Why Mozilla Needs To Go Into Survival Mode 464
Crazzaper writes "I have been using Firefox for many years, and the war of the browsers has been around for longer than that. It just so happens that now we have a lot of options out there: IE, FF, Chrome, Opera, Safari, and others. People are always talking about how one browser is going to take down another, but maybe that's not the issue at all. It seems very possible that one browser, like Firefox, can be taken down by multiple browsers at once, whether or not there was any intention to compete specifically with Firefox. I hadn't seen it this way, but I do now."
Firefox lite. (Score:5, Interesting)
What they need to do is remember why the project started and get back to that.
Themes in 3.6? WTF were they thinking?
Chrome and Safari both have excellent built in Web dev/javascript tools, I don't even miss Web Developer Toolbar.
Serious inquiry re: Adblock (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Go get your guns? (Score:5, Interesting)
This was marked as funny, but I actually would like to know what kind of strategies FF should follow.
What does "survival mode" means in this case? Race in new features?
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:2, Interesting)
They started the project to develop a browser that was driven by user requirements (as opposed to the Mozilla suite, which was a behemoth driven by whatever developers were working on, all of the developers with check-in privileges).
Re:No extensions, no FF killer (Score:3, Interesting)
You are looking at it from your perspective, but do the masses really care about these things? Firefox's position is actually pretty tenuous - it comes largely from geeks telling their friends to use it, but if the geeks get annoyed at Firefox (something that has already started) there could be a mass exodus. Also, Firefox depends largely on Google for its revenue; while Google has not indicated they will stop supporting firefox, they could end their relationship if Firefox becomes weak enough.
BTW, Chrome's adblocking is about as good as firefox's at this point.
Re:No extensions, no FF killer (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm sorry, but unless and until every browser has the "extensions" feature that FF has (Specifically including Adblock Plus and No Script) then NO browser will EVER be a true "Firefox Killer".
Chrome is OK, but without extensions it's nothing more than a runner-up. The same for Opera and IE#. Safari is nothing more than a side-show.
You are aware that extensions the way they are implemented in Firefox is a major activex type security issue? [slashdot.org] And Mozilla is thinking of ditching them? [slashdot.org]
Not buying it (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, Firefox has some issues. Yes, the Mozilla team needs to fix them. However, I think this article is being overly sensationalistic (surprise, surprise). In a wonderful bout of irony, the same forces that made long-standing IE users jump to FF are keeping them using FF. Some are averse to learning a new UI/control scheme, others needs certain extensions to remain productive. Then there are a few, like me, who don't see the performance/crashing issues that others report. I'm not saying that they don't exist, just that I haven't experienced them.
Additionally, FF has been approved for use in many businesses, as well as the DoD/DHS to run on their networks. Chrome, AFAIK, hasn't.
With these forces slowing down non-Firefox adoption, the Mozilla team has bought themselves some crucial time in the quest to right some of their browser's weaknesses. Hopefully they'll be able to meet that challenge, and, from reading the various blogs published to Planet Mozilla, I'm fairly confident that they will.
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:5, Interesting)
Not big on Chrome and IE9 won't do it for me, but- (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:4, Interesting)
which is why we still use firefox, as the chrome version = security risk.
Meanwhile, firefox's "survival requirement" is nonexistent. They're doing just fine. They need to work on bloat and keep improving firefox, but they're not about to run out of relevance.
The money loss from the google deal ending may or may not be a big deal. It depends on if they keep up the deal again. They most certainly might do so, as google might see it as a smart investment to guarantee competition, basically.
Re:What they need... (Score:2, Interesting)
Firefox is really only a memory pig (and they are actually improving there).
I currently have about 30 tabs open and it is only sipping at 1 core (on a Core Duo at 1.66 Ghz). Flash tends to chew up a lot of cycles (so I run flashblock...).
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:2, Interesting)
Remember, Google is an advertising company at its heart.
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually I presently have all four browsers no five counting Opera. (Opera, Chrome, Safari, IE8, Firefox)
I still use FireFox most of the time. Not sure why? Oh, yeah it solved many spyware problems before IE had tabs and such at work. It IS getting bloated though now and I still have to have IE for some financial stuff that only works with IE for some stupid reason.
I don't use No Script. I also have to go to MSN sometimes. That's just how it is. FireFox is better for viewing Microsoft sites. We'll not really but for most of what I need it is.
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:2, Interesting)
I've noticed more "loading then removing" of content with Chrome/AdThwart than I remember from Firefox/AdblockPlus
That's because Chrome's extension API doesn't allow extensions to stop loading resources, it only allows resources to be removed after they are loaded.
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:3, Interesting)
plenty of people know how to install firefox and adblock but don't know how to make a custom hosts file. I know how, but there's a reason we rely on adblock, and it's called pure laziness.
Re:Go get your guns? (Score:3, Interesting)
As in "Do whatever it takes to survive." That means:
* Find out why old users leave
* Find out why new users don't come
* Fix those problems
* Make sure fixing those problems doesn't lead to new problems
I know I don't run FF anymore -- I switched to Chrome mostly because I was having PC troubles and often jumping from computer to computer or reformatting, and needed the seamless bookmarks sync (which turned out to be a major time saver). My original reason, however, was that when I was using my old computer, I had a 15-20 second wait to get Firefox loaded, which left me handshy of ever closing the damn thing in the first place, and that ramped up the memory usage from leaks or whatever. On that same computer, Chrome loaded in under about 3 seconds, so I could close it without feeling like a damned idiot the next time I needed to open it again for a quick link. Since I've gotten used to it, I'm not terribly interested in trying to go back to using FF merely because I'm happy with the current setup.
That said, FF did serve me very well for years, and I don't think it's dead, dying, or that it SHOULD die.
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:theora = suicide (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:1, Interesting)
Like cygnusx said above, Chrome loads the DOM tree before the extension can manipulate it. No adblock extension can perform any better with the current model. That said, the loading of the ads and then removing them actually helps the functionality of some web pages.
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:4, Interesting)
There is also the issue of downloading huge amounts of ad data -- which all go against your 5gb (matters here) or 250gb (not so big here) per month limit.
The advertisers are using *MY* download quota without paying me for it.
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:3, Interesting)
But it has to do with them thar "Com-Puh-Tars"
There must be some funny effect with them. People who are perfectly able to do something when you tell them (quite complicated) "Do $STUFF" completely lock up mentally when you tell them "Do $STUFF on the computer"
Funny enough, the patent office seems to share this. Patents to "Do $STUFF in $WAY" that are completely obvious, and would be rejected immediately by any sane person get granted when they add two words. "Do $STUFF in $WAY on computer"
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:2, Interesting)
Isn't the whole point of capitalism externalizing the costs and internalizing the profits? Why do you hate freedom so much, you commie?
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:3, Interesting)
Looks like it. Even Stephen Timms, noted dumbass and so-called Minister for Digital Britain, doesn't know what it is.
According to him, IP address stands for Intellectual Property address [techeye.net].
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:2, Interesting)
>>>>>And if you're concerned about bloat, maybe try Mozilla's seaMonkey?
>>
>>Maybe my sarcasm detector is just failing, but you do realize that Firefox originated as a branch off of Seamonkey because it was thought that Seamonkey had become too bloated?
Yes.
Funny how the wheel turns, does it not? On my machine seaMonkey uses less memory. It's also why it's the default install on Puppy Linux, which was designed to run on machines with just 32-64 megabytes of RAM.
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:4, Interesting)
I just installed Opera & Chrome to do a little "taste test". I opened all three browsers & pointed them to Slashdot. One tab open for each one. According to Process Explorer, here is the memory footprint for each program.
Firefox = 214,832 K
Chrome = 111,820 K & 105,376 K
Opera = 218,212 K
I'm not seeing a big difference here.
This is on a Athlon Phenom II X4 955 w/ 4 GB of DDR3 running WinXP SP3.
Re:Firefox lite. (Score:3, Interesting)
That might have been true when Firefox branched off but if you add up the resources used by Firefox and Thunderbird you'll find that Seamonkey is lighter. Since it is based on the same version of Gecko (the renderer) it is more or less in the same league speed-wise. Many Firefox-extensions work - or can be made to work - in Seamonkey as well.
I have used most current browsers in Linux - Firefox, Seamonkey, Opera, Arora, Midori, Epiphany, Chromium, Konqueror and some others - and have concluded that Seamonkey fits my needs best. It is fast enough, works well with 20+ tabs per window and includes a well-integrated email client while keeping resource consumption within acceptable limits for my main systems (8 year old IBM Thinkpad T23's). It has enough features all by itself but even so it is flexible enough to add even more by using extensions (including everyone's favorite Adblock+).
So you see there is no need for a sarcasm detector. Things change. Firefox has suffered from the second system effect in version 2.x where resource consumption went up while reliability went down. The 3.x branch has undone most of the damage but it still takes more to run both Firefox as well as Thunderbird than it does to run Seamonkey.