Is Firefox Headed Towards A Massive Decline?

Is Firefox Headed Towards A Massive Decline?

 

I hope not. I also hope they forget the whole personas stuff, but that's just me.

 

In my opinion, yes. I tend to swap around browsers a lot, but I haven't felt any urge to even bother trying firefox, even IE9 excites me more! Other browsers just have less of those little things that irritate me, as well as generally being of safer design.

But ofcourse this is about the article not my opinion!

 

If Mozilla delivers everything it says it will, Firefox 4 is poised to be a groundbreaking release IMO. Personally, though, I wouldn't be surprised if it falls short of promises.

 

well as long as its extensions stay as good as they are now, ill be sticking with firefox. its really the 1 thing that keeps me with firefox, instead of going to Opera and Chromes extensions dont even compare... firefox's customizability is what keeps me with it.

 

Firefox, imho, is still a contender only because of their extensions. Outside of that there's absolutely nothing special about it at all. Firefox has AdblockPlus and NoScript to thank for keeping people from not giving a damn anymore. Their reason for existence, as the "David" in the battle against the giant Microsoft, is long past relevance, and, though I detest Googles' privacy practice and Chromes' almost impossible complete removal process, Chrome is starting to wipe the floor with Mozilla in regards to "safer" practices and continual updating.

Right now Chrome is going through the same growing pains as Mozilla did, with a lot of websites either not working or not displaying properly. But, as did Mozilla, once that issue is sorted out, I see Chrome flinging Mozilla aside, ignoring Opera like the "also-ran" it is, and staring down the giant itself.

 

+1

Thanks.

 

Yep....

 

i use firefox portable in my programs folder and i keep a copy on usb if i have a problem i can just delete it and replace from the copy i think firefox portable with addons is the best and most customizable the other browsers will have to do a lot more to get even close firefox is going strong

 

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I would argue that's reason enough. The browsing experience is the sum total of the engine, extensions, toolbars, whatever. Making a distinction between the browser and the extensions is academic, not practical.

 

The extensions are the only thing that make the browser.... without them, Firefox would be nothing.

 

exactly

open source will win in the end

 

But I think he's trying to say that a browser is experienced by it's features, and technically extensions are a feature of Firefox.

That's not to say that extensions aren't the only feature keeping people on Firefox in certain cases though. I'm sure it is.

 

MASSIVE decline = no. Small decline = probably.

There's more competition hence the small decline, but as others have said the extensions and compatibility with other software are still the best.

 

For me it's the perfect browser. I hope it stays that way. If it will ...time will tell.

 

Adblock works fine in Chrome, so do many other extensions which are equivalent of FF, also adblock via urlfilter.ini works fine in Opera. Firefox is the bane of all Linux distro, guess what happens when a first timer manages to install Linux distro like Ubuntu, Fedora etc, he or she is greeted by bloatyfox, its slow, keeps hanging on most pages specially after heavy use. Majority of the complaints in Ubuntu forums are Firefox related. Replace that with Chromium and give choice of installing Opera from repos and FF will die a gradual death.

 

i dont use linux so i couldnt care less... linux users complaining will hardly kill firefox lol, if u havent notice, linux never controls the market.

 

If someone says FF is on the way out and then some readers who don't like FF chime in and say it's on the way out, eventually other readers will think it's too bad FF is on the way out, and switch to a different browser. Eventually enough people will switch to another browser so that FF goes on a massive decline. Conversely if someone tries a new app and comes on here and says it's the best thing since sliced bread, people will start trying it, and it will succeed. The point I want to make is, if you are using FF and you like it, ignore threads like this and have fun. That's not to say you shouldn't try other browsers for different reasons. I run FF and Chrome side by side and will use each as the default browser for a while just for kicks, but always come back to FF because it is a comfortable browser for me.

 

Evidently no one here has tried K-Meleon.

 

That's exactly right. I don't think some people get it though. Making Firefox a browser tailored to your needs is it's biggest feature.
The community around it. It's license. The persuit for open standards - as does Opera for that matter, they deserve credit for that too.

Were it not for organizations like Mozilla - not just Mozilla, to be clear - we would have an increasingly closed web, i have no doubts about that. Competition is welcomed, i use their stuff sometimes, but they're the ones that need to perform some kind of voodoo magic to make me use another browser regularly.
I'm keeping an eye on Chrome, and never stopped looking at Opera, but quite frankly, while i like them both, Firefox is still king for me.

Huh?

 

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Yes, that was my point. When I'm using Firefox I'm not perceiving a difference between the browser and it's extensions - I'm just browsing, and the sum total is customized precisely to my liking. When I can make any other browser work exactly the way I want it to then I will seriously consider making it my primary. I like Chrome. It's very fast, but overall it's not there yet.

 

Well,

I was not a FF fan, but that was mainly triggered by the blind nonsense which was parrotted on the web. I think FF had a wake up call. I am positively surprised by the way they are overcoming the ground lost.

For some critical consumers, it may be a blessing in a few years to have a alternative webbrowser.

The battle for the consumer is fought on four areas

Lifestyle devices its apple (ipad) against Google (Android)

Personal computers its Microsoft leading with Apple (ipad + max OS) challenging. Maybe Intel's unix based OS and Googles Chrome will cause some stir in the netbook market

Browsers it is Microsoft with Google as new kid on the block challenging the rnners up (firefox, Safari).

Search engines it is againg Google leading with Microsoft trying to gain ground.

It seems that on all of these areas it is going to be a Microsoft - Google fight with Apple sneeking off the most interesting high marging market segments.


So as a critical FF watcher, I hope FF finds some innovative features and improvements.

Regards Kees

 

Well said, Pedro. And I'm pretty sure that FF 4.0 will be on par again with the competition in terms of speed. BTW: Have you tried FF 3.6.5 from the ubuntu-mozilla-daily ppa? I find it remarkably faster than 3.6.3. I haven't tried 3.7 yet.

 

No, Iceweasel is still on 3.5.9
Now that you say that though, i may try it. Let me see what's cooking in Sid first.

 

Where can i get the tarball? I downloaded the latest, and only now noticed it's not what you were referring to.

EDIT: never mind, i think i found it. I assume its the nightly build. One more profile to make