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Firefox Exec Says Windows Bundling Is a Bad Idea
eldavojohn writes "The Firefox executives say they don't want to be bundled with Windows. Firefox architect Mike Conner also said this of Opera, 'Opera's asserting something that's provably false. It's asserting that bundling leads to market share. I don't know how you can make the claim with a straight face. As people become aware there's an alternative, you don't end up in that [monopoly] situation. You have to be perceptibly better [than Internet Explorer].' He also told PCPro that they are worried about becoming the next monopoly just like Microsoft is now."
If Mozilla were to end up with 95% of the market like IE once had, Opera would no doubt accuse them of price dumping. Not to mention going after them as a non-profit saying that they are a sneaky business masquerading as a non-profit a la the "Church" of Scientology!
I used to like Opera, but they just strike me as a pack of whiny bitches complaining about how it is unfair that Microsoft is so successful. It should be disconcerting to the regulators in the EU that Firefox is also better off, Safari is probably there too and Chrome is also in a position to move past Opera in marketshare. The reason, I think is simply that Gecko and WebKit have become incredibly powerful and between them and IE's rendering engine for desktop Windows developers, who needs a fourth?
It took me almost an hour to explain that the blue E is not Windows and another hour to explain that she does NOT need the blue E. I installed both Firefox (w/Adblock, Flashblock, etc) and Opera for her and showed her she doesn't need the blue E. Then, I told her not to use Internet Explorer again.
Wouldn't it have just been easier to change the Firefox icon to the IE icon and been done with it? ;)
Not that I've ever done anything like that of course.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Yeah. I can see Firefox getting 30% of the market. Chrome getting 10% if they push it via gmail and their other services. Safari getting 15% if Apple keep increasing market share. Opera could get 1%. That leaves 44% for Internet Explorer.
And because Windows 7 doesn't currently look like a trainwreck, and it comes with IE8, I think that a lot of people buying new computers will stick with what comes with it, even if they used Firefox before.
This is because bundling does give a massive advantage, because people are lazy and if something is there that does the task, they will just use it.
However if Firefox had a service whereby you could save all your favourites, history, etc, to a web service, and then retrieve them on your new Windows 7 laptop later on, that would be an incentive to re-download Firefox despite the presence of IE8.
I'm so tired of this mantra. Elitists have been chanting this line for at least 5 years now. It's not insightful. It's not informative. It's just the same old shit that adds nothing to the discussion.
Are we going to keep modding it up when there's still 1 user left who thinks "the blue E is the internet"?
Hell, even my grandpa uses Firefox. He may think it's the internet, but god damnit, he knows it's the better internet.
Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
I did the "replace the icon" thing to my dad once and he couldn't get his hotmail.com account to "work right". It was a real long time ago and I forget the exact problem, so don't reply saying FF works fine with hotmail.com. Needless to say, I begrudgingly switched it back so that it'd work.
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Actually Netscape killed itself.
Netscape 3.0 was about even with IE3 in terms of crappiness.
But Netscape Navigator 4.x was worse than it's competitor. It was flaky and crashed a lot.
Then it took ages for the Netscape team to come up with something better - they threw out everything and tried to rewrite this Mozilla thing from scratch. Fine.
Trouble is there was a LONG gap between Navigator 4.x and something significantly less crap. It took them YEARS.
Netscape Navigator 4.08 => 1998, Navigator 4.8 => 2002. 4 years and that code branch did not really improve significantly.
As for the Mozilla branch? Netscape 6 and 7 aka Mozilla 0.6 to 1.0 were not worth using. Bloated and buggy.
Honestly, when did Mozilla actually start to be good enough for "Aunt May" to use? I'd say maybe sometime after 2005? 2006?
Firefox/Mozilla was leaking tons of memory for ages (still does sometimes). Even though IE also leaks memory in some cases, the thing is you can easily start multiple instances of IE whereas it's hard to do the same with FF/Mozilla. I remember Mozilla and Opera giving me memory consumption problems even in 2005.
They only started making significant inroads in fixing memory leaks and other problems _recently_.
So what was Joe Sixpack to use between 1998 and 2006? Mozilla was too crap. Opera? Opera used to either cost money, or be ad ridden (till 2005).
IE was crap, but it was the least crap choice for most people.
Yes bundling of IE hurt Netscape - especially in the dial up days - try downloading Netscape 6 over a 33.6 modem. But the main problem was the early "Mozilla" Netscapes weren't worth downloading even if they were quarter the size.
If the Eu wants to force MS to bundle additional software into their OS, then fine, the EU should also be paying for the extra space that software takes on my HD.
Yeah, and they should pay for the gas it takes for transporting all those safety features in your car too. Or you could, you know, delete the browsers you don't want.
For all those who complain about big-gov't and their hand in the cookie-jar - this is it.
Blah blah blah.
This is the government stopping corporate criminals instead of being easily bribed like the US government was. I wish US politicians has as much integrity.
This is a company, Opera, crying to the gov't because Opera failed at their product. How did they fail?
Opera makes its money with Opera Mobile. They're doing well. They're also spending millions needlessly in order to work around slews of broken Web pages that investigations have shown MS intentionally created as a way to break interoperability. This is Opera reporting a crime that is costing them money and expecting the government to enforce the laws on the books that everyone else has to obey.
The only difference between this and a pizza joint calling the cops when the mob burns down one of their restaurants is that you understand arson laws while you have no understanding of antitrust laws... either what they say or why they exist.
I use FireFox, I love FireFox - but if I didn't why should I have my HD congested with their install because the gov't said so?
Actually, no government has said so or even proposed it as a possibility. It is just speculation from people about possible remedies. If the EU were to require Firefox and other browsers to be bundled in order to help undo the damage that MS has done, they are well within their rights. The market is broken and MS will hopefully be required to do whatever is needed to correct it. If you don't like it, buy a different OS or buy a version of the OS repackaged by an OEM or other non-monopolist to have those items you don't like stripped out. There is no reason every Web browser company and every Web user should suffer reduced innovation and interoperability just because you would have to delete a few files. Sorry if it is inconvenient, MS should have thought of that before they broke the law in the first place. If you want to be mad about the inconvenience, maybe you should look at the criminal instead of the victim.
Not the same comparison, your OS doesn't RUN off the web browser. Remove the browser and the Operating system still runs. Remove gas from your car or power from your house and neither of those RUN.
The browser is just a TOOL within the OS. But most end users are incompetent monkeys without a browser so while your metaphor is bad, your point is still valid. Which is why I stated above that the power can be put within the hands of the OEM as long as the browser is not HARD CODED as part of the OS; it can always be removed and supplanted by another browser of the users choice.
To use a better metaphor, it would be like removing the default factory radio from your car and installing another or removing cable from your house and installing satelite TV. Thats a more valid metaphor.
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