Comments on: An endangered fox

By: McT

McT — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 05:55:12 +0000

My switch from IE to FF changed my way of interacting with the web. I have tried Chrome, but it lacks the addons and plugins, which FF provides.

Surfing the net has been a huge pleasure with FF. Maybe it will lose its shine in 2010, but I get huge benefit from using FF that it is highly unlikely that I am going to move on.

Duncan, good to hear your thoughts though. One thing is for certain is that when it comes to browsers, we have fantastic choice!

By: GlobetrotterSA

GlobetrotterSA — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 03:37:17 +0000

Firefox’s add-ons are brilliant and I rely heavily on them. Ditching my beloved add-ons is simply impossible at this stage. Since I use a rather large number of add-ons for Firefox, the browser does start slow and it can be a memory hog.

Google Chrome is faster and I use it frequently as my secondary browser but I’ve never considered it as a replacement for Firefox, simply due to the lack of extensions.
However, extensions have finally been introduced in the latest Google Chrome beta version, so I may find myself gradually moving to Chrome as the months go by, as they offer more extensions. For me it’s all about the functionality and customisability of the browser to suit my personal needs so add-ons are key. Only time will tell whether Chrome will surpass Firefox in this department.
I do use a lot of Google’s services so I want Chrome to succeed since it will make “living in the(ir) cloud” easier.

As for Internet Explorer, haven’t used it in years.

By: boastboy

boastboy — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:16:10 +0000

I am neither much of a chrome or firefox user. When I switched to Mac a few years back I started using Safari, now I’m way too invested in the browser to change. I did however give Chrome a try but with it’s current lack of Evernote support it’s not much use to me. I have this opinion, and seeing the comments on SM platforms I do believe that FF is loosing ground, it seems to be slower, more bloated than ever and a lot of tech people are leaving it for googler pastures. It’s just what I’ve noticed. At the end of the day browser wars are about search bars and money and I do think that ff is on a slippery slope downwards.

By: Editor

Editor — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:07:31 +0000

@Robert MacLean: Thanks for the note about IE8. There were some words that were accidentally cut out during the editing process. I have corrected this now so that the sentence reads: “…still lags far behind its rivals when it comes to adhering to Web standards”.

Regarding market share, please see: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10423733-2.html

By: Robert MacLean

Robert MacLean — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:00:30 +0000

Don’t agree on your stats used here (where did you get them?). I am no expert here but using just WikiPedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers) and eliminating charts that did not give Chrome enough chance (so the oldest I went for was Sept 09) I came out with 6 charts and only 1 showed Chrome beating Safari. Of those same 6 charts, 4 of them showed Firefox growth increasing, one shows it flat and one shows it on a down swing.

“IE8, is far better than earlier versions (though it still lags far behind its rivals)” – What is it missing that it’s rivals have? There is some CSS support and support for, the unofficial, HTML 5 that others have but nothing that could be pointed to as lagging?

By: Roger

Roger — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:41:37 +0000

One word: Plugins. Firefox has a massive base of AddOns/Plugins to choose from that give it the edge. Its more power users that push the limits of their browser so its not for everybody. Having said that Google Chrome with their latest version supports plugins but its going to have to play big catchup before it topples FireFox and its plugins.

IE and Google are backed by massive names. Some people will prefer the humble Firefox.

I’m a software web developer and I tend to be on the latest and greatest of every software product available. I’ve tried Chrome and Opera but I still fall back on Firefox.

By: Charles

Charles — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 12:03:28 +0000

I don’t agree. Google will soon experience a very negative backlash once the Googleopoly report gets more publicity and the public can see how obscenely powerful and dangerous it is to have the world run by one company. When that happens, not even the company’s trite “Don’t be evil” slogan will save them.

The open-source nature of Firefox means that the system can very easily be upgraded to be just as fast as Chrome so I don’t think Chrome is in any better position than Firefox.

Funny thing though is that when I first used Chrome for a few months to see what it was about, I couldn’t wait to get back to Firefox…

The jury is out I suppose…