Bart Decrem, marketing contact for the Mozilla Foundation, told ZDNet UK on Friday that he expects the browser’s market share to reach 10 percent by the end of 2005.
Firefox aims for 10 percent of Web surfers
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Google actually goes and puts out a rebranded version of FireFox you will see a much wider adoption. Of course google denies it but maybe Google could support FireFox by detecting IE Users and pointing them to the FireFox download page to save them from some of the worst MicroSoft insecurities.
put one tick beside my name.
I tried Firefox for a week, and I don’t understand all the hype around Firefox. I went back to Opera, it’s way better. I was missing all its features. One thing I couldn’t stand with Firefox is having to download extentions. Opera has a wand (password manager) that firefox doesn’t. On Opera when you click a tab you toggle select/delselect it ; on Firefox you have to click the tab that you want to display, clicking a second time on a selected tab doesn’t select the previously selected tab.
No thanks.
I agree; Opera is, at least right now, a much better (I realize I’m using my definition of better – yours may vary) product. It comes with all the ‘extensions’ already installed. Tabs, mouse gestures and quick prefernces are just a few examples. I have downloaded and installed several versions of Firefox, including the latest, and I always end back with Opera. That’s not to say that in the very near future the situation won’t reverse. Plus, it’s good for everyone when any alternative browser gets good press. I think anything that educates non-technical end users about better (there’s that word again
) options can only help.
Why not sooner? Within the past few weeks, everyone around my campus who uses XP has been switching to Firefox and telling everyone they know to do so. Not just the New Media nerds either… it’s just spreading. Not sure how, not sure why. Perhaps the ‘Zilla guys are just playing it safe 😉
I guess it depends on personal preference. With Opera, you don’t have to download any extensions, but some of Firefox’s extensions go way beyond Opera’s capabilities (ex – Adblock gives you the ability to nuke ads right on the page instead of using a .ini file). Of course, some of the Firefox extensions come off as half-assed pale immitations of built-in Opera features, so as I said .. it all depends on which features you value most.
The order of the URLs visited never change.
Is that a bug?
> I tried Firefox for a week, and I don’t understand all the hype around Firefox.
It’s free. The masses generally won’t pay for stuff if there’s a mostly good free alternative. [shrug]
I currently work at a computer fix-it shop (yes, software dev, layoffs, etc.), and I usually install FireFox on most computers that come through the place. I just matter-of-fact’ly tell customers it’s the new replacement for IE (and that they can always go back to IE if they want — it’ll still be there) and it’s what they should be using.
I like how when you visit a site that requires a plug-in, you get prompted to install said plug-in, but I haven’t yet seen it work.
Also, we routinely install McAfee AntiVirus on a lot of computers, and unfortunately I can’t use FireFox to do the first McAfee (where you have to click “yes” to install the ActiveX (?) thingy to manage the update).
Lately, I’ve also been pushing ThunderBird as a replacement for Outlook Express.
Another Opera user here. I seriously tried to use Firefox because it supported Roboform which I like. I also got the extensions I needed. I don’t mind about the time investment: made all the extensions work the way I like it etc.
At the end I liked Firefox when I used it once in a while but I realized it has a long way to go to be the default browser. 1.0PR never feels as smooth as Opera (Athlon XP2100 + 768MB RAM). When I scroll or go back/forward Opera is instantaneous and never feels sluggish. Firefox, speedwise, feels ok at first but then if you’re used to Opera the difference is obvious. For instance click on a link and do “Back” before the page loads. It doesn’t even pick up on it.
Only 10% marketshare by the end of 2005? I would expect it to be even more then, maybe at least 15%. Many of those still using Netscape browsers will switch to the newer Firefox technology by then too, not only IE users.
Also many companies and organizations have already abandoned IE as a browser because of its constant and big security problems. And that trend is now growing rapidly. Firefox is nowadays the natural alternative to IE.
Opera users may be happy with what they’ve got…, and maybe Opera market share will grow too. But Opera costs money, unless you want to see commercial ads embedded to your browser, and many don’t accept that.
About the need to install extra Firefox extensions: Most people are perfectly happy with the default Firefox (don’t mean geeks like OSnews readers or IT & information specialists…). Most web users don’t use even half of the features of any web browser anyway. Those who need such advanced features know how to install extensions too.
Opera has a wand (password manager) that firefox doesn’t.
What makes Opera’s password manager superior to Firefox’s pssword manager?
(Firefox does come with a basic password manager; no need to depend on the web site to use cookies. Look under in Preferences…Privacy for the password manager.)
I find Firefox great. It’s the most appealing piece of open source software out there for most users – I’ve heard many people commenting on how much they like it (including my sister; she argued like anything when I put it on, but a few days later I’m getting IM’s saying “i like mozilla firefox
“). This isn’t something that comes from many free software products – generally people say “Oh it’s okay, but I think I’ll stick with <microsoft product>”
Personally I don’t get the opera thing: To me it seems okay but not so great I’m about to pay for it. And I’m certainly not getting ads built-in when I’ve been trying to avoid them everywhere else!
I think it must be personal; for example I like extensions, a few messages back k was saying he didn’t. Or the toggle tab select thing: I don’t like that idea at all – no other tab system does that. It seems counter-intuitive in the extreme.
Anyway, it’ll be interesting to see whether they make that 10 million mark. Of course no-one really knows if they do or not; ZDNet are implying that they’ve probably passed it already for their site, but other sources put the figure much lower.
They need to organize an install day where everyone who uses Firefox as their default browswer finds at least one person they can install Firefox for. Then, have everybody visit one web page and be counted. They could do that a couple of times per year and watch it grow.
The key, in my opinion, to Firefox’s success is habit. You have to show the potential newbie a few good features they won’t find with their current browser. Here’s my favorite features:
1. Rocker Mouse Gestures
2. Tabbed browsing
3. “/” initiated search
4. The “/” search followed by “enter” to follow a link.
5. put “about:config” in the URL, find “image-animation_mode, double click it and change it to “none”
6. the ability to selectively allow popups
Those are my favorite Firefox features. But, again, they have to actually get in the habit of most of those features to really appreciate it.
Opera’s password manager can manage a number of passwords for the same page/site. So, when you hit a “wanded” site, and click the Wand (or Ctrl-Enter), you get a dialogue box asking which login to use.
With regard to Firefox, I think good on them for doing what they’re doing, but each time I try it, I always go back to Opera.
“(Firefox does come with a basic password manager; no need to depend on the web site to use cookies. Look under in Preferences…Privacy for the password manager.)”
Firefox’s psswd manager is quite broken esp. since 0.6, look in bugzilla.
Opera’s wand basically is the Firefox pswd manager but it just presses the “enter” button for you
BTW I refuse to use Firefox until the extension manager is nicely usable, it’s absolutely horrendous and unstandard.
I switched a while ago and love it. Tabbed browsing, integrated RSS, small footprint, etc. Great product.
I used to use Opera but moved to Firefox. In fact I paid for it and was a big supporter for years. But since about .8 it surpassed Opera in most of the ways that matter. I know some Opera users complain that a few of the features they take for granted have to be downloaded but that’s a Tiny price pay. The amount of cool addons for Firefox dwarfs the functionality that Opera has. Feature-wise Firefox simply offers more than Opera ever will be able to.
The only areas where Opera wins are its a bit snappier at going quickly forward and backward to a cached web page, and it faster to launch on old machines. The few extra seconds I have to wait for Firefox to load on my PIII700 are a very worthwhile “sacrifice” for what Firefox offers.
They are both great browsers but at this point I couldn’t live without many Firefox only features. I think most Opera users who slam Firefox are just being stubborn and for whatever reason don’t want to admit that there is another browser out there that is just as good as Opera. That or they are just OSS bashers which is a whole other ball of wax which we don’t need to get into.
^^There are some problems with the extensions philospohy though. Including quality control, both in application and . I have been burned quite a bit by installing incompat extensions (not that I knew at the time!!) or just weird goings-on that can’t be isolated when you have 20+ extensions..
i used firefox a while ago but somehow i went back to IE i dont know why but i could care less about security on this pc i only have to use it until i save up for a mac anyway and then give it 2 my g/f
>> I have been burned quite a bit by installing incompat extensions
Buddy, it hasent even hit 1.0! Breakages are to be expected.
…
The All-in-one ZIP for Firefox is a godsend. We are forced to use IE at school on our locked down Win2K worstations. I always just download the .ZIP and dump it in “My Documents”.
Firefox on Win/Linux blow everything away.
Personally I wouldn’t use anything but Firefox and it works superb on most every site but one
http://www.eet.com where many of the panels don’t render.
no special settings, JS on etc. perhaps someone could confirm for me if its me being dumb or EET.
regards
As far as I can tell, http://www.eet.com works. I’m using Firefox 0.9.3 in Ubuntu Linux.
The topic is Firefox, not Opera! Stay on topic!
Just a quick note… somebody mentioned that Firefox has a great Adblock extension (in contrast of Opera). Actually that extension pretty useless as most of the webadvert scripts creating dynamic url’s to ads…no matter if you disable one time on page reload it’ll display again. There are much better “likeafirewall” solutions for disable ads…
Fortunately you can enter regexes instead of simple string matching. You don’t even need to do that for many sites, like OSNews. And I doubt proxy/firewall solutions are better, as Adblock can also remove the leftover whitespace.
You can ban entire ad server domains with adblock:
e.g:
http://us.a1.yimg.com/*
For a comprehensive list:
http://januario1.home.mindspring.com/files/download/mozilla/firefox…
Firefox is the best!
Hmmm…That’s interesting. I can’t stand Opera but I love Firefox. I know what you are talking about with the Opera feature set, but I personally feel as though Firefox is more flexible because I choose the extensions I want rather than a hard coded set of options.
I for a while did like Opera, but anymore it is all about Firefox. Whatever. They are both excellent browsers…to each their own.
The XUL demos I’ve seen are pretty cool. I downloaded Firefox just to try that out. I think it would be great to see some web apps take advantage of that interface.
“Opera’s password manager can manage a number of passwords for the same page/site. So, when you hit a “wanded” site, and click the Wand (or Ctrl-Enter), you get a dialogue box asking which login to use.”
Sounds like extra work. Firefox inputs the info for me.
If I have several logins for a page, my default is available, but putting my mouse in the login on the page lets me select one of the others.
Generally though, I just show up at the site and hit enter.
“Firefox’s psswd manager is quite broken esp. since 0.6, look in bugzilla.”
Hmm…works here just fine. BTW, 0.6, was a long time ago.
“Opera’s wand basically is the Firefox pswd manager but it just presses the “enter” button for you
“
Sounds awful. I’d like a bit more control than that. What if I have a new login that I created with a different computer and want to use that? Opera, according to your description would just log me in with a login ID other than the one I wanted.
“BTW I refuse to use Firefox until the extension manager is nicely usable, it’s absolutely horrendous and unstandard”
Umm…I have found the extnesion manager fairly easy to use and standardized. What the hell are you talking about exactly? Oh well…at least Firefox has extensions.
I guess it depends on personal preference. With Opera, you don’t have to download any extensions, but some of Firefox’s extensions go way beyond Opera’s capabilities (ex – Adblock gives you the ability to nuke ads right on the page instead of using a .ini file). Of course, some of the Firefox extensions come off as half-assed pale immitations of built-in Opera features, so as I said .. it all depends on which features you value most.
One of my favorite features in Opera is fast forward/rewind. There is a Firefox counterpart which provides considerably more power, the page bar. However it doesn’t integrate with the All-in-One Gestures extension.
While Firefox may be able to provide more features, and more powerful features than Opera, if they don’t integrate the entire product becomes more cubersome to use.
I think Opera’s greatest strength is that it provides a considerable amount of power, but it’s all cohesive and very much non-intrusive. More features without interface design geared towards making the features used most the easiest to execute makes for a poor user experience.
Seems fine here: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20040913 Firefox/0.10.1
I think Firefox has a good shot at taking a significant portion of the browser market, and sooner than 2005. It’s getting a lot of good press, but it’s also getting word-of-mouth in the oddest places. Comcast tech support, of all people, recommended Firefox to my parents after their PC was hijacked (they thought the problem had been caused by an IE vulnerability). Many of the computer labs at the school I attend and work at now have Firefox installed, and tech support recommends it to students and professors regularly, even though they tend to push Microsoft products for everything else. I think this sort of thing is what will ultimately lead to wider Firefox adoption.
The thing I like about Firefox is that co-workers who install it have ceased bothering me about problems with pop-ups and their systems grinding to a halt due to spyware. I think the only reason my company hasn’t standardized on Firefox is because the IT people (a local company we hired) wouldn’t have much to do if everything worked just right.
OPERA Does not work with Gmail , Opera costs money and no I turn off the Password savers as they are not secure.
LAST point Opera is like Linux out of the box, You have to customize Opera too much before it is usable.
On my RHEL box it crashed I am talking about 7.54 version. Talk about a commercial product crashing on an Enterprise level OS.
Well Firefox is moving in the right direction for office wide rollouts. Two new commandline options are really making it nice for IT departments to get a quick baseline installation with little fuss or muss.
These are -install-global-extension & -install-global-theme which allow the installation of extensions and themes to all profiles currently on a given system at one time.
There are still some minor issues with these but they are close to being iron clad.
I use a macro utility called http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=20197&st=68 AutoIT which is a freeware application and a http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=20197&st=68 script I’ve written to test automated deployment. I can install 1 or 300+ extensions with little effort involved.
Any ways its some thing to concider and look into if company wide rollouts are in the cards…tho this isn’t a bad way to get firefox up and running on ones own machine ether.
AutoIt can be found at http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/
They have my vote on the issue.
Good Show Mozilla/Firefox team.
Opera’s password manager can manage a number of passwords for the same page/site. So, when you hit a “wanded” site, and click the Wand (or Ctrl-Enter), you get a dialogue box asking which login to use.
The Opera method sounds complex.
Firefox also handles multiple passwords per page.
To add a password or user account (either or both), just type it in the web page.
The next time you visit the page, if you have multiple accounts saved, a generic user name dialog pops up automatically. If there is only one account, it automatically gets filled in.
With Firefox, it’s a non-issue.
Its nice to see that they are trying to get to their goal. Though I won’t be switching anytime soon, I will just stay cozy with using IE or MyIE2.
Where I work, the tech savvy amongst us use Firefox or Opera as their browsers.
Personally, I prefer Opera. The banner ad doesn’t phase me and I bought my home version.
However, I completely understand why several of my co-workers choose Firefox. And I’ll get around to it some day, but …
Hm, I’d actually like to thank the folks at Microsoft for being so lazy and having a browser so full of holes and exploits — it’s been the driving force for some genuinely good browsers and some cool innovations. Opera nor Firefox would be what they are without IE’s crappyness.
Thunderbird. Great program, I use that for 6 months now and Camino as browser – very capable browser, in fact some sites that Safari cannot open, Camino has no probems with.
I’ve tried hard to switch to Firefox but it’s just not as ‘smooth’ to use as Opera (with Linux or Windows). Mouse gestures with FF don’t feel as responsive, being able to create/close tabs with a wheel-click as standard, kill all images/animations with one key…the list goes on. I don’t doubt you can add the Opera feature set to FF (believe me I’ve tried), but it just doesn’t ‘feel’ as good.
…but I do push Firefox to others every chance I get (hey…it’s free and much better than IE!)
In my experience so far, Firefox is buggy and nowhere near ready to take over. The last time I installed it on my home XP machine, it would not scroll properly with the arrow keys. Instead, it would move a cursor down the page! While that seems to have been fixed in the latest version, it is still not usable for us at work. Our billing manager cannot use it on the company intranet because it adds extra fields, and will not pop up some very necessary pages even when it is set to allow popups. It’s not a bad browser for doing some very basic web surfing, but it needs help before it can take over the world.
Firefox is great.You start to like it when you begin to use
the extensions.There’re other browsers or plugins that block
add’s.The Addblock extention let’s you right click a picture
to get it’s URL , after which you can block every add from
that domain with one or more “*” wildcards.Changing the user-agent with one of the extensions is simple,wheras other browser only allow to choose some presets, Firefox lets you
create your own.Websites could get the impression from their logs for example that you browse their site with IE 7.0 on
Solaris, heh.Let’s say you have harvested a list of anonymous proxies for whatever reason.With the multiproxy extension you can load the whole list instead of one, and besides that you can set the time in sec’s the browser should stay tuned on a proxy.Webdeveloper extension reveals
a lot of info about websites, and last but not least
,makes that you are a few clicks less from disabling javascript then in other browsers.This is one with both function and fashion
I can’t live w/o this extension!
FoxyTunes http://www.iosart.com/foxytunes/firefox/
It places embedded media player controls into Firefox! It has a HUGE support list including itunes, winamp, xmms, amarok, juk, etc.
On Linux you dont have much choice… Its far better than Mozilla, because its very small and pluggable. Opera on Linux sucks… it really gives funny fonts.. so on Linux Firefox is way to ahead. May be on Windows things may change…
I love Firefox… I’ve been using it since 0.6 came out. I half heartedly tried Opera about the same time, but I’m a cheap bastard so I didn’t want to buy it and I didn’t like staring a the advertisements in the free version.
I think the Firefox suits my personality a little more than Opera does. I’d rather start off with the basics then add the features I want through extensions than have the whole kitchen sink thrown at me and try to figure out what I want to get rid of. I guess that’s the same reason why I’m a FreeBSD/Solaris guy instead of a SUSE Linux guy. Just my personal preference.
One thing that us computer nerds always forget is that most of the rest of the world really doesn’t give a damn what browser/OS/e-mail program they use. Unless they have a computer nerd friend constantly begging them to try something new, they’ll just stick to what they think is working for them. It took my friends a year of daily harrasement before I could get them to jump onto the Firefox bandwagon, but now they all use it and like it. They kept bitching about adware and I kept telling them about Firefox.
I think the tabbed browsing is the #1 feature everyone likes. #2 is the sense of security they have when using Firefox.
Firefox + Adaware Pro + Norton Anti-Virus + firewall = no one I’ve converted (6 or 7 people that are on the Internet a lot) has had any spyware/adware/viruses in the last 3-4 months.
One thing that irritates me about firefox is when you switch to a new tab using ctrl+tab, the focus wont be on the page. You can hit space bar to scroll and page up and page down works only on links and it goes to the end of the page. So I am forced to use mouse. This is really a bug, I hope firefox developer try MyIE2, it has best set of features and I not using it because it is using IE for renderring. If MyIE2 people develops a browser using gecko, I will switch to it immediately.
Care to elaborate with version of Firefox you use? I use Firefox 1.0PR on Windows XP SP2 and have no problem using arrow key.
Our billing manager cannot use it on the company intranet because it adds extra fields, and will not pop up some very necessary pages even when it is set to allow popups
IMHO, it has a lot to do with the website design than the browser itself since these pages were probably optimized for Internet Explorer.
In my experience so far, Firefox is buggy and nowhere near ready to take over. The last time I installed it on my home XP machine, it would not scroll properly with the arrow keys.
Check Tools->Option->Advanced. It seems the scrolling option is not checked hence your problem.
Our billing manager cannot use it on the company intranet because it adds extra fields, and will not pop up some very necessary pages even when it is set to allow popups. It’s not a bad browser for doing some very basic web surfing, but it needs help before it can take over the world.
The internal website is probably broken, perhaps you should get it fixed?
Try running the page through http://validator.w3.org/
One thing that irritates me about firefox is when you switch to a new tab using ctrl+tab, the focus wont be on the page. You can hit space bar to scroll and page up and page down works only on links and it goes to the end of the page. So I am forced to use mouse. This is really a bug, I hope firefox developer try MyIE2, it has best set of features and I not using it because it is using IE for renderring. If MyIE2 people develops a browser using gecko, I will switch to it immediately.
Which version of Firefox do you use? Concerning the issue you mentionned above, I reproduced the issue using Firefox 1.0PR and have encounted no problem. So you should update your Firefox.
The reason why firefox is so popular is because its so similar to IE in terms of rendering and behavior, but without the popups and ease of spyware penetration. The average joe schmoe knows nothing about security vulnerabilities, and if they’re from a corporate environment, they won’t care because such things are done by tech support. So what we have here is a very good IE imitation without the annoyances. This is why firefox is taking hold.
“I know some Opera users complain that a few of the features they take for granted have to be downloaded but that’s a Tiny price pay. The amount of cool addons for Firefox dwarfs the functionality that Opera has. Feature-wise Firefox simply offers more than Opera ever will be able to.”
Nonsense. There are still many, many great Opera features that aren’t available as extensions for Firefox. Firefox is a decent browser, but it’s a lie to say that it’s features beat Opera in every way.
So you like it, good for you! Anything that adheres to the standards is a good thing. This is a Firefox thread, another browser that is helping take back the web, stop bitching mines better than yours, it’s irrelevant. All that matters is that people are using alternatives to that piece of rubbish thrown out by your fiendishly neighbourhood mongrelsoft – Have fun.
I was gonna let it slide but…what the hell…
@Tushar A Gokhale
“Opera on Linux sucks… it really gives funny fonts.. so on Linux Firefox is way to ahead.”
..err, no. Tools, Preferences, Fonts. Choose your preferences and you’re done.
I use Opera for most things incl. browsing, where Firefox limits me to do this only. Even so FF uses more space and resources than Opera. And I have downloaded most of the versions in both camps with ad ons.
Allthough Opera’s rendering speed is great, its speed enhancements are even more detectable when navigating the web, searching the web or your e-mails, getting RSS news updates directly into your mail box and of course saving information from the web with links, much like yellow stickers.
If screen size is important and you would like web pages to fit individually to the size of the windows or pages you have open, then Opera is the only way to go.
Reloading windows/pages “tabs” individually is very usefull for instance on stock quote pages or news pages.
Lots of negative comments regarding the Google ads, but to me they are more of an asset. Look forward to the time Opera sees them as an asset to the user too and lets us switch them on/off when we want to after registration of course.
I suppose, just like FF users want to tell people that Firefox is a lovely open source web browser, Opera users want to help people understand that getting information on the web can be done in an intelligent way too.
It is up to people to see what makes sense for them. It wasn’t until I learned about Opera I saw what could be done safer and faster.
Dissing Firefox is no point, I give you that. It is what it is and that is that.
If you use Firefox on Linux it is your own fault. When it comes to fonts you will see a major difference installing SuSE, Mandrake, Xandros default versions of Opera.
If you don’t use any of these distributions, then you still have the option to download QT dynamically linked Opera versions which of course depend on your installed QT libraries. The Static version is not so pretty fonts wise, but it is the only alternative if you have an older system, but then again you don’t because Firefox wouldn’t be running then.
Opera isn’t so bad.In fact it was the first browser that became a substitute for IE on my PC.However some people don’t just browse the internet .What’s making fire-fox so interesting in my opinion, that it’s so modular and reaches
a broad range of users.A lot of functionallity which can be added after install via the extensions.Drawback is offcourse
security of the *xpi’s (extensions).It would be nice from security point of view if they would sign them.It’s that added functionallity like AddBlock etc, what i personally miss in other browsers.Webpages get loaded faster,especially when javascript is disabled.Hey in the end every single user is
free to choose whatever cow he or she thinks fits best.
What makes Opera’s password manager superior to Firefox’s pssword manager?
(Firefox does come with a basic password manager; no need to depend on the web site to use cookies. Look under in Preferences…Privacy for the password manager.)
Try it, you’ll love it. You just have to access your page with the form, click the wand button, and Opera puts your login, password and hits “Submit” for you. Fully automatic.
Instead of bitching bout this vs. that, I’ll give a list of where I think Firefox can improve using Opera (my default browser) as the ‘inspiration’.
This would add no added minimum ‘complexity’ to the default Firefox interface, because most (but not all) of these features would be “hidden” and used only when the user becomes more comfortable with the browser, much like Opera hides its advanced functionality well.
Ways Firefox can improve:
1) Offer draggable tabs like Opera does by default. It’s indispensible to group similar or “currently working on” tabs together. There should be no extension for basics like this.
2) Offer easy toggling of images like Opera does, by default. Either by toolbar button or keyboard (“G” in Opera). Again, indispensible, especially on dialup.
3) Offer a ‘Quick Preferences’ (F12 in Opera) equivalent in Firefox, insted of clicking through the menus for these basics. Indispensible to disable referrer loging, gif animation, plug-ins (like Flash), cookies, popups, etc.
4) Offer integrated Notes feature with the superb synergy of Opera’s lovely Panel (sidebar) toggle for Notes, Transfers & Windows. The synergy here is amazing and can’t be beat, and certainly beats a “pop-up” window for downloads amd Extensions, IMO.
5) Take a look at Opera’s context menus in different situations and try to replicate most of them, by default. They are damn useful.
6) Finally, increase the responsiveness of the browser. A multi-tab browsing session in Opera feels so responsive, and so much “lighter on its feet” than an equivalent one in Firefox. The Opera engineers have done a terrific job at keeping the browsing experience quick and pleasant, and my hats off to them for this.
This characteristic alone makes SUCH a huge difference to me, even without the rest of the powerful functionality the browser offers. Sadly, this is one of the features many Opera first-timers (who only use it for a short time) never get to truly appreciate. There is no smoother, more responsive browsing experience.
—-
Now, Opera goes far beyond what I’ve mentioned, but those would be some great ‘basics’ to see in Firefox by default, I think.
As it is now, I think Firefox is head-and-shoulders above IE, and certainly what I recommend to those switching from IE, because of the similarities it shares. Overall, I think most of us have a favourite between the MAJOR THREE, and I think it’s great that our needs are more-or-less satisfied, whatever our choice.
6) Finally, increase the responsiveness of the browser. A multi-tab browsing session in Opera feels so responsive, and so much “lighter on its feet” than an equivalent one in Firefox. The Opera engineers have done a terrific job at keeping the browsing experience quick and pleasant, and my hats off to them for this.
Well it depends a great deal on the hardware.But to be honest Opera is fast.I have changed some options in the nvidia driver and tweaked the SuSE9.1 default kernel a little.When firefox is started, it’s not significant slower then let’s say Opera.
I think it’s great that our needs are more-or-less satisfied, whatever our choice.
Although the proposed improvements don’t reflect my wishlist
i sincerely believe in the freedom to choose whatever browser one may think fits best.
Well, it seems that at last the free software community can offer a modern, working browser to the masses. I remember the days when a capable free browser was just a dream. These days are over.
I believe this is the most important thing.
On the AOL Browser and how popular that becomes. AOL has the oppurtunity to steal a majority of share because they are well known among home users and consumers and they can do like they do with their ISP software, peddle it through the channels. I know several people who use Netscape and refuse to use Mozilla because they cant seem to get it through their head that Netscape is Mozilla.
Why do Opera fans make such a big deal about the Opera password manager?
Try it, you’ll love it. You just have to access your page with the form, click the wand button, and Opera puts your login, password and hits “Submit” for you. Fully automatic.
Firefox works this way;
* 1 account: Browse to page that has associated saved passwords. Fields are automatically populated.
* 2+ accounts: Pop up dialog appears, click or scroll to an account, press enter. User name and password is filled in.
* Adding a new account: Type it in.
It takes me a fraction of a second to use Firefox’s method. It’s consistant and simple. If Opera can do that task in 1/2 of that fraction of a second — something I seriously doubt! — it’s not really a big deal since the task can’t be made substantially simpler!
Firefox has a severe case of memory creep on Windows. And yes, that’s without any plugins enabled. Browse with it open for a day or so without closing, and the amount of memory it uses creeps to a pretty substantial amount. I really don’t know why a web browser must use up so much RAM.
Our intranet here isn’t too friendly with non-IE browsers. The NTLM authentication works just fine in Firefox, but pages render with missing text and other funky features. Is it the fault of Firefox? Not one single bit. The developer of our intranet told me, to paraphrase, “yeah, Internet Explorer lets you be sloppy with your coding, so we probably have lots of unclosed tags that would cause problems.” If I had some say over how things are done here, I would have gone through the roof.
One way to minimize IE use in your office if you have a crappy intranet is to set the IE homepage to your intranet and then stick a “home page” web button in Outlook. That way you can have everyone access the intranet through Outlook and use Firefox/Opera/Mozilla for everything else.
I currently work at a computer fix-it shop (yes, software dev, layoffs, etc.), and I usually install FireFox on most computers that come through the place. I just matter-of-fact’ly tell customers it’s the new replacement for IE (and that they can always go back to IE if they want — it’ll still be there) and it’s what they should be using.
Do these computers belong to you? I would be pissed if I took my computer to a place to get fixed and someone installed something that I didn’t ask for.
I found this web site that has a comparison chart for several browsers:
http://spreadopera.auriance.com/browser_comparison.php
Tom.
Do these computers belong to you? I would be pissed if I took my computer to a place to get fixed and someone installed something that I didn’t ask for.
Of course they don’t belong to me. I provide a service to folks who don’t have a clue about how their Windows computers work. I always install Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D too. My customers are *happy* that I can recommend and install stuff for them that they have no clue about. They tell me, “I don’t know what you’re doing and I don’t care what you do, just fix it.” Besides, it’s usually understood ahead of time that I’ll be installing various useful software onto their systems, and they appreciate the good customer service they’re getting.
And, of course, they can just uninstall Firefox/Thunderbird/Ad-Aware/Spybot if they don’t want it. It’s not like I import their emails into Thunderbird and then remove Outlook Express! It’s not like I’m putting RealPlayer or (heaven forbid) AOL on their systems.
I always install Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D too.
If I were you I would format the HDD and install FreeBSD instead. No anti-virus & anti-spyware needed
http://spreadopera.auriance.com/browser_comparison.php
This comparision is old because some features like RSS, Password Manager and Cookie Manager are included in Firefox. The staff should update it.
“Do these computers belong to you? I would be pissed if I took my computer to a place to get fixed and someone installed something that I didn’t ask for.”
I agree completely, and find the amount of lying to make ones own favourite product appear better than others (Marketing Hype, Preferential Treatment … I call it LYING) to be very disturbing. I can just see the headlines “Firefox becomes #1 browser by deceitful practices!”
Please, tell your customers the truth: Firefox is better than IE. Once you say “secure, safe”, they will come round.
“they can just uninstall Firefox/Thunderbird/Ad-Aware/Spybot if they don’t want it.”
Do all these programs have a Clean uninstall? and do your Clueless users know how to uninstall? I have run in to problems before now with users “getting rid of” a program by dleting its directory … not good .
Or will you charge them for removing them?
worked for me. First time I ran Firefox on my MDK 10.1 box and went to a Flash site it offered to download the plugin. I was a bit sceptical but I thought I’d try it out and told it to go ahead and download it, and it worked perfectly. Neat.
In that case, I suggest you ask your intranet people why their code is broken.
Do all these programs have a Clean uninstall? and do your Clueless users know how to uninstall? I have run in to problems before now with users “getting rid of” a program by dleting its directory … not good .
Or will you charge them for removing them?
What is your concern about this? Are you an anti-tech-support guy? Have you had bad experiences? It’s not as if he’s installing GATOR on these boxes. He’s just adding software which, should they start using it, will improve their computer experience.
If you’re not on the mood to uninstall a piece of software or don’t know how to do it, then you don’t need to know about it. And if you don’t like what he did, don’t pay him anymore. Dead simple.
I just don’t understand these “stupid” insinuations and ironic comments about uninstall, charge, etc.
If you know how to uninstall/maintain your box, you don’t need those services anyway, you install your own copy of Firefox.
Quit complaining!
I have a question to Opera users… Why? I really want to know what is special about Opera? I have used it before, and the interface was really crowded, so Deleted a lot of buttons, toolbars, and the sidebar. And then there was the banner that told me to pay for Opera to make the banner away. I really have a genuine interest in the mentality between Firefox and Opera users. Please, enlighten me.
“extension manager isn’t unstandard”
Look at it compared to every other dialog, it really is.
Tobi,
For me it basically comes down to the following:
1) Extremely configurable – Everything you see and use can be configured exactly how and where you want it.
2) It’s faaast!
3) Tabs are easy to manage and are highly configurable (ordering, creating, closing etc.)
4) Mouse gestures are integrated and easy to use and setup. FF has this via extensions but it just isn’t as nice to use.
5) Right-click search a word with Google, Ebay, Dictionary…anything you could need. Again, FF has extensions for these but I haven’t found them to be as versatile and some are hard to find.
6) It’s faaast!!
When FF can match the above, I’ll be more than happy to change over. As it is, Opera is the last piece of proprietary software left on my PC…
A question: do you really think a lot of people would shell money on a browser like Opera simply to remove the ads?
Be in mind Firefox is NOT even in 1.0. This browser was designed to br simple, easy to use and customizable for the user who wishes to add extra features. Most of options that some Opera users mentionned can be downloaded via Extension. That is IMHO a good thing because it would be too confusing for users to use so many features. Afterall, do you really use all of them at once? You simply don’t.
I’m a 2 years old FireFox user and i’m satisfied of it.
Integrating a BitTorrent client in the download manager would be great.
Anyway, like FFDshow team does, i think that optimized builds (MMX, SSE, SSE2, …) should become “legal”.
Happy surfing !
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewforum.php?f=42&sid=c2bdcbd85ebc71…
Finalzone and others don’t realize that Opera is not just a browser, but so much more. It’s got M2 for instance!
http://www.opera.com/m2/
Saying that features can be downloaded as extensions is missing the point.
Opera’s features are integrated, and you can start using them right away. And they work seamlessly together. You won’t have to worry about conflicts between extensions or similar things, because everything is created to fit together.
So Firefox was created to be easy to use, and that’s fine! But newbies are hardly going to start downloading a lot of extensions, so for these people it can be useful to simply have everything available right away.
So why pay for Opera? Because you aren’t just paying for a browser. It’s a powerful tool for browsing, email and so on.
Opera can’t even be compared to Firefox. Firefox is a stripped down browser while Opera is an entire Internet suite. Opera is closer to Seamonkey than it is to Firefox!
Most novice users on windows will use the build in IE.When they pass the beginner stadium i doubt they will pay for an substitute browser.Espescially when there are free
IE like alternatives.On Linux Opera has no chance.
So why pay for Opera? Because you aren’t just paying for a browser. It’s a powerful tool for browsing, email and so on. Opera can’t even be compared to Firefox. Firefox is a stripped down browser while Opera is an entire Internet suite. Opera is closer to Seamonkey than it is to Firefox!
What does Opera give additional what the Mozilla suite doesn’t have ?
With Mozilla internet suite you can process your e-mail ,surf the net and last but not least it has a build in irc-client.
Jophn Deo, are you seriously suggesting that Opera is exactly the same as the Mozilla suite? That there are no differences what so ever?
In other words, you are saying that OpenOffice.org is exactly the same as Microsoft Office? Or that Doom is exactly the same as Duke Nukem? Or that Starcraft is exactly the same as Total Annihilation?
Are you seriously saying that because programs have the same goals or the same approach, that there is nothing that sets them apart?
Opera is clearly different from the Mozilla suite. It is smaller and faster, and if has unique features like fast forward, rewind, mouse gestures, an extensive set of keyboard shortcuts, better tabbed browsing, and so on. And of course, Opera has M2, which Mozilla does not have. And M2 is not just another e-mail client, it’s a different approach completely.
You are making a number of assumptions on behalf of novice users, such as “they won’t pay”, and other comments that don’t make sense. Obviously, people are willing to pay. Otherwise, Opera wouldn’t have been able to sell. Heck, people even pay for nearly useless IE shells like “Secure IE”, that add nothing that Firefox or Opera don’t already do.
You also say that on Linux, Opera has no chance. I don’t know about that, but I do know that Linux even has a lower market share than Mac! I doubt that Opera even notices whether it has a chance or not.
And what do you mean by “has no chance”? Apparently people are paying for the Linux version of Opera. Are you saying that Opera for Linux will die? What about the fact that Opera eases migration for Windows users who use the Opera suite and find that the same program is available for Linux?
You doubt that people will pay for a “substitute browser”. But people ARE paying for Opera! And you are forgetting that Opera is *not* just a browser. It is *not* just an IE alternative. Opera and Firefox – apples and oranges!
” I always install Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D too.
If I were you I would format the HDD and install FreeBSD instead. No anti-virus & anti-spyware needed
”
Not needed yet anyway
http://spreadopera.auriance.com/browser_comparison.php
This comparision is old because some features like RSS, Password Manager and Cookie Manager are included in Firefox. The staff should update it.
Tell me where. If you call “Tools > Options > Privacy > Cookies” a cookie manager, gimme a break. This manages nothing. If I want to delete just a cookie from a web site but I want to keep the Amazon cookie, how do I do on Firefox?
RSS: Ok, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Install Firefox. Install Opera. Open this link in both: http://www.osnews.com/files/recent.rdf tell me what happens in both cases. What happens is: In Firefox you just see the source code in XML. In Opera you see the headlines in its embedded RSS reader just like a mail box.
Password manager: Firefox’s way to deal with passwords is just too primitive. It doesn’t have a password manager. On Opera you have a real password manager. Hit the Wand button and your are automatically logged in (no need to even hit the submit button). If there are several usernames available for a page, just select from the list.
A question: do you really think a lot of people would shell money on a browser like Opera simply to remove the ads?
I did. I would even have spent til $50 for that excellent software. Again, try it, read the manual and discover all the hidden features and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. It’s a productivity and production application. The money I spent is already recovered taking into account the time saved having all I need at a click. I do my work quickly. Everything was designed to make things fast. And it’s not just an excellent browser. Again, you don’t seem well informed.
Most of options that some Opera users mentionned can be downloaded via Extension.
Who, beside geeks, will ever go to the web site, download, install and configure extentions? I installed Firefox on a computer’s friend to see if he liked it. He liked it, but didn’t install additional extentions.
That is IMHO a good thing because it would be too confusing for users to use so many features.[i]
When they’re already installed and ready to use without user intervention, you either use them or not. They don’t take space anyway, they don’t bother the user either.
[i]Afterall, do you really use all of them at once? You simply don’t.
Seriously, almost all of them. This is why I won’t go back to Firefox. For instance I like to reed RSS feeds, I don’t have time to go to every single web site to read news. On Firefox you can’t.
I use almost every Opera feature described here: http://spreadopera.auriance.com/browser_comparison.php
to delete just one and one cookie, hit click that button saying “view cookies”.
as for rss, you will find a rss button in the lower right corner on any page where firefox is able to detect a rss link. if you click it you can add that as a live bookmark. it becomes a folder in the bookmark system where every rss entry have a link. if you want more power then that then install the sage extention, i use it and i find it a nicer rss reader system then useing a mail gui for it as that is often one window to many…
Extensions are, IMHO, a disaster waiting to happen. The UMO staff doesn’t have the resources to screen every single update of every single extension thoroughly for malicious code. A hacker could, by being a bit patient and cunning, create a useful extension which is downloaded and used by unsuspecting users. As it gains a decent level of popularity, the hacker can sneak in spyware or malware in the autoupdate, and all users will suddenly be infected.
This does not look good for Firefox’s aim to be an alternative for novice users! These will obviously not be able to inspect extensions themselves!
Thanks for the clear RSS comment. There are RSS feed managers for Firefox, though they aren’t associated with RSS links; you have to manually add each feed (not good).
Password manager: Firefox’s way to deal with passwords is just too primitive. It doesn’t have a password manager. On Opera you have a real password manager. Hit the Wand button and your are automatically logged in (no need to even hit the submit button). If there are several usernames available for a page, just select from the list.
This I don’t get.
Opera users keep talking about how Firefox doesn’t have a password manager (!?!?!?!) and that ‘the Wand’ is fantastic for some reason. (?)
If Firefox doesn’t have a password manager, what have I been using? I don’t spend more than a fraction of a second on passwords with Firefox; to me it’s all automatic and uncluttered.
As an example: I moved a friend and a true novice computer user^ over to Firefox on Linux from Windows and IE a few weeks ago and forgot to move his accounts over. Realizing the mistake, I went back … and found that he had already added his accounts back including some where he had a couple IDs. I asked him if he had any problem with it…and he shrugged and asked if he should have had a problem!
(^ Same person didn’t use his computer for most of last year.)
Hobgoblin pratically answered the first question. It seems obvious you didn’t bother to check the latest version of Firefox. When you will verify my statement, you will admit I was right about the comparision chart you sent.
I did. I would even have spent til $50 for that excellent software. Again, try it, read the manual and discover all the hidden features and you’ll understand what I’m talking about. It’s a productivity and production application. The money I spent is already recovered taking into account the time saved having all I need at a click. I do my work quickly. Everything was designed to make things fast. And it’s not just an excellent browser. Again, you don’t seem well informed.
The information is not a problem but the justification to pay what you call a production application that can basically do browsing and email. I really doubt most people is willing to spend money on this kind of software.
Who, beside geeks, will ever go to the web site, download, install and configure extentions? I installed Firefox on a computer’s friend to see if he liked it. He liked it, but didn’t install additional extentions.
At least he has a choice to install extention whenever he wants. =)
When they’re already installed and ready to use without user intervention, you either use them or not. They don’t take space anyway, they don’t bother the user either.
That is customization issue. What if the user didn’t like to have so many options.
Seriously, almost all of them. This is why I won’t go back to Firefox. For instance I like to reed RSS feeds, I don’t have time to go to every single web site to read news. On Firefox you can’t.
Good for you, you made a choice. However, your argument about RSS is now out of date. Obviously you didn’t bother to check the latest version of Firefox though it is not in final stage.
You forgot that unlike IE or Opera, Firefox is an Open Source Softwares i.e. the code is available to download for the public. That means high-end users, developers can easily locate the problem and fix as soon as possible.
.
Finalzone, even the Mozilla Update maintaners recognize that this is a serious issue which requires a lot of thought:
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=149844
Your theory is very nice and all, but the fact remains that this is a potentially huge security problem. “Fix as soon as possible” simply might not be good enough. People download extensions and expect to be perfectly secure. But they aren’t screened properly, and they do not have the resources to do so.
Dismissing this is doing a disservice to the community. This needs to be addressed, and people need to be aware of the security risk.
well right now you have to build a kind of whitelist of servers that you want to download extentions from. the only server thats on that list as of default is update.mozilla.org…
if you try to download a extention from a server not on your whitelist you get a notification not unlike when a popup is blocked…
it makes people stop and think atleast…
hobgoblin, the problem is that we are talking extensions ON update.mozilla.org! They are NOT screened properly!
That’s the BIG THING here. They don’t have the resources, and even if they do screen an extension, it can still be updated later and accessed with auto-update, and the author can sneak in something after a long time.
true, but as these extentions are 99% text (i have only seen some that use binary code, and those mostly use it to interface with other software) it can be spotted if someone smells a rat, and reported. and then the person that did it is in a whole heap of trouble. its all about reputation. and given the number of extentions on update vs the number on mozdev i would say that they have the resources to screen them as it seems to me that the people involved take their time in trying out said extention before putting it on the page. i may be wrong tho. but the same can realy be said about freeware. we dont realy know whats in them. but still we download them by the terabyte. paranoia may be a good thing, but its allso classified as a mental illness. take your pick…