

Firefox: Can this Web browser be saved? - tanglesome
http://www.zdnet.com/firefox-can-this-web-browser-be-saved-7000000624/

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mindcrime
Mmmm.. interesting stuff. I've only just recently switched _back_ to using
Firefox as my primary browser after going with Chrome for most of the past 2-3
years. FF performance finally seems to be mostly on par with Chrome, and the
extensions situation is as good or better. After going back to FF about 2
months ago, I can honestly say that I see no real reason to prefer Chrome at
this point.

I'm speaking as an individual / developer user though. For enterprise use, I
haven't stayed up to date on what their response was to the brouhaha over the
rapid release cycle stuff. Perhaps that is still a concern for organizational
use.

~~~
derleth
> FF performance finally seems to be mostly on par with Chrome

It's always been faster for me, especially with a nontrivial number of tabs
and on start-up.

> the extensions situation is as good or better.

Much better, especially for the things I care about, such as themes. I can't
find out how to theme Chrome; if you don't like the default, you're apparently
still stuck with it.

More to the point, Firefox respects me. I can turn off the speed dial feature
in Firefox. I can't in Chrome. I can theme Firefox to a level unheard-of in
Chrome. Firefox extensions seem to be able to dig deeper into Firefox than
Chrome extensions can into Chrome.

It's about respect: Firefox allows me to shape it the way I want to, whereas
Chrome constantly demands to shape me.

~~~
groby_b
> I can't find out how to theme chrome

<http://code.google.com/p/chromium/wiki/ThemeCreationGuide>

(searching for "create chrome theme" gives many more tutorials, online tools,
whatnots)

~~~
derleth
Can I move the tabs to below the address bar? Can I give Chrome a permanent
status bar?

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kibwen
_"Really Mozilla? Does the world really need another mobile operating
system?"_

The overwhelming majority of Firefox's market share is on Windows. Judging by
the trajectory of Microsoft's intentions with Windows RT, a browser targeting
Windows desktop users may not be viable for much longer (contingent on whether
or not things play out as Microsoft expects, of course). In this brave new
world of sandboxed apps, he who controls the platform controls the universe.
If Mozilla _hadn't_ announced their intention to create a platform of their
own, I'd have jumped ship by now, with a heavy heart, to Chrome. As it stands,
I'm enamored by their audacity. "And my axe!", etc.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Boot2Gecko is a brilliant idea... it's essentially Chrome OS for phones, with
no chrome, no Chrome, more Mozilla, and deeper integration.

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jensnockert
Does Firefox need to be saved?

Chrome isn't bad, and it has a huge amount of marketing dollars behind it, and
it gains market share because of it. But does Firefox need a 100% market
share, 50%, 30? Firefox exists, it makes the web better and it is probably the
best browser out there on quite a few platforms.

Chrome might be the new IE in many ways, but I don't think that Firefox needs
to be saved. If Mozilla wants more market share, they probably need better
marketing, not a significantly better browser.

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The_Sponge
I can't help but wonder that with the way things are going if it would be
smart for Mozilla to focus on getting the Gecko engine used in more third
party projects. Webkit is practically everywhere, and while Safari and Chrome
are the "big" projects using it, I can think of many, many more projects that
use it silently.

For example, when my smartphone broke, I spent $50 on a (used) feature phone a
few weeks ago to use for the last month and a half of my contract. I found
that it had a Webkit based browser, why wasn't that Gecko/Mozilla?

~~~
AshleysBrain
I've heard it's really hard work to integrate Gecko in to other software, but
WebKit is easier. Maybe that's to do with it - would love to see a "Gecko
control" that can be dropped in to other apps.

~~~
randallu
I've written embedded browsers based on Gecko (ages ago), Chromium and WebKit.
Gecko was a big pain (they were redoing graphics at the time, moving to
"thebes/cairo"). At some point the GNOME guys were complaining hard about not
having a stable API to Gecko, and Mozilla said "we're not interested in that,
we're doing Firefox". Really wish they hadn't taken that path.

Chromium is going in a similar direction, they used to have a very clean
"WebKit" implementation (the bit which every port does itself, sits on top of
WebCore) but over the years they've added a lot of policy to it and now it's
hard to do anything which uses Chromium WebKit that isn't "Chromium". And the
code outside of WebKit is very very hard to disentangle (they did some work on
that for Chrome on Android, breaking out "content" which is a minimal
embeddable browser, but it's hard to do any work on "content" and I have no
faith that they'd want to merge anything they're not directly using).

Chrome for Android is closed source, too, so it's not like they have any real
commitment to OSS at all (and I think this hobbles Android as a platform --
maybe it's just a reaction to the Kindle Fire, but the Android team do still
seem to be working on WebView as well).

WebKit recently (2010?) started on WebKit2, which is a peer to Chromium's
WebKit and is very straightforward to hack. WebKit2 supports multiple
platforms and the WebKit project accepts contributions that aren't used by
Apple, etc.

So I would say that if there's a big hole that Mozilla drove into, then Google
Chrome is diligently driving into it too. WebKit is on good track, though, and
benefits from a lot of the Google contributions (though V8 WebCore integration
is a point of contention).

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AshleysBrain
Compare Firefox's share to Opera. They're still a huge player in browsers, and
I don't think people are asking "Can Opera be saved?" Firefox has indeed been
through a rough patch, but I think the next few releases clear everything up
and will be truly silent like Chrome updates.

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jlongster
These are _great_ days for Firefox. Chrome definitely made the devs focus on
performance, but that's how the market works. As others have said, Firefox is
generally on par with Chrome regarding performance, and is arguably better
feature-wise (addons). With the rapid-release process in place and updates
getting more and more silent, Mozilla is poised to bring more and more awesome
things to Firefox quickly.

And now with Firefox OS, we can experience the same amount of openness and
freedom with a mobile OS as we do with Firefox (Firefox OS will also be built
to run on lower-end phones that iOS or Android can't handle, opening up new
markets in other countries).

The reasoning behind "why don't they focus on Firefox" is ridiculous, as if
throwing engineers at one product will inherently improve it. We all know that
one product only needs a few core developers with several other supporting
devs, and Mozilla is big enough to support several projects.

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archangel_one
Does it need saving? The graph they link to shows Firefox down slightly at
about 26% market share (although with a little uptick at the end, belying the
rumours of it being "ruined" and its reputation "killed") but holding pretty
steady overall at what must be several hundred million users - most of us
would be fairly happy with numbers like that. Meanwhile IE is plummeting, and
I don't think "the real battle" is between it and Chrome any more. The kind of
momentum their trajectories are taking suggests that IE can't hope to take
back the no.1 spot any time soon, and in fact appears likely to be competing
with Firefox for third spot soon.

So no, I don't think it needs saving. Not having 90% market share doesn't make
it a failure, especially for a not-for-profit organisation like Mozilla.

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jcmhn
I recently switched back to FF after a year or more using Chrome. I don't care
all that much about performance, what drove me back to firefox was intolerable
levels of ads.

~~~
alexlitov
There is adblock+ for Chrome.

~~~
jcmhn
I tried it several times, but IMO it is barely functional and ridiculous to
configure. I know the developer does what they can, but Chrome seems to
intentionally make it difficult for extensions to block ads.

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heifetz
it's really amazing that chrome has gained so much traction. It wasn't too
long ago that most people thought firefox had pretty much the market for
browsers, with internet explorer being legacy software. Even though chrome has
a very spartan interface (where the hell is the bookmark button??), every
version of firefox became more and more bloated than the last, until it became
unusable. Chrome by contrast was lightning fast, and used very little
resources.

~~~
toemetoch
_(where the hell is the bookmark button??)_

It's the little star icon at the right inside the address textbox. If it's
yellow it means the url is already bookmarked.

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teeja
Couldn't pay me to use IE. Chrome's extensions leave much to be desired.
Firefox hits the sweet spot and is plenty fast. Since it's on a par with
Chrome, I see the use of the word 'saved' as journalist-speak for "I've
nothing to say today but I'm looking for attention".

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twapi
biggest mistake of Mozilla: jumping in to "faster updates" race without
implementing proper background & automatic updates.

