Comments on: Why you (probably) won't be using Firefox a while from now

By: More Firefox: beating the competition and making money : Rahul Gaitonde

More Firefox: beating the competition and making money : Rahul Gaitonde — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 16:33:26 +0000

[...] Why you (probably) won’t be using Firefox a while from now [...]

By: Axel Taferner

Axel Taferner — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:54:54 +0000

“The state of the browser market pretty much proves that it’s impossible for an open source project to remain a popular front-end application for too long.”I don't think the state of the browser market _today_ proves that at all. You are making a prediction based on comments made by John Lilly and other observations. However as of today, Firefox is still the top dog alternative browser by a long shot, with no signs of letting up.

By: Rahul Gaitonde

Rahul Gaitonde — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:00:59 +0000

That's right – over $66 million in 2006 according to the Wikipedia page for Mozilla Corp. And that's an interesting point, because 85% of that revenue comes from its tie-up with Google (“assigning [Google] as the browser's default search engine, and for click-throughs on ads placed on the ensuing search results pages.”). While that relationship doesn't _need_ to change, it'll be interesting to see whether Google does change things to push Chrome adoption.

By: John Leach

John Leach — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:24:07 +0000

Firefox is already backed by a commercial entity, The Mozilla Corporation. A for-profit company with tens of millions of dollars of revenue.

By: Rahul Gaitonde

Rahul Gaitonde — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:03:48 +0000

Browsers aren't likely to win because of technical superiority. Chrome, though open source, has Google's weight behind it when it comes to distribution (just as IE has Microsoft's). For instance, Firefox used to be the only browser that Google included with Google Pack. It's added Chrome to that list now (and will likely phase out Firefox). Gmail and Orkut (perhaps other Google properties as well) have a little box that invites a user to try out Gmail/Orkut on Chrome, with a download link. If Chrome can include most of Firefox's technology _and_ have Google push its distribution, it's definitely got an advantage of Firefox.

By: El Rorro

El Rorro — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:42:22 +0000

You are not completely right. Let me explain. Firefox has a license that obliges people who take code from it to release it as open source (that´s not the case for Webkit). So basically, whoever takes Firefox code and put it in his browser has to release the code, making it an open source project, the way Chrome is. Chrome is open source! Dah!

By: Rahul Gaitonde

Rahul Gaitonde — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 05:35:04 +0000

You're right – Firefox's authority among web publishers is important today. I wonder if that's a market advantage, though. If Google/Apple do increase their respective browser market shares, won't that be an incentive for publishers to test against Chrome/Safari than Firefox? In that case, the onus of standards compatibility would lie almost entirely on the discipline of the Firefox developer community (instead of the incentive of being the gold standard for compatibility among web publishers).More generally, there really isn't a market imperative for Mozilla. In my understanding, the stated goal of the Mozilla Foundation is “promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Internet”. If Firefox-based browsers follow those 3 principles and gain share at Firefox's expense, the Foundation won't see them as competitors. Therefore, the concept of a “market advantage” probably shouldn't apply to Firefox.

By: Kir

Kir — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:52:59 +0000

The strength of firefox is neither it's extensions nor community support. To a web browser in the market (as opposed to in-development), those are fairly irrelevent.The market advantage firefox has is that web page publishers actually TEST against it. This puts it far ahead of Safari, Chrome, or Opera. A web page failing to render correctly in Firefox is considered a fatal flaw.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:41:36 +0000

Only thing is, Firefox has amazing extensions and community support. Don't see IE or Chrome getting anything similar anytime soon.