Reading this New York Times article (An Upstart Challenges the Big Web Browsers) this morning made me gasp - it says 75% of all internet users use Internet Explorer!
Seriously? As an IE user myself not so long ago and a devoted, die-hard Firefox user now, I just can’t fathom this! I’ve seen the light! I haven’t tested out Firefox 3 yet, but once it’s released next month, I’ll surely be using it. Here’s what the NY Times article says about FF3:
“That notion has helped to rekindle the browser wars and has resulted in the latest wave of innovation. Firefox 3.0, for example, runs more than twice as fast as the previous version while using less memory, Mozilla says.
The browser is also smarter and maintains three months of a user’s browsing history to try to predict what site he or she may want to visit. Typing the word “football” into the browser, for example, quickly generates a list of all the sites visited with “football” in the name or description.
Firefox has named this new tool the “awesome bar” and says it could replace the need for people to maintain long and messy lists of bookmarks. It will also personalize the browser for an individual user.
“Sitting at somebody else’s computer and using their browser is going to become a very awkward experience,” said Mitchell Baker, chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation.“
Questions about WHY you should switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox? Check out BrowseHappy - they’ll tell you ALL about it……………
And for the record:
1) Apple - no, I do NOT want Safari loaded on my computer whenever you install updates for iTunes. Stop asking. Seriously.
2) I tried Flock, but I’m too in love with twhirl to be able to use this browser consistently - when they’re both running (with Twitter in the Flock sidebar), it maxes out the API requests for Twitter and causes twhirl to say my request for updates has been exceeded. That’s a deal-breaker for me. The blog writer was neat, but not neat enough.
If you’d love to convince me to change my views on any of the above, I’ll surely listen………….
Related Reading:
Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Web Browser? - The Edublogger
Slimy Tactics Won’t Earn Apple Any More Safari Users - Mike Bogle
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
I’ve been using the last 3 betas of FireFox 3. Absolutely love it. Try the RC version out there.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-rc.html
Hmm, this next phase of browser wars should make for interesting observations about regular folks’ adoption habits re the web. Free, +awesome, +secure Firefox vs free, annoying, insecure, feature-limited IE that you don’t have to do anything to acquire.
lizkdcs last blog post..Crowdsourcing and History (Flickr and the Library of Congress)
I’m trying the beta/rc1 right now… it does seem speedy, especially in Vista, but it’s not very stable with g-mail. I’m sure once the bugs are worked out IE will have a difficult time competing…
I love Firefox too! I confess I began using it because my son told me to. I think many don’t use it because they don’t know about it. Most people use what is on the computer, and go no further.
@John - I’ll check the RC version out, although James saying here that it’s not very stable with gmail might not work for me…….I live on gmail!
@Liz - You make an excellent point and I think the effort to inform people about browser options could/should definitely be stepped up!
@James - thanks for the input re: beta/rc1. How’s Vista treating you?
@Patti - It doesn’t matter HOW you got to Firefox, just that you finally did :-) Great point about people not knowing about Firefox……..
Haven’t used I.E. for awhile. Love Foxmarks, gives me the same bookmarks on all three of my pcs, never have to worry about losing them.
I’ve been using flock for about 3 weeks now. & I Love it. I’ve got it set up to read about 600 feeds which I can sort my subject in my feed tool bar. Whenever I see something I like or that sparks and idea I can click on the Blog button and write up a blog post for it. It integrated with my delicious bookmarks, Google toolbar and stumbleupon. I can install the “Summize” Twitter search in the tool bar. I set up different bookmark groups to open in different tabs to open at once, so if I want E-mail I can click on my “E-mails” Bookmark and open up personal, website and work in different tabs all at once. I also has a “Community” Bookmark to open up Facebook, Twitter, and some forums I post on.
Did I convince you to return to flock yet? LoL
Thanks for linking to my post on Web Browsers. The unfortunate reality is most users aren’t aware they can run several web browsers. Also for someone who isn’t techy savvy installing any program onto their computer is scary.
Sue Waterss last blog post..Full Disclosure: Transparency And Maintaining Trust
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