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In Indonesia, a Winner For Now In the Browser Wars
angry tapir writes "Mozilla is building an army of volunteers in Indonesia to help customize Firefox and recommend add-ons. Mozilla wants that input so it can retain the high market share that Firefox already has in the country. Web statistics company StatCounter puts the share at 75 to 80 percent, the browser's highest in Asia. The worldwide share of Firefox, which competes with Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, is just over 30 percent."
I live in Indonesia and has been using their browsers for several years now. I first used their Netscape 7 several years ago, because at that time Internet Explorer 6 (running under Windows 98 SE) was a real resource hog, eating up SYSTEM and USER resources. I also liked its pop-up blocker. Now I am happily using Firefox 4.0, primarily because it has AdBlock Plus (note that bandwidth is expensive in Indonesia), it still supports Windows XP SP3, and it is, in my opinion, faster than Internet Explorer 8 (with my computer full of ActiveX components installed by legitimate programs).
It's a constant battle for supremacy. Firefox hasn't won anything. It's simply the leader at the moment.
Microsoft realise this. Mozilla's advocates would be well advised to keep this in mind and not get complacent.
Actually you would probably find a higher incidence of Windows in Indonesia compared to America/Europe. People in developing countries use products that are good, not on the basis of open-source vs. monopoly arguments.
Actually you would probably find a higher incidence of Windows in Indonesia compared to America/Europe. People in developing countries use products that are good, not on the basis of open-source vs. monopoly arguments.
Then why would they use Windows?
"There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
The Indonesian translation of various software is just too funny to use and sometimes confuses even experienced user in the field who are used to English.
Not really. The last virus infections I found have been on business servers in Indonesia and the Blackberry phones they use, when I was in Indonesia last year. I don't call this "tech savvy", when you don't have an idea how to keep your servers up-to-date with latest security patches and everything runs on deprecated Windows XP installations with old service packs. Running Firefox there does not give them bonus points.
From TFA "Mozilla does not fully understand why Firefox has caught on in Indonesia, Kanai said."
I'll explain why: most of internet access in here is done through public spaces such as school/university 'libraries' and internet cafes. Internet cafes hold the biggest share and they usually use firefox because it's easier to lock down than IE (and those environments are set up by techies) and firefox provides indonesian translation. Common people use it because at most times, they have no choice. Many are also not profficient in english, so public terminals owners are more inclined to install a browser with localized language. Socially, people refer firefox to their friends mainly because of adblock. Bandwidth is still somewhat a luxury in here, so people try to filter out unneeded things to speed up site loads.
And btw,
considering it's an emerging market where Microsoft didn't get a chance to establish its monopoly because of already established competitors..
Our established Microsoft competitors is pirated Ms products, and it sure is a very established 'business'. Only cheap-ass businesses would force the usage of linux in their environment (the local police do scheduled raids to businesses to check conformity with microsoft licenses).
Not surprising this emphasis is being put on Indonesia since, if I remember right, it is the world's seventh most populous country.
Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.
Chrome has already displaced Firefox as the largest non-IE brwoser in Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, and Chile; and other regions are following the same path.
That's what I love about fair competition: now Firefox is bound to implement multithreads if it wants to catch up.
In soviet russia the government regulates the companies.
IE has one and only ultimate mission for freshly-bought Win 7: to download Firefox.
Because the awesome bar is.. awesome!
I do a lot of business in Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as Egypt and Peru. The browsers people use, and versions they use, have to do with bandwidth, which in turn has to do with availability of affordable computers. In countries where the hyper-rich are the only ones with internet, they tend to have whatever speed of PC and bandwidth they want. As the nation gets more and more penetration, and "emerging middle class" starts to get online more (the case in Indonesia and Malaysia and Egypt), bandwidth tends to be a moving target, getting more strained as more people use it. Anyway, my experience is that liberal internet access tends to reward browsers and programs that run with less bandwidth, less strain on CPU, etc.
Gently reply
Sort of.
For example, Chrome's certainly fighting for the right to push their own standards; they just don't mind if someone else implements them too, since it all helps their non-browser business. But there's a fair amount of "we'll implement this, write up a useless description that doesn't actually describe how it works, throw it over the wall at the W3C, open-source the code, and claim that this is an open standard" going on in Chrome-land. This is how NaCl is being done, this is how a bunch of DOM stuff is being done, this is how some CSS features are being done.
It's a slightly better approach than MSIE in 2000, but only slightly.
you = stagnated.
I am not the real Michael Kristopeit.
ur mum's face making me laugh hugely.
I am not the real Michael Kristopeit.