[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Firefox 3.5 Now Available here

[JakeB]

Pete, would you say the general trend for Firefox is increased or decreased market share?
If, for example, Firefox had Internet Explorer's plummeting figures, there'd be justification for saying it's a failing app.
But if your statement is based on one or two- month's drop, then you're not really justified in making such a general statement as 'the company's falling browser market share.'
Another question, Pete; which is faster -- IE 8 or Firefox 3.5? Oh, heck, forget 3.5. How about plain old 3?
That's what I thought.

[browntheodore]

Why don't you use the new icon for the article picture?

[Twaddle]

Arguably when is the biggest improvement in tech journalism? When the Journalist can provide more then reguritating the "features" release statements that is located on the products and then add personal sarcastic remarks instead of a lack of substance. What a journalist should emphasis is that a group of people build this EXCELLENT software for nearly ALL platform that are in exisitence ( BSD, LINUX, and Microsoft, etc.) in over 70 languages for no cost to the consumer. AND they improve it more than five times a year.



To discount, and dismiss a group of peoples work who build free, secure, safe, intelligent software all of internet users of the world ( 2.5+ billion ) just goes to show that PC world still has deep roots in what built this Magizine in the 1980's -- paid advertisers get better reviews.



It is a warm and fuzzy feeling to see PCworld remains on track with what made it. Baised, baseless, low technical knolwege reviews.

[Twaddle]

Are you kidding? A PCWorld tech journalist copy , save, and paste free use icons? Com'on we can only expect and hope for PCWorld to be able to be able to read and barely be accurate when reporting. A friend told me once that he heard from a friend that over heard it on a subway train taht PCworld spent $30K on a four week training session on "the correct way to turn on a computer". Copy , save and paste? You'll have to wait till Windows version 42 for that.

[ccouch]

The new version of Firefox is great! It is way fast than the last version, and I like the new security features too.:)

[etim]

Great! Now I can go explore videobay!

[innercr]

Who gives a st about market share anyway? Firefox is the most used browser in the world and its not a hype. Here's my proof of it: I have a couple of websites hosted by a friendly webhosting service "GatorHost" and whenever I log in to check the stats about my website's visitors, I see Firefox as number one browser used to access my sites, where as number two is IE. What does this tell me? It tells me the truth through numbers, and numbers don't lie. Besides highest grade of security, Firefox offers record number of extensions and add-ons, that no other browser can sport at this given moment. So, to those thinking that its not speedy enough or otherwise - pull your head out of the sand! It works and it works well to get the job done.

[Sleepylazy49ers]

In a few days from now I should know if this version is any better or worse than the previous. So far so good.

[kitsune17717]

I always get news of new software update news from PCWorld. Just like the current MacOS version, or how chrome for mac came out. Good stuff.
I'm reading a lot of outrageously outrageous comments here complaining about how biased the author is or whatever. I have to agree, though, that Firefox has indeed been getting more and more bloated. Heck, the only reason I jumped to firefox in the first place has been because of its speed- when I was on dial-up way back when (5 years ago haha), firefox was a real life-saver because it loaded all of the text first instead of the images. Market share is indeed a good indication of how well the browser is doing. Don't deny the numbers man.
Well, after I post this i'm going to restart my browser and see how good this new version is...

[Twaddle]

Seriously.

If you want to have what you call an "un-bloated" version. Then simply go build it yourself. Take the time and learn how to compile it, it isn't very diifcult. If you can figure out how to put gas in car and operate a car -- you can build your own, private, "un-bloated", version of "firefox".

The "Lizard" ( aka the Mozilla browser) has been freely available to be "home-cooked" since 1996. So the "use" that you are complaining about resides specifically between the keyboard and the chair not the packeged release for mass use.

Lastly, Market share isn't a good example of how a browser is "doing". A factual example of how a browser is doing is "what" new features has been developed by the teams that make it and THEN who copies the ingenuity. Finally, for real market anaylsis - if you have widely sold, poorly tested operating system that comes complete with integrated web browser why does any of this even matter?

[kitsune17717]

I think that market share can be a good indication of how well a new feature is doing in the real world. Sure, in theory the feature in question may be regarded as the next sliced bread, but there are so many other factors that make a software application "good."

If I may use an overused example, IE is a generally capable browser with some well-designed features. I believe it has an anti-phishing feature and multi-process tabs. Then, why is it largely regarded as a peice of bull? Its market share is dropping really fast for a reason.

Likewise, firefox's gain in the browser market has been slowing down in speed. How can one deny that this is proof that popularity in the browser has been leveling off? Sure, one can speculate that a browser is doing something good when competing parties copy the ideas that the original software developers came up with (just like you suggested twaddle). But in the end, that's just a person's opinion. It's up the the masses that decides whether that new feature is really worth the hype.

....and thanks for the suggestion, i shall look into building my own browser. Never really hit me that it would make my browsing experience any faster.

[Twaddle]

Analysis of "market share" from what I can gather from your description is based on collective downloads across the globe in different languages with multiple operating systems that Mozilla supports.(ie ALL the flavors of Linux, all the BSD's ( including MAC OS), and other Unix varities, and finally, current and legacy windows.) This only take into account, complete downloads and unique IP addresses. It does not include the 15 machines that I have in my home network or the 200+ machines that are in a office behind a firewall that uses a single IP to route all FTP or HTTP traffic that download Firefox 3. Also, Microsoft has only one main category of Operating systems to draw from and a minor category of apple, with the integrated browser "phoning home to momma" at every query for "auto updates" and which include a new patch for IE as a "new" download" of IE. so an accurate anaylsis of "market share" is a non-exsistant statistic. Furthermore, "Market share" isn't acurate to what "user agent " string is seen in the wild on web servers. There is no accurate way to assess an accurate count of how many computers are being used and what software is on them across the entire internet. Also there is no way to state "offically" if the browser is what it says it is. i.e. I use Mozilla, but the user-agent string registers as Internet Explorer to web servers.

The best thing you can do is ignore- "Market share" Malarky. It is often biased, wrong, and subsqentially created with a slant by those same type of people who would sell your mother turpintine for a cold remedy in the old days of the wild, wild, west. Though today it's selling you produt statistics based on imaginary statistics that are conjoured up using baseless statistics. Regardless if it is Moziilla, IE, Opera, or Safari ( also mozilla) - the features and usability is what makes or breaks software / hardware . Always has and always will. Market Share means nothing to the user, the value is only to Wall Street, Stock Holders, investors - we all know what they know about technology. Greed.



No worries, Your welcome -- enjoy your own-- Lizard.

[kitsune17717]

This is probably where our arguments did not meet at the correct place. You're thinking "market share" as a percentage derived from the number of downloads of a particular browser. Of course that won't accurately reflect how well the application is being used. I was thinking more along the lines of how many people use the software as their primary browser. Mabye something obtained from a random survey of PC users.... something that acutally means something. Now it seems that you're saying that "market share" is always BS or whatever, I agree to that to a certain degree. Figures given by companies that aim to promote their product by making it sound that everybody's downloading their stuff, etc etc. But i'm pretty sure there are some trustworthy figures produced by neutral parties out ther that accurately portray the popularity of each browser. Just somewhere.



I also didn't know that you can change the user agent string. You are quite the grease monkey. Seems like you just joined the forums, I would like to welcome you here and hope your introduction wasn't too harsh ;).

[Twaddle]

To blindly assume that there are such utopian testing facilties, that runs without human interaction and are soley based on mathematics that will derive statistical and conclusive random samplings that are error free would be a profound statement. Though I will conceed that the evils of man rarely show up in societies. Grease Monkey? If it was made by a human, Another human with effort can understand it, duplicate it, and possibly improve it.



My main point is simple. PC world - is biased, has been, and will be. This is due to a simple, easy -to -understand facts:



1. The journalists who write for it are not technically sauvy enough to write intelligently on the subject matter.

2. See #1



And far as being "Harsh" - "Sugar coating" leads to complacency, misinformation and weakness.