News FireFox share continues to rise

[The_Pope]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2005/11...rket_share_up/

[Reaper_Unreal]

Opera's share has reminded virtually the same over the period.

Don't you mean remained?

But seriously, that doesn't really surprise me much. Opera hasn't changed much in the past few years. Sure, it's free now, but I didn't really like it much. The only reason I used it on my mac was because IE for OS9 was terribly unstable and I really hated Netscape.

Firefox is the only browser I use now. Except for windows update and filling out my timesheet at work. Both of which still use ActiveX.

[Edenalig]

Originally Posted by Reaper_Unreal

Firefox is the only browser I use now. Except for windows update and filling out my timesheet at work. Both of which still use ActiveX.

Funny thing is I do exactly the same, I just find firefox much more easier to use and more multi tab friendly.

[HandMadeAndroid]

I love the tab browsing, I could'nt live without it now. Only thing I seem to have a problem with is linking to my favourites folder, and setting user accounts.

[BUFF]

Originally Posted by Reaper_Unreal

Opera hasn't changed much in the past few years. Sure, it's free now, but I didn't really like it much.

As an Opera user for several years I would disagree with you (& yes I've tried FF - it's better than IE but I prefer Opera).

1 of the reasons that Opera always shows as a low % is that by default it identifies itself as IE6.

[webbyman]

firefox for the win, i find i can't browse the internet properly with ie!!!!!! ie is aload of s****t

if i did'nt have firefox i wouldn't be able to browse like i do now, especially speed and convenience. i have upto 100pages open now in about 7 different windows. i don't go over 30 in each browser as theres not enought room to see what it is.

[Meanmotion]

Originally Posted by webbyman

i have upto 100pages open now in about 7 different windows. i don't go over 30 in each browser as theres not enought room to see what it is.

WTF!? Why? Can't you RSS most of them, for a start?


and to FF

[huFFamOOse]

IMO Opera is the best browser out there. But what do I use? - Firefox, because I'm not too bothered about all the features Opera has. I just want tabbed browsing with a couple of extensions.

[Firehed]

Can't live without tabbed browsing and everything else. Even the download manager. Mouse gestures for the win though, even if they are a seperate extension. And stellar popup blocking (though interestingly enough, I found something in my nvidia driver CP that had a browser popup blocking feature... haven't used IE in quite some time so I have no idea if it works at all though).

TBH I don't see why MS CARES if people use FF over IE, everyone searches with Google anyways. Or is it one of those "the principe of the thing" deals, rather than financial?

Honestly, I've never enjoyed my computing experience more than recently - skinned out everything with windowsblinds (roll-up windows for the win!) on a dual-core for smoothness, with a widescreen LCD because they pwn, and personalized Google in a tabbed browser to centralize all the info I care about. Throw in a randomizer for my backgrounds to scroll through over a hundred that I like by the interval for my choice and surround myself with some THX-certified speakers. In the last month or so, it went back to almost being a whole new thing, and definately back to enjoyable.

And I'll come right out and say it - the only convenice IE EVER brought me was being able to launch from My Computer, which was a quick load. Tabs + widescreen (or tallscreen if I abuse my rotate 90* abilities) = win.

[riggs]

I made the switch just under a year ago...and only beacuse of the tabbed browsing, and built in popup blocker.
The 'Extensions' idea is brilliant, and I just love the fact that it's fully (and easily) skinnable.

The download manager is kinda nice (well, it beats the standard windows one), but I still use GetRight on sites that support it.
Would be good if they could bump-up the download manager a bit (even better if it could resume downloads after a reboot).

...go FF!

[sadffffff]

still havent found a reason to use anything but IE. works perfect, fast, stable, does everything i want it to, built into windows, i see no reason to use anything else. firefix came preinstalled on my windows installation at home, i havent used it yet, too lazy to uninstall, maybe i'll find a use for it someday.

[GuardianStorm]

IE = ActiveX + Security holes not fixed since IEv2 = Very Bad
FireFox = open Source + Tabbed Browing + Extentions + Skins + Cool Logo = Very Good

i made the switch about 3 years ago, and have never looked back, i only IE for windows update & my Uni's Academic Alliance Site, which wont work with FireFox

Thunder bird is also for the win

[riggs]

Originally Posted by GuardianStorm

Thunder bird is also for the win

Aha...forgot about that!

I used to use Eudora, but switched to Thunderbird around the same time I started using Firefox.

[Master Ninja]

It goes something like this: IE uses non-standard HTML and CSS. MS development tools use these IE-only properties automatically. So if 90% of a web developer's audience uses IE, suddenly MS development tools are the fastest way to make pages that reach the most people, and that makes them money. The fact that it won't be standardized is incidental, as MS has enough market share to redefine standards if they really want to.

/derail: What do you use to randomize your desktop? I've been looking for a product that does that.

Originally Posted by Firehed

TBH I don't see why MS CARES if people use FF over IE, everyone searches with Google anyways. Or is it one of those "the principe of the thing" deals, rather than financial?

[stephen2002]

I've been using Avant Browser, which is basically IE + tabs and a popup blocker. I used FireFox for a few months but found that a lot of pages were sluggish when compaired with IE.

I know people like to say that FireFox is faster but that simply is not true, at least on the Windows platform with my experience. I have an old laptop, 300MHz, that clocks down as low as 75MHz when on battery. FireFox was totally unusable, even scrolling was a pain. IE is slow, but functional. I've switched to Opera on that computer because it loads up pages by far the fastest, mainly because it dosn't wait for the graphics to load before showing you the text.

[Firehed]

It's some powertoy for XP... if you can't find it ala google, email me and I'll send you a copy, it's pretty small (and free, like the other MS powertoys. it was hard to find iirc, I don't think it's current anymore). "wallpaper changer powertoy" or something to that effect.

[Deathrow]

I love Firefox, I keep trying to get my parents to use it on each of their machines but they always moan about it not being secure, even though when i order stuff on my parents credit card I always use Firefox on my machine.

I have seen a few bugs with it though, but im sure Mozilla will iron them out as they go.

Firefox cheesecake!

[Firehed]

Do slap them for me, FF is far more secure than IE ever has been. Frickin' noobs!!111oneonetwofive

[Colonel Sanders]

IE has one advantage over many other browsers- it can display some abesolutley trashy HTML code, most of which is produced by MS frontpage. So long as web-sites refuse to display under firefox simply because I don't have FF set to identify itself as IE or some other stupid reason, Bill will make people think the only way to surf the web is with Windows and IE. It really amazes me that Bill released IE for mac, which in my opinion was just an attempt to say "MS is better than apple, for once!" In the sense that IE on a mac can display trashed web-site written by MS frontpage then IE has done one thing a little better than Apple.

Windows Media Player? It has minimal support for creation of MP3 files, instead Bill trys to make people think they can only convert their music into DRM loaded, poor quality WMA audio files. . . Outhouse Express? It is quite possibly the most common e-mail utility simply because it is bundeled with Windows- if it comes with windows, it either has to be the best thing since sliced bread, or there is no alternative, right? Sadly, those are the opinions of the general public. . .

BTW, I love firefox.

L J

[Agamer]

I also love firefox.

When I first looked at it I considered it to be slow compared to ie. Part of this is a registry tweak that I had preformed increased preformance of loading pages(Which really does work) had incresased ie's speed. When I then looked at firefox a while later I found you coudl od the same for firefox so I am happy!

Now I can't live with out firefox due to it's tabs I have become so acustomed to.

So now I spread the firefox love!