Firefox May Already Be Dead

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This is proof positive that you can’t read a headline like this and not click the link. Any time you declare a popular web browser like IE or Firefox “dead,” you are stirring up a hornets nest.

I think Firefox has lost the plot. This is a British phrase, and I'm not sure it's used widely in the US, so perhaps it requires some explanation. But it's not hard to work out. It implies a blind dedication to something questionable. If a car owner becomes obsessed with tricking out his vehicle, to the extent of wiping out his kids' college fund to raise the cash, then he might be described as losing the plot.
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Oh, no... They're blindly dedicated to making a web browser that doesn't suck... It's dead!!!

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
I never liked FF. I don't know why. It just never sat well with me.

I highly doubt it's dead or even going to die. But Chrome is here, and Chrome rocks too hard to be ignored. People don't want tricked out browsers. We want FAST browsers. (That being said, I do wish I could turn shockwave/flash off in chrome LOL).
 
Been using FireFox for years now, never had any problem with it. Faster than IE and does everything I need it to, with some really nice extensions. I don't know how anyone can say it's, "dead," when they continue to fix and update it constantly. :rolleyes:
 
DrVal said:
(That being said, I do wish I could turn shockwave/flash off in chrome LOL).
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Careful there, DrVal. I've seen Kyle get very irate when the discussion turned to flash blocking. He posted something along the lines of, "Thanks for f***ing my business out of ad income...". A mod (MajorDomo?) locked the thread before anyone could reply. Wise move. =)

I see his side of it, but I can't stand all that distracting animation, either. I'm betting future extensions/add-ons/options/whatevers will come along for Chrome to do what people want.
 
LMAO, this idiot probably just ran Futuremark's Peacekeeper bench, and was wowed by the higher numbers.

Higher benchmark must mean better performance, right?! /sarcasm
 
Slow is relative, on a Pentium 200 it will be slow.
Given that we now have very powerful systems, they have no problem at all running a fully laden browser with lots of niceties installed.
Another internet spam article.
 
Oh boy. This guy better be ready for the now inevitable onslaught of criticism from the Firefox devotees.

But does he realize that speed is not the sole criteria in judging a browser? I use Firefox over Chrome for one reason only: extensibility (okay, maybe 2 because I think google could grow to be the dreaded Skynet). Speed is nice, but not at the expense of usability.

That said, I'd be willing to bet that it's much easier to implement customization features than it is to strip the program down to speed it up. Of course, there's the question of what effect expanding Chrome will have on its speed. This guy is obviously the expert, while I'm... a nobody. But yeah, perhaps the software industry too suffers from genetic dispositions; a la Netscape.
 
the extension/add-on/plug-in scheme of firefox is what is keeping it very much alive and strong. This guy is a douche.
 
I guess someone figured that since its a slow news day to start up something.
 
I'm not comfortable with Google watching and taking note of everything I do on the web, which I why I will never use Chrome.
 
Firefox will never die as long as it's the only browser with ABP... (disclaimer: which I disable when I surf [H])
 
Well speed isn't everything, it's important, but FF also have easy extensions like adblock, noscript and what have you. Safari is fast to use but slow to start just like iTunes is compared to foobar or winamp. Considering I have a habit of closing firefox and open it again every 2 minutes (yeah I know it's a bad habit it's like opening the fridge 5min after you closed it and hope you'll find something new) start up is important.
 
Personally, I never have found Firefox to be 'slow' - yes, on extremely heavy java pages I can imagine there might be a few seconds here or there between browsers, but as long as it's not IE I find most browsers are fairly comparable unless you sit at your PC with a stop watch.

And Firefox's big popularity isn't just due because "it's fast" - that's by and large Chrome's gimmick, and it's only one that I can see at the moment. People love Firefox because it's a faster browser, and it offers a lot of extensions and custom app support.
 
I use FF because it Has good add on's. I have to web apps at work that only run In IE6 so within firefox you can designate what Browsers open what Page. So all My IE6 pages open in a IE6 tab within Firefox.

I also have the tablet for the main page so my top 12 sites are shown.

But in terms of Speed Chrome takes the cake for now I'm sure both IE and FF have taken note and are working to match speeds. In Microsoft Sharepoint I get much faster speeds using chrome over IE and FF.
 
Granted I don't surf the same webs as everyone else, but I've never really noticed Chrome's vaunted "speed" over Firefox. In launching it, sure, but in page loads? Not really. YMMV.
 
I love FF but I have to agree with the author. At this point I am using FF only for web development and both Safari 4 and Chrome simply work better for daily use and both blazingly faster.

If think pages loading a few seconds faster doesn't matter you are kidding yourself. The more tabs you have open the more impatient I get with a slow browser and right now FF is the slowest kid on the block.

Aside from being slow, how does FF survive in the future in Chrome comes out of beta and Google really starts to push it and its online apps. At some point, Google is going to cut off the cash supply.
 
I like how he says: "[Chrome] It's just infinitely better." Care to share some benchmarks showing infinity? :p
 
Chrome is fast. There's no doubt about that but visibily faster when rendering a page? No way. The sandboxing of each tab is very nice as well. And their layout is very nice. But the EULA still sucks in certain places. Google is just grabbing more information about your browsing habits. Plus there aren't any add-ons to give me the features I want.

Firefox 3.0.7 is configured right how I want it and thanks to things like Chromifox and a few other add-ons I get all the functionality minus the sandbox in Firefox that Chrome offers. Tell me again why I want to switch? :p
 
:mad: I like firefox alot :D, I never use IE now as vista doesn't use IE for updates :). oh well.
 
I'm still holding to my position that the author saw the numbers for the Futuremark "Peacekeeper" bench - and voila, author thinks FF is dead. In my case, I just installed Chrome to see the bench numbers:

1680 - Chrome
1083 - FF 3.1b3

*and lol at Futuremark's choice in the benchmark name.
 
uop_apisdn said:
Careful there, DrVal. I've seen Kyle get very irate when the discussion turned to flash blocking. He posted something along the lines of, "Thanks for f***ing my business out of ad income...". A mod (MajorDomo?) locked the thread before anyone could reply. Wise move. =)

I see his side of it, but I can't stand all that distracting animation, either. I'm betting future extensions/add-ons/options/whatevers will come along for Chrome to do what people want.
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Well to be honest, I could care less about the animations.

It just uses up CPU while I game, and slows my personal laptop down. It also raises the temperature by sitting there clocking on my mineral oil fishtank PC.

My work laptop can sit and take up CPU usage all day, I have test machines and other PCs I use for my actual work, my work laptop is more of just a client into my domain than anything else.


But when my FPS goes from 60 to 10 because I went to allakhazam or something to look something up, Flash/SW must DIE.
 
I have used them all and come to discover that Safari 4 is rediculously fast. further more out of FF and Chrome(including the dev build 2.0.170.0) and with he exception of Opera 10, it's the only browser to nail 100 on acid3, you say speed is not important, no standards compliance is more important then all of it. Fortunately Safari offers all of it, and it's a pretty nifty browser, and I hate apple with a freaking passion, so don't call fanboy either.

And about google's watch over, dude 90% of the shit you do now watches over you, you just dunno it, try reading some of the terms and agreements you check off one of these days lol. While I was drawn in by FF3.1's reasonable speed compared to Opera 10, and a fair score of 93/100 acid3 and it's customization options. I've discovered they're irrelevent and chrome and Safari both get what i need done, faster, period. And they don't use the 80-200MB FF does to do it ;) My 2 cents
 
Saw this at the bottom:
Keir Thomas is the award-winning author of several books on Ubuntu, including Ubuntu Pocket Guide and Reference.
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Oh thank you for your oh so reputable opinion, master of Ubuntu Linux. You are a useless scumbag and your opinion value of a Windows Internet browser is laughable at best.
 
Vercinaigh said:
I have used them all and come to discover that Safari 4 is rediculously fast. further more out of FF and Chrome(including the dev build 2.0.170.0) and with he exception of Opera 10, it's the only browser to nail 100 on acid3, you say speed is not important, no standards compliance is more important then all of it. Fortunately Safari offers all of it, and it's a pretty nifty browser, and I hate apple with a freaking passion, so don't call fanboy either.
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ya, and with Safari, you get the added bonus of being the worlds most insecure browser.
 
Err, I'll take a native Windows browser (Chrome) over an Apple app any day. And considering I'm not the biggest Google fan, that says something.
 
Well. I will agree that Google Chrome is faster. However, I don't use it because of the lack of extensions.

Firefox is slower however I still use this because of all the nice extensions for it.

I can tell a speed difference between chrome and firefox when testing my javascript intensive application.

However firefox suppose to be improving their javascript rendering so the speed will be faster for those type of web apps.

So far google chrome doesnt have anything special to offer me enough for me to switch. Firefox when it came out offered a whole lot more compared to IE.
 
Speed is great, I love riding my motorcycle but it sucks riding in the rain, on really cold days, and when you have to do things like grocery shopping.

Utility, speed, usability require balance, a total focus on any one thing results in a lack in the others.

I like FF for the flash blocking, tab settings, and all the other little things that GC and IE do not have.
 
Wasn't there an issue with Chrome leaving quite a few background processes open and always running in the background?
 
Chrome is nice - I have it on both my Windows and (through Crossover) Linux boxes.

I still fall back to Firefox and it is because of the extensions. Foxmarks lets me keep one set of passwords and bookmarks across all my machines. I like that. I don't have the same capability on Chrome, so that's strike one.

Another factor is ads: Not so much the regular banner, top or side ads. They're usually fine. The odd one's annoying but I can deal with that. However, I can't stand Intellitext. I REALLY hate that stuff with the double underlined links that always get in the way.

Firefox lets me get rid of that.
 
DrVal said:
I never liked FF. I don't know why. It just never sat well with me.

I highly doubt it's dead or even going to die. But Chrome is here, and Chrome rocks too hard to be ignored. People don't want tricked out browsers. We want FAST browsers. (That being said, I do wish I could turn shockwave/flash off in chrome LOL).
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Speak for yourself..I would rather have a far more customizable browser, then one that is insignificantly faster. Sorry but I used chrome and it was good, but it didn't "wow" me. 99% of the time I can't even see the speed difference, the other 1% I could care less. Add on's are far more important to me then a fraction of a second for load ti me. Chrome and Safari are just one trick pony's at this time. If they manage to change that at a later point I will try them again.
 
SGalbincea said:
I'm not comfortable with Google watching and taking note of everything I do on the web, which I why I will never use Chrome.
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Sabrewulf165 said:
Firefox will never die as long as it's the only browser with ABP... (disclaimer: which I disable when I surf [H])
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You both need to try "Iron", which is produced by a company called SRWare.

Latest is 2.0.168.0.

They have a portable version (for USB thumb drives) as well.

The purpose of their browser (based on Chromium source) is to strip out all the Google-ness (calling home to google, or anywhere else!) and make it as private as you want it to be. They've also added AdBlock into the browser by default; all you have to to is add the adblock.ini from their site in to the program directory.

Works like a charm, no link to Google, and ABP integrated. It's been out for quite a while, but I'm always surprised no one is talking about it.

-S
 
Dekoth said:
Speak for yourself..I would rather have a far more customizable browser, then one that is insignificantly faster. Sorry but I used chrome and it was good, but it didn't "wow" me. 99% of the time I can't even see the speed difference, the other 1% I could care less. Add on's are far more important to me then a fraction of a second for load ti me. Chrome and Safari are just one trick pony's at this time. If they manage to change that at a later point I will try them again.
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I guess I just don't get why anybody would want to trick out their browser. It's a browser, it's there to browse the internet. Who cares if there's banner ads? And I haven't seen an actual pop-up ad in forever.

Why do I want my browser to control winamp and tell me the temperature outside?

And on that note. Why for the love of all things that are holy WHY is Google/Yahoo/etc toolbars still around? Who uses these things, and WHY? How hard is it to use the search menu or, I know it's hard, but just going to www.google.com... is it that hard? Make a shortcut, you've added 1 extra click.
 
Vercinaigh said:
I have used them all and come to discover that Safari 4 is rediculously fast. further more out of FF and Chrome(including the dev build 2.0.170.0) and with he exception of Opera 10, it's the only browser to nail 100 on acid3, you say speed is not important, no standards compliance is more important then all of it. Fortunately Safari offers all of it, and it's a pretty nifty browser, and I hate apple with a freaking passion, so don't call fanboy either.

And about google's watch over, dude 90% of the shit you do now watches over you, you just dunno it, try reading some of the terms and agreements you check off one of these days lol. While I was drawn in by FF3.1's reasonable speed compared to Opera 10, and a fair score of 93/100 acid3 and it's customization options. I've discovered they're irrelevent and chrome and Safari both get what i need done, faster, period. And they don't use the 80-200MB FF does to do it ;) My 2 cents
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My 2 cents is that I don't give a **** about "80-200MB" as I have 8 gigs of RAM and 150x that much HDD space... ad-free webs FTW :p

But seriously, I get your point. Everybody has preferences and fortunately for all of us there is healthy competition in the browser market these days that allows each of us to have our cake :)
 
DrVal said:
I guess I just don't get why anybody would want to trick out their browser. It's a browser, it's there to browse the internet. Who cares if there's banner ads? And I haven't seen an actual pop-up ad in forever.

Why do I want my browser to control winamp and tell me the temperature outside?

And on that note. Why for the love of all things that are holy WHY is Google/Yahoo/etc toolbars still around? Who uses these things, and WHY? How hard is it to use the search menu or, I know it's hard, but just going to www.google.com... is it that hard? Make a shortcut, you've added 1 extra click.
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I think you're greatly overstating things. "Most people" (at least I'd imagine most people on this forum) don't "trick out" their browsers to such extremes. And less knowledgeable people will always find ways to show the weather on their computers be it via browser extensions, weatherbug, or whatever other flavor-of-the-moment their chain-email buddies send them. I use Firefox 3.0.7 with Adblock Plus (disabled on [H], don't kill me! :D ) and a couple of very minor cosmetic extensions that disable some FF features I don't like. Hardly what I would call "tricking out" my browser.
 
negated said:
You both need to try "Iron", which is produced by a company called SRWare.

Latest is 2.0.168.0.

They have a portable version (for USB thumb drives) as well.

The purpose of their browser (based on Chromium source) is to strip out all the Google-ness (calling home to google, or anywhere else!) and make it as private as you want it to be. They've also added AdBlock into the browser by default; all you have to to is add the adblock.ini from their site in to the program directory.

Works like a charm, no link to Google, and ABP integrated. It's been out for quite a while, but I'm always surprised no one is talking about it.

-S
Click to expand...

Quite interesting... will definitely give that a spin.
 
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