PCWorld Dubs Firefox Best Product of 2005

Peaceful_Patriot writes "PCWorld's list of the 'Best Products of 2005' is out and Firefox tops the list. Also notables are GMail at number 2, Apple OS X, Tiger at number 3, Skype ranks in at 8 and Ubuntu at 26!" From their Firefox article: "Are you sick and tired of Internet Explorer? Have you grown weary of the constant vulnerabilities and patches? Do you scratch your head at sudden program lockups and crashes? Are you dismayed that Microsoft hasn't lifted a finger to improve or enhance IE since it buried Netscape's Navigator browser at the dawn of the century? Yeah, me too."

Comments

Wow, Dell!

[matr0x_x]

I'm very surprised to sell Dell listed so many times. I mean, Firefox, Apple, Palm and a lot of the other top 10 were very predictable, but I'd never have guessed Dell. Poor Microsoft didn't even crack the top 100...

Re:Wow, Dell!

[mboos]

47. Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 Media Player

Of course, I'm not endorsing this product. Haven't used it myself since I stopped using Windows a year and a half ago (and I use iTunes now when I'm forced to).

Re:Wow, Dell!

[Skim123]

Is it just me or do all media players really seem to suck ass these days? I use iTunes because I want a podcasting tool integrated with my media player, and I do buy the occassional track from iTunes, but I don't like how iTunes just basically has one big ol' library that I have to tag and create playlists to filter.

Not a big fan of WMP either. I liked WinAmp a lot, back before podcasts and before I bought "Apple" music through iTunes... I just wish someone would come out with a music/video media player that didn't blow. Of course, seeing as the going price for these pieces of software is $0.00, and all profit is made from selling content, and buying content essentially locks you into a particular player, I understand why we haven't seen this... (Yeah, yeah, I know you can burn a purchased iTunes song to CD then rip it back into MP3 for portability, but that's a PITA...)

Ok, enough rambling...

Re:Wow, Dell!

[Praxx]

Visual Studio 2005 should at least be in the Top 10, IMHO. Alot of Microsoft's products may suck, but their development tools are top-notch.

Re:Wow, Dell!

[oztiks]

I can totally understand why Dell is there, the sales model behind Dell is brilliant. You dont need to see a PC before you buy it unless you get off on fancy cases and sexy keyboards.

So for 90% of people who need a new computer they need it to be a) cheap b) working order with good support, Dell provides this without the shopfront therefore reduces overall cost. They also offer good server products with easy to setup business leases and an array of SLA services so they have that market in the bag.

I guess the only real market they dont reach are the gamers who want to custom build their PCs to be a 900lb gorilla in system performance. But still they are flexible enough to cater to these people if need be.

The fact its listed more then once, i agree could be considered a bit of the top and the fact they are getting praise for specific peripherals like monitors is a bit odd if you ask me ... seems like the list is a little bit too 'particular' on personal favoriates rather then a soildly investigated and surveyed top 100.

Re:Wow, Dell!

[nmb3000]

Is it just me or do all media players really seem to suck ass these days?

I've started to wonder the same thing. It seems like developers have lost the focus that you used to see. Instead of just a good and efficient audio or video player, they all have to play video, audio, and DVDs, have 1000 visualizations, a big media library, burn CDs and DVDs, use a gaudy GUI that eats CPU cycles like candy, and make hot pockets.

On XP I personally use:

• Winamp 2.91 for my audio needs

  Nullsoft is an example of a group that seems to have lost focus. I suppose that the "all-in-one" media app is the big thing now, but I still like being able to use Winamp all day playing audio and see it averages around 0.5% CPU usage (2GHz P4) while playing MP3s. 2.91 was the best version of Winamp yet in my opinion. Windowshade mode with always-on-top placed centered at the top of the screen with a 40 hour playlist = perfect.

• WMP 10 for generic video playback

  I like WMP 10 a fair bit actually. It's pretty fast and responsive when playing videos and audio, and it has all the options I need in a video player. The only things I find irritating are that it sometimes has problems with videos that have been encoded oddly, and it's DRM support is annoying.

• PowerDVD for playing DVDs (though VLC comes in handy if I just want to jump to a scene real quick).

  PowerDVD is a great DVD player for Windows. Lots of options and it does a great job of scaling and adjusting DVD video and audio for desktops and laptops.

I guess I prefer specialized versus generalized applications.

Re:Wow, Dell!

[Fusen]

If you have any problems with WMP10 then try out VLC videolan.org, and they should go away pretty quick ;D

Re:Wow, Dell!

[Malor]

Well, I ended up with both the 2405FPW and the 3100CN laser. The 3100CN is just okay.... decent, nothing too great.

The 2405FPW, on the other hand, is really quite remarkable. It's HUGE, vivid, and lovely to look at all day. Excellent color. Good for gaming. If you're a really topflight FPSer, you may not like it, but for normal humans, it's just superb.

Out of the box, the brightness is INSANE, burn-out-your-retinas bright. After you've had it a month or two, it fades to more reasonable levels. When I first had it, I had the Brightness set at 40 (out of 100), and even that was a bit uncomfortable. Over time, the monitor dimmed quite a bit. I now have it at 80 brightness, and it's perfect. I haven't had to change anything for quite awhile. I still prefer having the overhead light on, even now... there's still so much lightt that it's more comfortable with lights on. (I used to sit in the computer cave, all lights out, like many geeks I've known... not anymore.)

Probably the biggest downside to the 2405 is that the colors change as you move your head around; the perfect viewing cone is very narrow. It's much worse when you first get it.. whatever method is used to cut the brightness down also worsens the color response a great deal, off axis. Once you've had it awhile and can turn the brightness back up, the off-axis response is better, but it'll never be as good as a CRT.

On the whole, it is just dynamite, and you can often get it at around $750-$775, if you wait for the coupons and sales. (in other words, DO NOT buy it now, you'll pay the full $1200 list price.) I got mine for just under $1k and still think I got a heck of a deal. $775 would have been sweet, indeed.

I haven't heard anything bad about their QC, either... I have one dead pixel in mine. Out of 2.3 million pixels, I can handle one dead one. :) They have a fairly good return policy, so if you get one you don't like/can't stand, you can always ship it back and try again.

I don't like Dell very much for computers, but this is a GREAT monitor.

Re:Wow, Dell!

[koreaman]

Firefox has extensions, that's the thing.

Opera is faster, doesn't shrink images (pr0n, anyone?) and has mouse gestures that consistently work.

There's something to be said about both, so I have no idea why Firefox is so high yet opera is nowhere. For what it's worth, I use Opera, Firefox being my other favorite browser.

Re:Wow, Dell!

[mr100percent]

No way man, Safari is the best browser for the Mac. Firefox is slower on the mac for some reason, which is why they have the Camino fork.

Re:Wow, Dell!

[Malor]

After thinking about it some, I realized I've had this monitor longer than I thought. I got probably the very first run... it arrived in early March. I think the last time I changed the brightness was probably early August. Currently, at brightness 80, it's Very Bright instead of Crazy Retina-Scorching Bright like it was out of the box.

I'm SURE it'll last longer than a year or two, at least if it's working properly. Without checking, I think the warranty is three years, so to protect themselves against premature bulb failures from heavy users, they'd want to spec them for at least twice that long. So 5 years should be a reasonably safe bet. And the bulb(s) can most likely be replaced, although in five years I'm sure there will be better monitors, and it may not be worth fixing. (double-check on that warranty before buying, I could be wrong.)

You shouldn't have to pay that much, if you watch for sales. Watch the Ars Technica Audio/Visual club, and the deals sites. If you're willing to be patient, you should be able to get it under $800. It may take two or three months, but that extra $150 is three games or a half an iPod... or just money you can, you know, save and not spend. *grin*.

Also, keep in mind that you'll probably be happiest with a 6800GT class (or better) video card to drive it. It takes a beastly GPU to drive 1920x1200 at 60fps. That's partly my perfectionist streak talking... you can use lower resolutions, and have the monitor scale it up. It looks surprisingly good, not at all like the blocky pixel-doubling of earlier generations. The new interpolation algorithms/hardware are much better. You can still tell it's an LCD, but you have to LOOK... it's nearly as good as a CRT. So you could use it comfortably with lesser cards if you wanted. That said, it's always nicest running in native resolution, and 1920x1200 needs a VERY fast card.

If you wait for a sale, the money you save could be a good chunk of a 7800..... :)

I'm confident you'll like it... but remember that if you're disappointed, Dell has a good return policy. I think you'll be out the shipping, but it's not that heavy and shouldn't be that expensive to send back if you decide to.

PC World Product of the year 1995...

[curmi]

...was OS/2. So don't get too cocky. :-)

Re:PC World Product of the year 1995...

[G27 Radio]

Yeah, but it was actually a pretty good product.

Re:PC World Product of the year 1995...

[splerdu]

I don't think the GP meant to insult FF by associating it with OS/2, just suggesting caution that being "good" doesn't necessarily mean long-term success.

Old News

[Saganaga]

From page 1 of the article:

From the July 2005 issue of PC World magazine

I thought it seemed funny that the review of Gmail said "check out Gmail the moment it launches", and that the Firefox review was from December 2004!

iPod at 78 and Rio at 13 and no Nano?

[ericdano]

Something is fishy. No mention of the iPod nano, and Rio's crappy Carbon player is at 13? WTF?

More PC bias going on here....

Re:iPod at 78 and Rio at 13 and no Nano?

[jonfelder]

It could be that this story is a dupe and this article was written in July before the Nano was released. Also, it must be my imagination that an Apple product is #3.

Naaaa...must be PC bias.

Stuff that mattered.

[teslatug]

This was published in July. Is the story a dupe?

Re:IE Really hasn't improved

[DrEldarion]

Try alt+d in IE for highlighting the address bar. Same key combo works in firefox as well.

It certainly is

[quokkapox]

If you're like me, and you have installed the SessionSaver extension, you will find that Firefox 1.5 is extremely stable on Windows XP, and you now have 50-odd tabs of pages you will read "someday soon, when I'm not on the net" saved up in other windows.

I hope I am not the only victim of this scourge.

Not quite with the times?

[cbuskirk]

I understand the list is quite long, but surely PC World could have done better than use their July 2003 review for the Itunes Music Store. 200,000 songs? Mac Only?

Dupe

[Doomstalk]

Not only is this article from June, but it's been reported on before.

Re:Dupe

[DeafByBeheading]

It's the number one dupe of the year.

Re:firefox ? WTF

[Punboy]

Funny. For giggles I threw together a page with 100 150k images on a single page, posted it and the images to my webserver, and loaded it with firefox. it took ~30 seconds to load... all the images loaded fine... and, when I checked how much memory firefox was using, it was using ~40MB. This is Firefox 1.5 RC3 on Windows XP SP2.

And um, I believe you mean opening anything with letters in the path which are not standard english characters, for instance something with an é in it. Admittedly yes, Firefox can't handle these well. But, if you knew about the HTTP standard, you would know these characters are not supposed to be allowed in URLs, and if they are in it they have to be specified using their ASCII character code (much like spaces are, with %20).

Alienware?

[AIX-Hood]

I'm surprised to see an Alienware machine at #6 seeing as their post-sales support has been atrocious for as long as they've been around. I know a good number of people who've bought machines from them; none of them would ever do it again. I guess this goes along with Cnet giving the Maxtor 250 external firewire drives their highest rating, while they have a 90% failure rate within the first 6-8 months.

My work here is done

[theblackdeer]

Mozilla Team: "Well guys, we got our goal. PC World #1 spot. Close the web site down; we're satisfied with a job well done."

it just works.

[jasonhamilton]

You're right, on the surface it looks like any other gnome based distro.

However, if you install it on a bunch of diff laptops, then compare it to another linux distro, you'll quickly find that what makes Ubuntu so good is that there is a lot of polish underneath.

Widescreen is detected and configured. Most wifi cards, auto mounting of external drives, sound card. Even special keyboard keys function on most systems I've installed it on.

I think Ubuntu is headed in the right direction. What makes Windows so great for noobs is that they install it and then they click to get on teh interweb. No mess, no fuss. One shouldn't have to spend all day trying to get the damn OS configured.

Re:it just works.

[ccp]

What makes Windows so great for noobs is that they install it and then they click to get on teh interweb.

You mean like Mandrake (now Mandriva) has been doing since at least 1999?

Cheers,

Erm....

[Skim123]

re you dismayed that Microsoft hasn't lifted a finger to improve or enhance IE since it buried Netscape's Navigator browser at the dawn of the century?

I am not an IE zealot (I use FireFox), but this statement isn't 100% accurate. MS did add popup blocking support for IE in SP2. And there are a ton of new features for IE7.

Granted, too little, too late, and way behind FireFox's release/feature schedule (which is why I use FF and not IE), but at least Microsoft is doing something. Proof that competition is a Good Thing.

Re:IE Really hasn't improved

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're still using IE, then try this ...

Alt+F4

voipbuster.com

[kyoko21]

I rank voipbuster.com as the best app of 2005 because since that I have made the switch to ditch my long distance carrier for voipbuster, I have only paid a total sum of $1.28 USD for my long distance calls here in the United States as well as my long distance calls overseas to a select few countries, which includes Taiwan. :-) Nothing like free long distance as long as I have internet connectivity. Now where is the nearest open wifi access point at...lol.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss?

[roman_mir]

Have you grown weary of the constant vulnerabilities and patches? Do you scratch your head at sudden program lockups and crashes? - be careful, it is possible to say the same thing about FF now. I see FF crash very often now. Patches and vulnerabilities? FF has them too. It does look like FF gets the fixes much faster than IE though.

Re:IE Really hasn't improved

[c_forq]

I must not be fully patched or have some spyware or something, because that keeps crashing my IE ;)

Firefox security could be worse than IE

[einhverfr]

Actually, I think there is a point there. While I like Firefox, I think that a XUL-based web-browser is an inherently insecure architecture because there is no inherent boundary between UI and content. Yes, there is a security boundary that is enforced, but this doesn't strike me as any more secure than IE's security zones (and a lot of IE vulnerabilities involve zone privilege elevation).

In other words, Firefox trusts what is really *content* (basically XML documents with CSS and Javascript) in chrome to build its UI, but doesn't trust the same content on the web, and this is not much different than IE trusting an intranet site but not trusting an internet site. Indeed if anything it is worse because a malicious site, if it can bypass the security check using some currently unknown vulnerability, could literally rewrite any part of the UI in any way it wants. And given the great reusability of the Firefox UI components, it will probably blend in with whatever the installed theme is. Worse still, it would have access, as Chrome, to all the XP-COM stuff in the Mozilla framework. Indeed I expect Firefox to be *worse* than IE if it ever becomes the dominant browser. And I am not an MS fanboy by any stretch.

The advantage of XUL is that it allows for rapid cross-platform application development. For web browsers and other similar programs, this tradeoff has a fairly heavy security downside. I don't see Firefox falling off anytime soon, but I will be working more with browsers like Epiphany because of my concerns. I still deply firefox in environments where I need to be able to customize the UI (removing back buttons and the like) for corner-case environments, but in general it is no longer my browser of choice.

Re:Firefox security could be worse than IE

[einhverfr]

The difference is that in Firefox the security problems stay into the application layer.
With IE the security problems are in your system as a whole.


I see no reason to make that assumption. Sure it is a less homogenous platform. But this doesn't present problems that are not trivially insurmountable.

The basic issue is this: you have four basic components to Firefox or the Mozilla Suite's browser: content (web pages), chrome, the MPR, and XP-COM extensions. If you want additional functionality, for example, the ability to ask the OS to run an executable, you could have it download an appropriate XP-COM module, install it, and then do whatever you want to... The main prerequisite is getting elevated status from content to chrome. Now you might have to ask what OS you are running and download an appropriate binary or source package. But it is doable.

Here is a thought. Spend a few hours some time thinking about how you would write a popup delivery system for a Firefox/Linux platform. Look into what its limitations would be, how it could be deployed, what sorts of vulnerabilities would be required for it to be deployed silently, etc. I did this once and decided that Firefox was not adequately secure by design.

Finally, there have been issues where Firefox in the past has exposed system vulnerabilities in Windows. So again, it is not safe to say that problems always stay in the app layer.

What about Vim?

[LittleBigScript]

It is up to version 6.4

Am I the only one that reads...

[imess]

PCWorld Dups Firefox Best Product of 2005?

office software

[towsonu2003]

wtf -> OS X 10.4 and Ubuntu are office software??? (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,1207 63,pg,3,00.asp)

Why can't a browser give feedback?

[Anonymous Coward]

When a website sucks, wouldn't it be cool if you could press a button and tell the geek who runs it to screw off? When a website requires cookies and javascript just to view their products or get some info, wouldn't it nice to tell them to suck eggs?

So why not put some buttons in the browser that simply load a URL like http://somesite.com/YourSiteSucks or http://somesite.com/IHateCookiesStopRequiring or other words "GreatResource", "GreatSite", "TooManyAds", "PopupsSuck".

It would request the URL but not bother to show the "Page Not Found" error so you can go about your business.

Then the webmaster will find those words in his logs and see them in his stat reports. If this gets popular, companies will find this a good source of feedback on their website.

No one can patent this idea, I just posted it publicly on slashdot!

The list seems rather arbitrary

[dtfinch]

I could be wrong, but I think they just took a top 10 list and padded it with 90 sponsored links.

Are you on drugs!!?

[KingSkippus]

I've never had a problem with Gmail! I have no viruses in my inbox (and they now offer free virus scanning of your e-mail). I don't know what the hell you're talking about with the "buggy inbox" comment. It's always worked like a charm—no, make that better than a stupid old charm—for me on Firefox, IE, and Opera.

I was very skeptical of Gmail when a buddy sent me an invite way back when. I thought, "I have to read ads to see my e-mail? Forget it," and almost deleted the invitation. I went ahead and registered for an account, though, thinking that I could at least send files to myself and use it as an online repository. In no time, I had registered another "real" account that I use for all of my e-mail. I'm even a site admin, and I have all of my e-mail from the site forwarded to a Gmail account that I use because I like the client and the interface better than any POP client I've run across. (Yes, even Thunderbird.) If they'll just come out with Google Calendar, I'll probably even dump my work e-mail account!

Being a rather proud person, I hate to admit I'm wrong about something, but I was definitely wrong about that, and I'm glad I signed up. I highly recommend to everyone I know that they get a Gmail account, and it definitely earns that number two spot on that list.

No Competition = No Innovation

[serutan]

Are you dismayed that Microsoft hasn't lifted a finger to improve or enhance IE since it buried Netscape's Navigator browser at the dawn of the century?

Some people would label that statement hollow cynicism. But in fact, a Microsoft manager told me straight out when IE 6 was about to be released that it wasn't really going to have any new features, because with Netscape pretty much dead there wasn't much point in developing IE anymore.

Microsoft had already introduced XmlHttpRequest as an ActiveX object with IE5. They had all the pieces in place back then to promote the off-channel request technique and give it a nifty name like "AJAX." Web apps could have been 5 years ahead of where they are today, and MS would have had a huge head start instead of now scrambling to catch up with Google.

Firefox 1.5 supports Pango with Cairo,

[Anonymous Coward]

so that I can see Chinese in bold style now, which I have been waiting since I first use Linux:

http://wangxiaohu.org/#post-64

You mean like opera does by default?

[SmallFurryCreature]

It sure is handy even if it leads to me currently having an embarrising amount of tabs.

It is a live saver however because the one thing that killed windows/IE for me years ago was that just as you found the site with the real free porn, eh I mean real usefull bit of info IE or windows or both crashed forcing you to start searching from the start again.

Opera on Linux went through a bit of problems at first but the crashes didn't matter, just restart and continue were you left off.

If only MS had at any point in its history realized that people are not upset about crashes, they are upset about lost work, they would not now be ..... eh top IT company with a strangle hold on the desktop, office software and internet browser market......

Where was I going with this?

Odd

[halleluja]

How can you rate Firefox no #1 and Google (search engine) at #16 ?? Wikipedia is certainly useful..

Re:I know nobody cares...

[oztiks]

Firefox is what I would recommend to anyone needing a web browser, but it's still got tons of problems. It's a hog, a complete hog. Of course there are plenty of factors to blame - but it doesn't remove the problem.

Have you seen 1.5? Allot smoother to operate than previous versions i have to say..

Firefox vs IE...

[RoadDogTy]

I agree that it's valid to criticise IE for a lull in development once they won the browser war and ousted Netscape. I also think the competition between Firefox and IE is ultimately great for the consumer, since it has sparked a new emphasis in feature development for all the major browsers. This article seems to take it to an unwarranted extreme however, as the latest IE (particularly through SP2 and the optional MSN Toolbar) developments have added a lot in terms of security, for example the new anti-phishing filter. Also, Firefox has more than its share of critical vulnerabilities listed on Secunia, including more than a few that were as big of a deal as the recent IE exploit.

oo.org

[eneville]

What? Did these guys not hear about openoffice? How can media player be rated > oo.org!!!!

Definitely a deserving #1

[xot]

I think FF definitely deserves the #1 slot.A lot of people would argue that IE runs better or Opera is a better browser.Yes , Firefox crashes.Yes, it has bugs.Yes, it sometimes uses huge amounts of memory.BUT so does every other peice of software ever written.It just doesnt have to do with the firefox itself but also the user environment like the operating system,the kind of hardware,buggy systems themselves etc.These are not ALWAYS the reasons for crashes and slowdowns but most of the time they are.

And I think what most people miss while comparing Firefox to Opera or IE is that Firefox is a much younger project than the others.Opera has been around for a number of years and has only just started to add better features.IE has always been around since there have been webbrowsers..So if you equate the amount of time these products have been in the market and the innovation/features they have been able to produce...Firefox wins hands down.Given a little time more, I dont think there will be any comparison to it.
All this without considering the financial aspects of software development(IE & Opera are commericial FOR PROFIT projects).

Re:Definitely a deserving #1

[Rits]

"Opera has been around for a number of years and has only just started to add better features."

Why does this post get marked as 'interesting'? There's no denying that Firefox' extension system is doing wonders for keeping the browser lean and still offering lots of (potential) functionality. But when manu of the extensions you can download are available by default in Opera (often Opera is the inspiration for the extension to begin with) it is hard to maintain that Opera didn't innovate in the past decade. It has pioneered the MDI browsing experience, spearheaded proper CSS implementation, and generally been focused on offering users control over their browsing experience. It is still the only browser where you can disable JavaScript with a simple shortcut. Etc.

Recently Opera has also focused on making all this power more accessible for everyone, and dropped the price tag and ads. You can attribute that to the power of real competition offered by Firefox if you like. But if Opera didn't have 'better features' in all these years, it wouldn't have been around for all this time.

Re:Definitely a deserving #1

[Kjella]

Opera has been around for a number of years and has only just started to add better features.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. And this at +5? Come on guys, this deserves a -1, Troll. Seriously. Why do you think people have preferred adware or paying for Opera over sticking with IE? Why do you think Opera has survive the dark ages when IE was at 95% and lots of sites were IE-specific? Opera has been providing a much better browser than IE for years. Firefox has copied all the good stuff Opera has innovated and managed to bring it to a much wider market because they're free as in beer and in speech, but they were in no way first. That is revisionist history at best.

I admit Opera is feeling the pressure (it's not without reason they started giving away the browser with no ads recently), but give me a break. If you want a simple install (doubleclick-next-next-next-finish) but still powerful browser, Opera is still far superior to Firefox. What Firefox has brought to the table is one extremely moddable browser for powerusers (and overmodders, which are like the people who spend weeks styling their cars and hours driving it), and that is about on par with Opera for the common user (not that the common user would care much about browsers at all if IE cleaned up their security holes).

The biggest thing Firefox did, which Opera is profiting just as much from, is that more and more sites are becoming specs-compliant. Running Opera has become a very pleasurable experience, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone. That's also why I don't care much about converting Firefox users, because their marketshare doesn't inhibit my ability to use Opera at all. Every user not using IE is a win for Opera in my opinion (Opera the company may disagree). I think that if Firefox can win the market, there is room for more Opera users, not less.

Google's response

[jesser]

From 7 things the Gmail Team is thankful for this year:

* Winning the "PC World World Class Award" for being #2 on the list of The 100 Best Products of 2005. (We don't mind being #2, especially to Firefox. Plus, it gives us more to work for.)

(The list appeared on the main page of mail.google.com on Thanksgiving 2005.)

Firefox deserves #1?

[hkmwbz]

Maybe, but your post certainly doesn't support that remark.

"Yes, it has bugs.Yes, it sometimes uses huge amounts of memory.BUT so does every other peice of software ever written."

So because other programs are buggy that excuses Firefox's bugginess, and it deserves to be #1 even if it is just as bad as other programs when it comes to crashing and gobbling up memory? Strange logic.

"And I think what most people miss while comparing Firefox to Opera or IE is that Firefox is a much younger project than the others."

It is you who are missing the point, actually. Firefox as project is relatively young, but it is built on years old technology. It is the true successor of Netscape. In fact, it is based on the open sourced next generation Netscape code.

As a program, Firefox is built on mature technology, and it's had things go smoothly because older browsers have tried and failed various approaches, and therefore Firefox could easily learn from these mistakes and avoid them.

"Opera has been around for a number of years and has only just started to add better features."

You have got to be kidding me!

If you look at the changelog for Firefox 1.5, guess which browser had most of those features first? Opera.

Also, Opera was one of the first (if not the first) browser with MDI. Popup blocking was also built into Opera before anything else. And the search field to the right of the address field in Firefox and IE7? Yet another Opera invetion from ages ago. Not to mention things like sessions, that let you continue where you left off, and so on. Bookmark nicknames? Opera. Easy deleting of private data? Opera.

Heck, even the built in e-mail client in Opera was lightyears ahead of others, like Gmail, which borrowed Opera's concept of virtual folders/labels.

I'm not even going to go into Opera for mobile phones...

You obviously don't know much about Opera, or you wouldn't have made a remark like that.

"So if you equate the amount of time these products have been in the market and the innovation/features they have been able to produce...Firefox wins hands down.Given a little time more, I dont think there will be any comparison to it."

So what exactly has Firefox brought to the table in terms of innovation? Silly me, I thought Firefox was supposed to be a lean and mean browser, not a feature beast!

So how exactly does Firefox win "hands down"?

Also, I've already answered the "amount of time" comment. Obviously Firefox has a huge advantage, in that it could start off clean, and look at older browsers to cherry-pick features and functionality. It doesn't have to make all the mistakes older browsers have made. Then again, it has made serious mistakes, some of which are being fixed or have been (extensions support).

"All this without considering the financial aspects of software development(IE & Opera are commericial FOR PROFIT projects)."

So you think Firefox created itself for free? That no one has paid any money for it?

Let me give you another history lesson. Mozilla was funded by AOL, and then AOL gave it a few millions in cash and sent it on its way. In other words, AOL's customers paid for it. Now others started donating to Mozilla - Google, Sun, Nokia, and so on. Now their customers had to pay the bill for Mozilla's development.

Now Mozilla has created its own corporation - the Mozilla Corporation - because they want to be able to make more money.

If you think Firefox or Mozilla has not had to consider the financial aspects of software development, you are dead wrong.

Re:firefox ? WTF

[koreaman]

Opera, now gratis