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Firefox Appears Ready to Crack 20% Share Next Month
CWmike writes "Mozilla's Firefox browser is on pace to hit the 20% market-share mark next month. Net Applications marketing VP Vince Vizzaccaro didn't pin all of Firefox's increase on a change last month to its update dialog; he did note the new approach. 'Mozilla has implemented a change in Firefox 3.0 [Release Candidate 1] where the installation now has a checkbox that defaults to making Firefox your default browser,' he explained. He refused to ding Mozilla for the practice. 'The option is clearly displayed and labeled, unlike Safari, which misleadingly labeled the Safari install as an "update" [but has] since correctly changed to an 'install.' However, this practice is a break from the traditional practice browsers employed of defaulting this option to off.'"
Give me example of a browser which does not do that during the install process?
What's wrong with having default as enabled? All applications around the world does it and even hides it in advanced install settings. Firefox doing it openly is just OK. Not good, not bad, but just OK.
Stop being so nitpicking. I am no total Firefox fan (have lot of issues in Ubuntu), but this is not a case to bash them.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
To be fair, most people installing it will want it as default. And besides, if they don't, the next time they open IE or whichever other browser they use, it will throw a hissy-fit about not being the default and show some obnoxious message complaining about this and suggesting they correct their error.
I installed the RC1 and the check box is rather obvious. Not to mention IE will throw a fit if its not the default browser next time its opened. As for immoral Nah. Bad practice maybe, but presumably if you are downloading the browser then you are doing so with the intention of making it your default browser, seeing as I don't download random browsers just for the hell of it. kjb
Any web designer or developer worth the paper their paychecks are written on should be testing their sites against all of the major browsers anyways.
Doing so makes whatever browser you're using for your normal browsing irrelevant.
chown -R us.
Am I the only desktop admin who has, in the recent past, seen the default browser switch back to IE after and update from Microsoft?
I think it's been a while because I control when updates are applied and I don't remember a recent situation when that occurred.
I have a feeling there may be another update coming to "fix" the default browser. More likely in a new and improved convoluted way involving a dialog box, but still....
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
I happen to live in a country where Firefox usage broke 45% months ago and is the most popular browser, overtaking IE by 5-6%.
I honestly don't care about marketshare after the point of no return has passed where web developers are forced to use the standard in order to make it work on multiple browsers.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
During the *update* process, I can't think of any other browser that does this.
It's Simple...
... you shrug and get on with your work
If 0.01% of your potential customers cannot use your website
If a fifth of your potential customers cannot use your website... you fix it!
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
The same way many people can bash windows and continue to use it.
At the same point, a realistically thinking person would realize that Microsoft wrote the software, so of course they're going to force you (yet again) to use internet explorer.
Because Firefox renders our code correctly. IE doesn't. Design for Firefox, you design to standards, design for IE, you design for IE.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
public static function firefoxSux():boolean
{
return false;
}
America, Home of the Brave.
Which is perfectly reasonable when there isn't a viable, (read: largely compatible) alternative.
Higher Logics: where programming meets science.
And IE comes with the Operating System, so most people don't know any better.
So the two reasons, Firefox is better, but users don't know. Those two things combined keep Microsoft in business.
End user, yes, otherwise I presume Apache is what we are all thinking of.
-- Lattyware (www.lattyware.co.uk)
Well, At time, microsoft was betting the farm on the fact that most people would NOT bother programming for anything BUT IE. Some people around me had that attitude. I didn't because I wouldn't help microsoft conquer the world. It was hard in the netscape 4.7 days though. So I would develop in netscape and test with IE. Yes it's a lot easier now. And yes Firebug helps too.
I know that GNU's Not UNIX -- but it was supposed to try and be. The real question is, why should Linux try and be "largely compatible" with Windows?
If it were meant to be an "alternative" to windows, using your metric of "largely compatible," then it shouldn't have been a UNIX clone, it should have been a DOS/Win32 clone, shouldn't it have?
Linux "fails" to take to the Desktop because it fails to be Windows. It fails to be Windows because it is not -- it's Unix. And that means it has a completely different underlying philosophy of how things should be done that goes back over 30 years.
Then again, it seems that most people who "switch" to Linux, especially these days, do it because they want cheap/free windows, then complain when its not windows.
This is like buying a Crysler 300M then complaining that its not as nice as the Bentley Brooklands that its a rip-off of.
That should be around the time that they add the boldly sarcastic mod.
which is totally what she said
If you're a company and ignore a significant percentage of potential customers, that will cost you. Few companies can afford to lose out on those customers, when the competition is happy to serve them. Darwinian selection will do the rest, and (after time) leave only companies where you can use any reasonable popular browser to do business with. Ofcourse for government institutions, or companies in some sort of monopoly position (like the only provider of goods/services in a specific market) these rules may work different, but that's the general idea.
Your story is too convenient to be 100% true.
.NET goodies didnt work? Only some? If sales dipped like you said... then the whole system had to be hosed to get 0 sales from that demographic.
1) No programming team would ignore FF unless directed to do so. You are telling me you got a group of programmers together and they all loved IE so much they were completely oblivious to FF?
2) Some
3) You traffic would not drop to nil in a week, so that is your biggest "I am lying" thing. You are suggesting that all your past users accessed your site that week, saw it didnt work right, and decided to not come back ever again. None of the only check the site every couple weeks? I mean give me a break - this is obviously an exaggeratiom
4) FF traffic shot back up in a week. (See #3)
5) Your 'younger' crowd would have been apt to try your site in IE if it failed in FF... at least in lets say... 25% of the cases.
The bottom line is this story is almost certainly partially fabricated and why? Do you not like Microsoft or maybe you just really like FF? I cannot believe you got modded up for blatant fanboyism.
Invexi - a Phoenix, AZ based web design and web development company.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Actually, many of them probably would if they could, but the Americans with Disabilities Act makes it illegal to do so.
[insert witty comment here]
Well, I'm not the OP, but:
.NET goodies didnt work? Only some? If sales dipped like you said... then the whole system had to be hosed to get 0 sales from that demographic.
1) No programming team would ignore FF unless directed to do so. You are telling me you got a group of programmers together and they all loved IE so much they were completely oblivious to FF?
Never underestimate bad development: http://www.thedailywtf.com/.
2) Some
I'd guess all. Not that it needs to be. If the "goody" is something like checking out, then you'd get 0 sales.
3) You traffic would not drop to nil in a week, so that is your biggest "I am lying" thing. You are suggesting that all your past users accessed your site that week, saw it didnt work right, and decided to not come back ever again. None of the only check the site every couple weeks? I mean give me a break - this is obviously an exaggeratiom
4) FF traffic shot back up in a week. (See #3)
5) Your 'younger' crowd would have been apt to try your site in IE if it failed in FF... at least in lets say... 25% of the cases.
Consider sites like tiger direct or new egg. If one wasn't working, or frankly was even a bit slow, I'd go to the other and buy my stuff. You'd see one page hit on the broken one, and loads on the other as I did my searched. I buy new stuff maybe once in every 6 months, but the traffic of these sites is high. If everyone was a lazy, impatient, and not very frequent shopper like myself, a traffic pattern like this would be likely. The people coming in week 2 would not be the same people in the 9broken) week one. Also if there is stiff competition, then website problems just make me go elsewhere.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
How does that make it irrelevant? I use a web browser outside of work related tasks all the time. Why would I not use the browser I preferred most? Certainly for testing a site, I'd expect to check using several browsers, but I don't see a need to visit /. using IE, then Firefox, then maybe Opera or Safari, and then back to IE.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
How does GP's defense of GGGP have any bearing on the issue at hand? I think if you had any reasonable replies to GP's counterarguments, you would've stated them, instead of resorting to ad hominem attacks on GP and GGGP.
And for the record, there is nothing in GGGP's anecdote that has raised any red flags for me.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
So what you are saying is that linux is not like windows but is like unix? and yet in your last line, you say that its a ripoff of windows?
One word: Firebug. It's by far the most powerful tool I know for untangling the front end HTML generated from JSF etc and helping work out which actual CSS styles are being picked up by HTML elements.
I don't know how software installation can be easier that it currently is. The only major problem is that it's different, and that Windows' "Add/Remove Software" dialog doesn't actually let you add any software.
Those who would give up liberty to obtain working drivers, deserve neither liberty nor working drivers.