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Firefox Friday -- your weekly dose of FOXINESS
Good afternoon! As I write this the sun is shining, the birds (and 'SEO specialists') are tweeting, and the sky is a brilliant and pure baby blue. It's spring, ladies and gentlemen, it's frickin' spring -- here in England, at least. My apologies if you live in Canada, or somewhere else barren and inhospitable; I'm sure spring will get to you eventually.A lot has been going on in the world of browsers this week. As expected, the Browser Choice ballot has shaken things up, but we'll have to wait until the end of March to see how the landscape of the browser war pans out. (Opera downloads might've tripled, but if you multiply two by three, you still only have six).
One thing seems certain though: Firefox is losing its market share. In at trend that started at the end of 2009, Firefox continues to lose ground to Google's lightning-fast debutant Chrome. It varies from report to report, but Chrome (now at almost 7% market share!) is definitely picking up points from both Firefox and IE 6 and 7. Will the Browser Choice ballot bolster Firefox's figures in March? I don't see that happening.
Meanwhile, Ars is speculating on whether Firefox will ever hit 25% (as measured by Net Applications). It's hard to put your finger on it, but it definitely feels like Firefox is lagging behind Chrome in terms of new features and development speed. Looking back at 2009, was Personas the only major release from the offices of Mozilla's Firefox?
And all the while, up in Redmond, while everyone has their back turned to watch the Chrome vs. Firefox fracas, Internet Explorer 9 is in development. Three months ago they gave us a sneak-peak at what to expect with IE9 but since then... nothing, not one smidgeon of news. But I think that's about to change: there's a rumor going around that an IE9 beta will appear at the MIX 2010 conference, on March 15th. IE9 looks like it's going to put pressure on both Firefox and Chrome's feature set, and excel at both rendering speed and accuracy. With Microsoft's redoubled effort on cloud-related projects, you can be damn sure that IE9 will also feature an awesome JavaScript engine. (Incidentally, Office 2010's web apps are only going to be compatible with IE, Firefox and Safari...!)
Considering Direct2D integration is one of IE9's more impressive new features, it would be grand if Mozilla keep up the pace and beat Microsoft at their own game. I have a sneaking suspicion that IE9 will be out before FF3.7/4.0 though!
In other performance-related news, Firefox's borrowed-from-Chrome out-of-process plug-ins finally appeared in the alpha nightly builds. Some commenters suggested the implementation is a little buggy (oh the irony of a crash-proofing technology causing crashes!), but I'm sure it'll soon be working properly. Per-tab processes that utilize our multi-core processors (that's what makes Chrome so quick!) aren't coming any time soon, though: they're not even on the Firefox 3.7 roadmap! Details of Firefox's new JavaScript just-in-time (JIT) compiler, JägerMonkey (yes, umlaut and all), were also revealed this week. While it's not yet hit the nightly alpha builds, Firefox could see significant performance boosts of up to 30 or 40%.
Comments
16
Subscribe to commentsSlashZakuMar 5th 2010 4:15PM
I've been trying out other browsers lately (Opera, Chrome) and just keep coming back to Firefox. Think it's because I've been using it for so long and I'm used to the add-ons and such. Uninstalled Opera and kept Chrome. Only reason I use the latter is because FF doesn't play nice with Flash games for some reason. Firefox also seems to be the only browser on my computer that handles foreign characters (get the 'squares' with the others).
RoobotMar 5th 2010 2:46PM
"that's makes Chrome so quick!" what? That is makes Chrome so quick. Add a "what" in there ;^)
No surprises that alpha software is crashing, though it is slightly ironic.
I'm glad to hear that Firefox is upping the ante. It may have rested on its laurels for a while, without any real competition.
For their size, Mozilla is cranking out a good Browser, especially compared to the might of Google and Microsoft.
Looking forward to IE9, to see what this adds to the pot.
Sadly, Opera is still flagging at the bottom, below Safari!
Sebastian AnthonyMar 5th 2010 2:52PM
Hehe, I re-worked that sentence a few times and lost 'what' somewhere along the line -- thanks for pointing it out :)
Yeah, I was wondering about the comparative development team/size/dedication. No doubt IE9 has a lot of people working on it -- but Chrome vs. Firefox? I wonder which has more invested. With Chrome OS coming, I guess Google might have a lot vested in a strong browser.
cybercapitalistMar 5th 2010 2:48PM
Isn't competition exciting :-)
Sebastian AnthonyMar 5th 2010 2:52PM
Yeah! Though at the end of the day, it's not like there's much money in it... so you will probably just see 4 or 5 'niche' browsers, all with specific strengths and weaknesses.
I doubt we'll ever see 'one browser to rule them all'... hopefully.
BazMar 5th 2010 3:00PM
I use Firefox. I've tried Chrome. I'd really like to think I've no reason to move to Chrome, but Firefox is becoming increasingly clunky, a real resource hog and subsequent builds only seem to exacerbate the situation.
Firefox needs a re-think - or at the very least, a Firefox Lite edition. ASAP.
Frankly, if it wasn't for Tab Mix Plus (and that an Add-on and not a native feature), I'd likely consider the move to Chrome.
SlashZakuMar 5th 2010 11:17PM
Kind of my problem. Some features are nice but a 'Lite' version of FF would be nice.
SilverWaveMar 5th 2010 3:41PM
I'm still firefox to my core but...
Speed Speed speed Mozilla can you hear me?
I have a large html file that I only open in Chromium not Firefox...
5 sec in Chromium 25 in Firefox :(
But it is open source so... most of the good stuff will be ported over.
Quicker the better though :)
I have a quad and 8GB of RAM... I don't care about memory use - just SPEED.
Oh and just using 1 core is painful :(
SilverWaveMar 5th 2010 3:49PM
Just had a weird thought -
As long as its not MS and IE then I don't really care who is the number 1 browser (as long as its no one evil).
So Google have a lot of money and a big intensive to create a great browser for the masses... no harm there... hmm
That would leave Firefox free to cater to the more techie crowd and not have to dumb down...
Hmm maybe not so weird :D
JokerMattMar 5th 2010 4:30PM
The only real advantage I've found that Firefox has over Chrome is UI and extensions, and they're mostly personal preference. If I had a nice Tree Style Tabs extension, and a vimperator clone as good as vimperator for Firefox, I'd switch in a heartbeat. However, the first isn't possible from what I understand, and the second just takes time.
King AntoniusMar 5th 2010 5:11PM
Grew up a firefox junkie, and I still like firefox, but I find myself using Opera more now. I have chrome and occasionally use it, but one of the nice things with Opera is the synchronization. My stuff is on my computer, AND on my Opera site. Get a new computer? Install Opera, put in your username and password, and within a few seconds all of your information is on that one too. Yes, mozilla has weave, but once you install it on a couple systems and have everything setup, you kind of forget it's there. Then you get a new system and scratch your head for a little bit trying to figure out why your Firefox info isn't sync'd, THEN remember that you have to install weave.
It doesn't help that Firefox STILL has that bit of a video lagging issue. I'm assuming that it will be fixed in 3.7/4.0.
WayneMar 5th 2010 7:24PM
Has everyone just given up trying to fix the memory leaks or does it hurt to much to talk about it.
I have plenty of mem on my machine but when FF reaches a certain amount it just locks up. I know when it's coming. Everything starts to lag and I usually just restart.
If it weren't for my add-ons, I'd be using Chrome.
polobunnyMar 5th 2010 9:25PM
I don't have such things. Your add-ons are likely the problem, and if not that, blame Flash. Because that's often the cause of insane RAM usage.
Nevertheless, visit this link to check against your installed add-ons and see if any is deemed problematic.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problematic_extensions
Take caution at reading the extension name AND version.
RajMar 6th 2010 5:42AM
I have tried the Chrome browser and frankly I have gone back to my reliable Firefox.
A browser is not only about speed and good looks but also reliability and compatibility. Plus I have dozen extensions which make my web experience more fun - not having them in Chrome also was a factor for me turning to firefox.
I think I will be faithful to firefox for more years to come.
KualaBeeMar 30th 2010 11:02AM
I know this is ad nauseum, but Firefox really need to fix the slow cold start up. Lugging around your netbook or your labtop, sometimes just you need to get in and out real quick.
The fact that I have to resort to Chrome when I am really pressed for time despite being a Firefox faithful is beyond frustrating. Also the nightbuilds have made cold start up even slower so it looks like Mozilla is taking steps back instead of forward.
BuggerMar 9th 2010 1:10PM
I agree with all the Firefox fans who have posted here.
But the PEOPLE don't think so. They think FF sucks. Google is marketing out FF. Some of FF's recent attempts at brand building are pathetic. Browser Ballot? Jesus.. Isn't it ironic that the very 'community' Firefox keeps crowing about has abandoned FF?
Why are they copying everything from Chrome? I was a fan of personas, but it is a vapourware, IMHO. That's a major feature? A community is supposed to be self-correcting, but i've lost that belief ever since that stupid FU about jetpacks and addons.
I will run you FF, as long as Time, but you will, in a few years, join your big sister Netscape. I'm crying even as i type this. :-(