ABC news weighs in on the new browser wars
ABC News has an article weighing in on the renewed browser wars in a comparison of the upcoming release of Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. Basically, they say that those with little motivation to move from Explorer will have even less after the release of 7 (the user interface will be similar to the others…tabbed browsing, etc.) He does point out that the other browsers aren’t standing still.
He does say that if you like to tinker Firefox is the solution (extensions/etc.) to which he says this…
Firefox’s huge laundry list of add-ons let you poke and play until you have a browser heavily customized to your personal tastes. That’s a seductive idea, but in practice it requires a fair amount of time and effort.
Opera has many of the features firefox offers as extensions, but has no extension framework. Of course, as the writer points out choice is good for the consumer. Which is one reason I advocate Firefox. I haven’t tried Opera in ages, but may give it a try soon as another alternative.
–update 2:57PM EST–
The article of course is also available at pcworld.com. The Zdnet Web2 Explorer blog checks in on this and thinks the writer doesn’t give enough credit to Firefox for the advantage it will keep over Explorer. (IE 7’s tabbed browsing will not be much more than basic support, the rss support will be minimal.) That also ignores, Firefox’s continued development. (They’re hoping for another major release as early as 6 months down the road.) (Which may be before the IE 7 release).
I think one of the things Firefox needs to continue it’s inroads into Microsoft’s market share is a better way to distribute than downloads. I think I’ve run across some ISP’s offering it on install CD’s for dialup accelerator software/etc.
From my Google Analytics stats…. 53% of my cable/dsl visitors use Explorer, while 55% of dialup users stick with Explorer (realize this is a tech site…) on one of my non-tech sites, the stats are like this…
76.7% of cable/dsl users on the northcarolinagenealogy.net site use Internet Explorer, while 93% of the dialup users are browsing with Internet Explorer.
Obviously, having a fast cable/dsl connection makes a bigger difference for the less tech-oriented. (Tech oriented folks would either wait for a download, or likely find some way to use a high-connection to get/download/burn to disk and install – thoughts that might make some users heads spin.)
Maybe there needs to be a good simple iso of firefox with autorun installer for free distribution? I know there’s the open cd, but that has a good deal other open source software. That might be a good choice.