Firefox: Can this Web browser be saved?

http://www.zdnet.com/firefox-can-this-web-browser-be-saved-7000000624/

by tanglesome • 14 years ago

22 31 14 years ago

The_Sponge• 14 years ago

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?

AshleysBrain2• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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).

duskwuff• 14 years ago

WebKit is relatively easy to embed, and performs reasonably on low-spec devices. Gecko is much more difficult to port.

mindcrime• 14 years ago

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.

derleth4• 14 years ago

> 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.

abarth• 14 years ago

> I can't find out how to theme Chrome

A variety of themes are available in the web store: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/themes

groby_b• 14 years ago

> 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)

adgar• 14 years ago

> It's about respect

You are the only one choosing to frame software design decisions as lack of respect for the user.

sliverstorm2• 14 years ago

I recently did the opposite, back to Chrome. FF tends to lock up for a few seconds on me a lot, even on silly little things like switching tabs.

etherealG• 14 years ago

you should try both without any addons. I find firefox a lot faster in that state. some addons can make it a lot slower unfortunately.

coliveira• 14 years ago

This matches my own experience. I started using Chrome from version 1. A few months ago, I just decided to check how Firefox was doing and was surprised to see that it is as fast as (or faster) than Chrome. More importantly, it handles multiple tabs much better than Chrome. So, I think the pendulum is swinging to Firefox' side again, it just needs to get their users familiarized with the new release cycle.

freehunter• 14 years ago

I use Chrome on Windows because I like the behavior and don't need a lot of supported extensions when I'm using Windows. What I really need is lightness of weight, sandboxing, and standards support. When I'm using Linux, however, I can't use Chrome. I've previously documented my tribulations with Chrome on Linux here [1], and there was some good feedback both in my favor and to the contrary of my opinions.

It's not just that Chrome on Linux doesn't behave how I want it to, it's that the behavior of Chrome on Linux doesn't conform with the principles of Linux as I understand them. Even as the devs swear up and down that Chrome on Linux behaves like a true Linux browser, it's really just paying lip service, making a superficial attempt at pretending it's down with the Penguin while really behaving more like Apple. It acts like standard Linux, but it doesn't let you alter a single damn setting that actually matters.

Plus with Firefox on Linux, the normal painless Ubuntu updates take care of the browser updates automatically. So there's one point of Firefox consternation out of the way.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4172129

heifetz• 14 years ago

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.

derleth4• 14 years ago

> Chrome by contrast was lightning fast

Was, maybe; not anymore.

toemetoch• 14 years ago

(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.

recursive• 14 years ago

> where the hell is the bookmark button?

It's the star on the right of the address bar.

jensnockert• 14 years ago

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.

AshleysBrain2• 14 years ago

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.

kibwen• 14 years ago

"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• 14 years ago

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

jlongster• 14 years ago

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.

twapi• 14 years ago

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

archangel_one• 14 years ago

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.

jcmhn2• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

There is adblock+ for Chrome.

jcmhn2• 14 years ago

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.

teeja• 14 years ago

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".

Firefox: Can this Web browser be saved?

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