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344 Comments
- ukdave, on 10/10/2007, -10/+155I haven't looked back
- mrASSMAN, on 10/10/2007, -4/+85That's all of us who try to get other people using the browser.. we download it, install it, tell our parents/colleagues/friends to use it.. and they go right back to IE because it's what they're used to.
Still though, the market share Firefox has managed to gain is very impressive. I don't think anyone thought it would become such a major browser competing with Microsoft.
Now when I use any other computer the first thing I do is download firefox because I just can't stand to use internet explorer. That might also be why 75% of the downloads are only temporary users. - smoothmedia, on 10/10/2007, -6/+73If you aren't a geek, IE and FireFox are virtually identical...and IE comes with your computer.
- protossss, on 10/10/2007, -4/+56It needs a cheesy intro video after the first install showing all its virtues. Only way to get the noobs.
- mrASSMAN, on 10/10/2007, -7/+45Yeah.. you're not a geek. Sorry you had to live your life as a lie, but the truth had to arise eventually.
But you described yourself well as an average user. Thanks for the insight. - defectDS, on 10/10/2007, -25/+53*raises hand*
I'm one of those guys that tried to squeeze myself into the firefox lifestyle. I tried and tried, but it can't win me over from Safari. For PCs it's great, but on a Mac, it just feels too bulky and sloppy.
So I think they should start there; improving the Mac version. The form buttons and text boxes are hideous! - RodeoRobot, on 10/10/2007, -3/+28That's easy: fix whatever causes Firefox to use up 80% of your memory and hog your CPU cycles.
Firefox is now the reason I'm an Opera user. - Azimuth1, on 10/10/2007, -9/+29Mac and Linux advocates should pay attention to this post.
- kevdotbadger, on 10/10/2007, -0/+19I think its quite true. I tell all my non-computer-mad friends about firefox, they download it but continue to use IE.
- ApplCmptrDood, on 10/10/2007, -1/+19The problem with Camino is that it doesn't have the extensions and themes of Firefox, which make Firefox so desirable. Safari runs faster than Camino and has the same features.
- AnteChronos, on 10/10/2007, -3/+21"I also don't play with all the plug-ins, partly as I am wary of unauthorized software amendments to programs, but also as most of them just don't appeal to me."
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And therein lies the reason that you don't see the benefit of Firefox. Any of the top-rung addons are going to be safe. The nature of how addons work forces the source code to be visible to all, so any dangerous behavior in the more popular addons will quickly be spotted. And on the subject of addons, I can't imagine not using adblock. I haven't seen a single banner ad or popup/popunder in years. To me, that alone is worth the switch. - Jumboto, on 10/10/2007, -5/+22Just use the tried and true Bush/Media tactic.
"The internet is full of TERRORIST HAX0RS! Using IE will give you a virus and your computer will EXPLODE!"
Or you could delete the IE icon when installing Firefox on your grandma's computer. Whatever works. - simpleid, on 10/10/2007, -1/+18I love Firefox for it's add ons, my browser is like a development environment, i can test and even use it to debug web apps to a degree by using that dev bar. What else is great are the add-ons which watch http traffic, and more! This browser is "mad leet."
Of course if you don't really realize the potential of something, you miss out on its greatness. :-) - mrASSMAN, on 10/10/2007, -7/+22How about Camino?
http://www.caminobrowser.org/
Uses the Firefox engine. I hear it's much better for macs because it was built specifically for Mac OS X.. might want to give it a try. I - chris9902, on 10/10/2007, -4/+19They need clippy...
"It looks like you browsing the web" - Kelgann, on 10/10/2007, -3/+18I picked up firefox way back in the day, before it had it's named changed, and I've stuck with it ever since. I don't see how anyone can go back to IE after going to firefox.
- babar77, on 10/10/2007, -4/+17I do like the PS, but if you were using Firefox, you wouldn't have to use the Digg spellchecker :)
- ThinkBox, on 10/10/2007, -1/+14Implement more plug ins as features that work very well with the original firefox, for me, and most tech heads, it isnt an issue, but for non techie people, they see all these cool features on someones firefox, DL it, and then just wonder why it doesnt work with them, and then downloading pluggins is something foreign for them.
Im not saying this is responsible for this percentage, just a small thought. - Raian, on 10/10/2007, -5/+17Okay I hate to say this, but IE7 has a better UI than Firefox, and Firefox on the mac is an abysmal joke.
For those old enough to remember the original Netscape vs. IE war of the mid 90s-- people were reeling over frames vs. nonframe sites, when IE came along-- it was free, it worked, and it had a much nicer UI than Netscape.
I think more than anything the "pretty" UI and stability of IE3 is what captured the publics' attention and got them to switch.
I remember having to buy netscape on a slew of floppy disks-- it was pretty ugly-- even by windows 3.11 standards and it crashed on occasion. The whole experience from start to end sort of sucked.
So, put this into perspective, IE is winning again because it has a nice UI and people feel comfortable with it. - shruggedatlas, on 10/10/2007, -4/+15Is it me, or does IE seem to load pages faster than Firefox, particularly when there are images involved?
- zweben, on 10/10/2007, -2/+13The problem with Firefox on the Mac is that it basically feels like a sloppy port from the Windows version. The interface is not very good. It uses a lot of non-native interface elements like buttons and drop-downs that look like they're straight out of Windows. When you drag an image, you just see a grey rectangle, unlike the rest of OS X where you see a transparent copy of the image. These little things add up; everything works okay, but it just lacks the polish that a browser built specifically for the platform has.
- Cymrubeats, on 10/10/2007, -8/+18Neither have i...eventually.
All the gloating from people who came across as 'superior' somehow in the initial stages of firefox (not when it was phoenix/firebird or before), and the continuation of that 'superiority' today puts a LOT of people off, it certainly put me off for a long time. Perhaps if they pointed out how it was better (and i don't mean 'its has bettur securitays') and didn't make out there was ANY significance to how many downloads have been made, something Mozilla obviously failed to do themselves until now, they would have attracted more people sooner. Sometimes the worst people you can use to promote a product are the users themselves...word of mouth is a great way to spread ideas and innovations, but not when the people who shout the loudest are asshats. - Cerialthriller, on 10/10/2007, -3/+13I kind of agree with you but not about what you are saying. The reason I tried firefox was for the tabbed browsing. I haven't used IE since. Now yes, to the average user its the same thing as IE with tabs which i hear IE has now. But, there is so much more then meets the eye. From my experiences, with Firefox, you can open 6-7 webpages on tabs in the same amount of ram as ONE IE page takes up. That is huge. Not to mention the thousands of widgets, themes, and plug-ins for Firefox. IE may have this stuff now, im not sure, but they didn't 18 months ago when I was doing all this on firefox. Not the mention the less CPU cycles that firefox uses. So, what I am saying is, if you dont really know what you are talking about, dont make statements such as "Firefox is just the same as MSIE but safer from viruses" because it's very untrue.
- FyberOptic, on 10/10/2007, -4/+13Much to the dismay of countless Firefox fanatics, yes, IE is faster than Firefox in nearly every way. It's been tested numerous times. And Opera is even faster than the both of them.
- mpn401, on 10/10/2007, -4/+13Opera FTW.
IE7 is OK, IE6 sucks donkey balls.
Firefox is too slow. - mrASSMAN, on 10/10/2007, -0/+9Oh I didn't read your comment thoroughly.. I thought you were describing yourself as a computer geek. My mistake.
- FadieZ, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10Firefox just needs to get back to being simple and quick. It's become too bulky today and just keeps crashing on me. Sadly, I became one of the people who started using Opera as an alternative. Hopefully FF3 will bring back some loyal users.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+10fix that damn copy paste bug...
it's been annoying me since 1.7...
but i still use it, and haven't looked back since. - allidid, on 10/10/2007, -2/+11Simple solution... strip it back, get rid of all the crap that's made it so terribly bloated. It crashes on average once a day on my PC and Mac, and always at the most frustrating times (sods law!). I'm strongly considering switching to Safari on my Mac and * gasp * IE7 on the PC. I used to love Firefox, but with every new release it seems to have gotten more and more unstable. Please Mozilla, get it sorted!
- centran, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9See, they are used to clicking that blue E. What you need to do is go into the start menu and remove it from All Programs. Another nasty trick I did with someone that just didn't get the firefox globe was the internet was to actually change the shortcut icon to the Explorer E.
- pictureDIGGER, on 10/10/2007, -1/+9I went as far as putting a portable version on a small thumb drive on my key chain. I use Firefox at any computer I go to also.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -3/+11Give the users free porn.
- FyberOptic, on 10/10/2007, -3/+11Try, oh, I dunno, making a browser that's actually worth using out of the box. It works for Opera!
Actually, on second thought, maybe it's better if they leave Firefox alone. It's bloated enough without any extensions at all. - debtman7, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I use firefox on a mac. Works well for me. Safari has an advantage in that it starts up a lot quicker, however I've always had problems with the spinning beach ball in safari, especially with many tabs open. Firefox rarely chokes up on me. The key to making it more pleasant on the mac is to install uno, then the firefox uno theme, and then the firefoxy widget set. Makes it fit right in on the mac. I use it because of the extensions mostly, and the fact that it doesn't lock up on me as much as safari does.
- Homunculiheaded, on 10/10/2007, -0/+7I love firefox, but the other day I caught it using over 700mb of ram, that's like catching an 8 year old smoking crack, no matter how many excuses you try to make it absolutely should not be happening. That's the entire contents of a CD in ram, that's ridiculous, and it's not like its a problem that just started happening yesterday, or even this version. I think I'll soon be an Opera convert myself.
- leexy, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8IE didn't come with my linux computer.
- inactive, on 10/10/2007, -1/+8All a n00b needs is one website that won't work with FF and they run back to IE.. That plus the non-existent memory leak non-problem scare people away.
- GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8It is a more secure browser, even now. If people don't consider that to be a useful feature it's because they are ignorant. Such people tend to get burnt and that's their problem. Reality is that those who support Firefox and standards have already won. It has sizeable market share, enough that developers have had to write proper standard mark up and recognise that IE (even the new version) is hell spawn that unnecessarily multiplies their work. What is slowly happening is that the MS mess is being pushed to one side with MS slowly coming around to standards.
That really is the long and short of it. Whatever happens standards are winning and at that point people can use whatever they want. I don't care if people live in ignorance provided we get sane standard support. - geminitojanus, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8"I'm not ignorant, and I don't consider the security of my browser to be important at all. "
Okay, only one of those things can be true. Come back to us when you've figured out which one it is. - inactive, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8One of my friends installs Firefox on any computer he uses. So after a while, most of the computers in my school have Firefox.
- ibanex22, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8I'm not sure if the 75% claim is accurate. I've downloaded the Firefox .exe, .dmg, and Linux packages multiple times yet I am only one user. I don't know if this percentage takes that in to consideration, but I'm sure a lot of Firefox users have used it across multiple computers and installed it multiple times with all the other downloads registering as inactive users.
- Quick2822, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6You want to know the biggest complaint I hear when trying to get my friends and family to switch to Firefox?
They always complain, without fail, about the annoying download window that pops up. I know it's stupid, and I know there are probably several plugins available to modify that, but for the average user they aren't going to get into that.
Firefox needs to give you an option to make it act like IE does. Is this enough to make a user not want to use Firefox? I doubt it, but like I said, to the average internet user, it can be annoying especially when trying to transition from IE to Firefox.
But for the average user in general, the benefits of Firefox over IE really aren't evident. Firefox is great for the "geek" -- but for my mom who uses it for Gmail, and checking the news, it doesn't offer her anything. - nerd05, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8If Mac users didn't care about subtle details like UI consistency and other such things, they'd be using Windows/Linux.
- markdr123, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7I managed to convert my dad when he was showing me a Phishing PayPal email that he got (he wasn't sure if it was legit or not). I brought it up on my computer to look at it, followed the link in the email and Firefox blacked out the page and came up with an alert saying it was a suspected web forgery and not to enter any personal details.
That satisfactorily impressed him. :p - BRODEL, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7Seems we have different meanings for "better"...
I use firefox on OS X just because I like the same look and feel when I surf. That said, it is slow on OS X compared to windows. I just can't be without my extensions. Everytime I surf on a computer that doesn't have adblock it's just one annoyance after another. I tried Safari with safariblock and then with pithhelmet.. I still got a bunch of ads everywhere. I just gave up and went back to firefox. - GMorgan, on 10/10/2007, -0/+6They don't have to be built in, just make a standard distribution that has a default set of plugins loaded. I think a lot of people have been burnt by spyware tool bars for IE and are afraid of extending their software.
- bpapa, on 10/10/2007, -5/+11Agree with Defect. On a Mac Firefox is clunky as hell. A couple of guys recommending Camino above, but I still think Safari is better. Safari starts faster than Camino, seems to render pages faster, has more robust RSS support, has THE GREATEST TEXT FIND IN THE HISTORY OF ALL SOFTWARE, and... it syncs with the iPhone. :)
- nakani, on 10/10/2007, -2/+8The difference isn't visible to IE users because us web developers slave over compatibility issues for hours to make it look right in IE for you. IE users have no idea how much they're holding back the web. I'm not blaming you guys, it's our job to educate you. So now that you know, please please use Firefox/Opera/Safari to help my sanity and advance the web :)
- Chift, on 10/10/2007, -1/+7I installed firefox on my parents machine and a year later they were still using IE. Therefore, I installed Ubuntu.. they no longer have a choice :)
- RyeBrye, on 10/10/2007, -5/+10Try Opera. I like it a lot.
Of course, I also use FIrefox, Safari, and Opera all at the same time and have certain sites I like to view in each one. -
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