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More on FireFox 1.0....

I just heard a big push by CNN Radio (CFRA, actually) on all the people who should go to Firefox. It's interesting the way radio goes through the same "media play" that some accuse others of.

Don't get me wrong - Firefox is an amazing browser - but it's only one of numerous others...there's still Opera which offers many of the similar features that FireFox does (and more...including built-in RSS)...

Just did a google (is that a noun AND a verb??!?!?!) and guess what? Firefox is the number one, Opera is number two.... and number three is Netscape, followed by Safari...and so on,....

The more things change...the more they stay the same...

Comments

Ted Roche said…
What's your point, Andrew? FireFox is FREE, as in free to install on every machine in your office, at home, at Mom and Dad's. Free to install on Linux, Mac OS X and Windows. Source code available to tweak on. An open, documented API for add-ons -- and check them out! Cool stuff!

Opera and Safari are great browsers, too, but commercial ones. I own a paid copy of Opera for Windows and have enjoyed its innovative features, including mouse gestures and RSS support. (FireFox has RSS support in the 1.0 version, too, btw.)

Safari is limited to the OS X platform (and is derived from the Open Source KHTML). Opera is wisely diversifying into a micro-browser for PDAs and cell phones, since it's hard to compete with free.

Mozilla and Netscape are still around, too. They offer the full "Communicator" version, with mail, newsgroups, a WYSI (almost) WYG web design tool, and more. In contrast, FireFox (and its sibling Camino on OSX) are intentionally stripped-down for speed, focused on browsing.

But your point? The excitement I see is that the monopoly browser, feature-free for several years now, is actually losing market share, and the competitors are actually making things interesting...
November 10, 2004 at 9:21 AM
Andrew MacNeill said…
My point? It's just that when one company uses the media to push something out, it's propaganda. Yet, when another does it, it's commented on by "pundits" who likely couldn't tell a browser from a regular word document.

I LOVE the fact that FireFox is wide open and you can do tons of things with it. I use it regularly. But I find it amusing that on our local radio station, they are pushing web browsers.

As for a monopoly using market share, hey - let the best browser win....as long as one day, one application written for the web can work on all browsers - I'm a happy person...
November 10, 2004 at 12:04 PM
Andrew MacNeill said…
I know FireFox has RSS support - what I liked about Opera was the way it displays it.

But hey you're right - I just tried subscribing to a page's feed in Firefox and I love what it did to the favorites...another awesome feature...
November 10, 2004 at 12:10 PM
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