Firefox needs heavy hitter Linux power

Good article.

Considering it's really just a simple tool for implementing defined standards it's mad that the nearest we've had to a standard browser was the dog's dinner that was IE6*.

A rock-solid, undeniable standard would benefit almost everyone from the consumer up and would probably cost less for the organisations that have the power to make it happen than the effort currently expended on ensuring the current competing browsers are all adequately supported.

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*That is to say there was a period during which if you made something for general comsumption that was *not* happy in IE6 you were an idiot but if you made something that was *only* happy in IE6 you'd almost certainly get away with it.

I can't belive I'm about to type this.

But what about Opera? It's well received on Andriod and has its many fans on the desktop. Sure, it's not as widely used as Firefox, but it does tend to be more secure and more innovative and people may actually pay for it. Opera also got its name seen by persuading the EU to force MS to allow a browser to be chosen. For a minority player Opera is politically pretty strong, you only have to read some comments on El Reg to see that.

Say what?

Why are you advocating another monoculture? I shouldn't have to explain this one to you.

I wouldn't call firefox "exceptional" either. Not as a community and not as a piece of software; I've looked at the code, and it's not pretty. You know what would be exceptional? A browser that would be equally usable as a desktop build and a mobile build.

But then again the js engines are speeding things up so much that if you don't have it you can only barely use plenty of websites, even if they present nothing that couldn't just as easily have been presented without any JS at all. Certain toolkits are getting noticeably slower possibly because the devs got faster browsers and/or hardware due to widespread "default" including of all and sundry js libraries. But I digress.

But even so, for the sake of argument supposing such a consolidating move makes sense, I think micros~1 is actually the main blocking force. IE is proprietary but there by default on their platform so many a luser won't or can't pick something better. Meaning that just about everyone will have to support it, and since it clearly doesn't do to support only one, and heck the others are so much more quirk-free that it's no real burden, there's no real advantage to pick whichever and make it doubleplus big. Exactly because IE can't be had.

There's a time for everything and the big bandwagoneering moment for browsers died with netscape. I don't think this is bad, per se, but there you go.

Matt is a Chrome user?

Slowly turns my back!

One question, what date do you think it will be when Chrome runs a device sync ala Firefox that stores my personal data in an encrypted format and they release the source, so I can set up my own sync server? I'm guessing 12th of never!

Simple answer

Firefox has a culture problem. It is difficult to whip their developers into a coherent working body. There is plenty of lack in documentation also. Without the large volume of assistance and funding from Google, they might have sunk beneath the waves already.

Opera's position on Linux is very interesting. The browser does not rely on a specific graphics toolkit, and has some ability to inherit system appearance settings. Hardware acceleration is on their roadmap, but I couldn't say whether it will hit the mass market anytime this year. The bold step of opening their own app store is a good move, and it would be even better if this included monetizing apps delivered through the desktop browser. After all the company doesn't care about platform or patents, which should be good for the end user.

I hate to think that Ubuntu is one of the movers in Linux, but we definitely need more competition and compatibility among the consumer applications. It would be great if you could just install Linux itself, then subscribe to various interfaces and app markets. If only the idiots coluld even agree on an installer, bootloader, software package etc.....

"Strategic mistake" - I don't think so!

Why should it be a mistake for a company to have its application running in someone else's browser? Quite the opposite - we all want common standards such as HTML, and all companies want to reach the widest audience. Also users shrink away in instinctive avoidance of proprietary software. I think Matt Asay had a brain-fart today (as he often does).

stuff

Linux may be largely standardised at the CLI end of the stack - but it's not at the higher up application level i.e. gtk vs qt, gnome vs KDE - and of course the likes of Android, with a completely different non-X model.

And in fact, at the level where it is commoditised, there's a lot that is shared with the commercial Unixes and BSD.

Even at the low level, within the kernel, there are often multiple projects covering single features.

Which is a way of saying that standardising on Firefox OR WebKit would be a bad idea. Would we have even seen the iPhone or Android without WebKit? Difficult to say, as Apple and Google would have put effort into improving Firefox, but my understanding is that KHTML was a far better starting point. And of course, KHTML was a Linux project.

But more to the point, we benefit from having healthy competition, even in free software. The 'one true project' approach presumes that the one true project is going to get it right.

(We can now see in retrospect that XUL was a distracting waste of effort).

As for Opera - which seems to have loads of fanbois - my Google analytics say barely anyone hitting our site is using it - in fact, barely any usage from Nokia/Symbian, or Windows Mobile at all - almost all mobile usage is coming from iOS or Android. Which shows the difference between installed base and usage.

(Mind you we're pushing Android users in the direction of Opera due to Google's SVG fail with their webkit build)

Single browser platform on Linux? Hahaha!

Given there are two major desktop environments (KDE and GNOME), plus a handful of smaller ones (e.g. XFCE), what are the chances of the Linux community deciding on a single browser platform? Besides which, most GNOME distros tend to get shipped with Epiphany (Webkit) and Firefox (Gecko) - with the options of Chromium (Webkit) and Midori (Webkit) as well.

Chrome tends to be leaner and meaner than Firefox, but has fewer extensions available. My main gripe with it (apart from extensions) is that it doesn't differentiate between its processes - having a dozen processes labelled "Chrome" doesn't do much to identify which is which.

Firefox has more extensions available, but tends to be a bit of a resource hog. It would be interesting to know the average results of the test pilot studies into resource usage during the FF4 beta programme. Providing info on resource usage amongst extensions could be useful - allowing users to see whether the vast resource usage they're experiencing is due to the browser or the three dozen add-ons they've got installed...

It's a case of 'horses for courses' - and with MS coerced into providing the Browser Choice application which encourages users to download and use alternatives to IE (well, for everything except downloading Microsoft software, which presumably still requires IE), why shouldn't Linux users be allowed a choice of browsers?

Personally, I use both FF and Chrome simultaneously - each has its advantages and disadvantages

memory usage?

If low memory usage is most important, the lynx browser wins. Firefox really does seem abysmal at that, inflating to near 1GB with a days usage. (one or two windows, less than 30 tabs)

Opera seems much better, though not as parsimonious as lynx. But it's worth it for the added features.

I don't know what you are suggesting

I have read this article a few times and still can't decipher what you are suggesting. You would like the open-source community to fork Firefox and start developing its own browser? Or you think companies should focus on funding the development of a single browser in order to consolidate efforts? I don't see how either of these would improve the browser experience for the end-user or for companies producing applications to be run in browsers. The fact that there are at least 5 dominant browsers available, 2 of which are open source, (IE, Safari, Opera, Chromium and Firefox) doesn't mean that they are each "re-inventing the browser wheel", it means they are each competing with each other which drives innovation with each trying to produce "the best" browser. It would be no fun if there was a single competitor entering the "race". Where the community should focus their efforts is with producing open standards and specifications to which producers of browsers should be striving to comply with. The problem at the moment is with IE, safari and chromium defining their own standards which the others then refuse to implement, eg webm vs h.264.