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Weblog:   Is IE 7 a Firefox Killer?
Subject:   Check in with Scott Berkun
Date:   2005-09-16 12:27:08
From:   pgralla
Response to: Check in with Scott Berkun

I'm not "cheering for IE" --- I'm just stating a fact. In order for Firefox to survive, it has to be far superior to IE, because of Microsoft's marketing muscle, and the fact that IE comes installed on every Windows PC in the world.


I'm a big fan of Firefox and use it and recommend it all the time, and would like to see it thrive --- I've written that frequently. But ignoring the fact that IE will squash Firefox unless it's far superior to IE isn't the way to help Firefox --- telling the truth is.

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  • Check in with Scott Berkun
    2005-09-18 17:43:32  linuxadmin234 [View]

    But ignoring the fact that IE will squash Firefox unless it's far superior to IE


    Hang on a minute, in what way is it a proven fact that IE will 'crush' Firefox? Even if IE7 is much better there will probably always be a percentage of Windows XP/Vista users who use Firefox out of distrust and dislike of IE.


    Not to mention that for everybody running Linux and versions of Windows before XP (that's a lot of people) IE7 doesn't even come into the equation, wether its superior to firefox or not. Anyway Mozilla isn't a commercial company, its an open source project, so even if it was only Linux users who used Firefox it would still keep going.
  • Check in with Scott Berkun
    2005-09-17 18:42:29  slogan621 [View]

    As an ex-Netscape employee (4.5 thru 7.1), I can tell you, it's all about distribution. We didn't lose because we were better or worse, we lost because people are resistant to change, and opt to stick with defaults more often than not.

    Scott is right, you can have a superior product (after all, Netscape and Mozilla were cut from the same cloth, and Firefox is largely just a progression of the Mozilla codebase with a different UI (a very small part of the codebase is devoted to that) and some of the component-based apps removed) and still lose.

    Your best bet for Firefox domination is going to be outside of Windows: getting the Linux desktop people to focus on a single standard and working to replace Windows systems on the desktop is going to do much more to get people using Firefox, because you will be controlling the default, and/or getting Dell or HP or other system vendors to install Firefox and make it the default browser.

    People aren't going to install Firefox on their own, most don't know the difference between it and IE, may not even care about the differences, and wouldn't know how to switch anyway. It will have to be forced on them to succeed. Netscape is proof of that.
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