both counts.)

      But IMHO, if DRDOS 5 hadn't appeared, it would have stayed DOS 3.3 under Windows until the whole Windows vs OS/2 battle started. Also IMHO, lacking competitive pressure in a given market, a company will invest its development dollars elsewhere, and milk the stagnant market for all it can.

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      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  2. Re:Name one platform Firefox doesn't suck on. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Your well-reasoned and insightful arguments have convinced me to uninstall Firefox.

  3. Women in OSS by BigZaphod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is part of one of the questions in the interview: "The open source community generally has problems encouraging women to participate."

    Why is this seen as a problem? The open source community doesn't really try that hard to encourage *anyone* to participate regardless of gender or race or nationality. It just is what it is. Those who participate decide to do so on their own and there's virtually no barriers to doing so. The way that question is phrased it is almost as if there should be some kind of OSS organized effort to specifically attract women to the community. What would be gained by such a movement and why is it even implied to be necessary?

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    Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
    1. Re:Women in OSS by jimbolauski · · Score: 5, Funny
      "What would be gained by such a movement"

      You need to think outside the box yong grasshopper! Wet oss t-shirt contests, home cooked meals instead of vending machine meals, the benifits are limitless.

      --
      Knowledge = Power
      P= W/t
      t=Money
      Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
  4. Sad, but true by ehaggis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I like Firefox, I have deployed Firefox as the defacto browser in my company and it is my primary browser.

    That being said, it is sad when only (a questionable) 10% usage rate is viewed as any type of challenge to IE. Have we lowered our standards for what real competition should be?

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    One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
  5. The Future of Firefox is another 5 MB download... by Steve_Jobs_HNIC · · Score: 5, Informative


    Coding misstep forces new Firefox release

    http://news.com.com/Coding+misstep+forces+new+Fire fox+release/2100-1002_3-5792635.html?tag=nefd.top


    well....at least we have extensions.... here's my list:

    TextZoom - because I'm blind as a bat
    Adblock - use with Filterset.G from http://www.pierceive.com
    Session Saver - saves tab sessions _when_ firefox crashes
    Web Developer - lot of web dev options
    IE View - click to view in IE
    Target Alert - let's me know what I'm clicking on
    ForecastFox - show forecast
    FindBar Switch - makes the find bar toogle hide/un-hide with CTRL+F
    Download Statusbar - much better than the download window/popup
    SpellBound - because my spelling sux

  6. IE bundled with Windows by Hamstij · · Score: 5, Insightful
    As long as IE remains bundled with the windows OS, Firefox will *never* take off and reach a significant install base.

    I work as a consultant for many IT firms, and even though they are perfectly aware of IE's limitations and security problems, they do not make the change to an alternate browser simply because it is far easier to stay with the one already installed on the system.

    Inertia means that Firefox will always remain a fringe browser until some anti-monopoly law makes MS remove IE. And that will never happen. No matter how awful IE becomes now or in the future, sheer laziness means it will always be the predominant browser.

  7. Re:boost leads to more exploits by Linus+Torvaalds · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft bought Spyglass

    No, they royally fucked over Spyglass. They made a deal with Spyglass so that Spyglass would get a cut of all the profits made from Internet Explorer as it was based upon Spyglass Mosaic. Remember, this was back when web browsers were something you could buy in a box. Getting a cut of all sales for a flagship application sold by Microsoft? Spyglass must have thought they really lucked out!

    Then Microsoft illegally dumped Internet Explorer on the market for no cost in order to kill Netscape. 5% of zero profits isn't a lot of money, is it? Spyglass no longer exists.