Comments on: For Firefox, a Challenging Future Awaits

By: Brian’s Brain » Blog Archive » Google Buys On2: The Latest Front In The War Against Adobe, Apple, Microsoft And Mozilla’s Firefox, For You

Fri, 28 May 2010 00:16:11 +0000

[...] My interest was piqued this morning when I saw a TechCrunch alert (followed shortly thereafter by writeups from other folks; Om Malik, The Register, etc) that Google has just acquired On2 Technologies. On2, formerly known as the Duck Corporation, is the developer of the VP series of TrueMotion video codecs, which long-time readers know I’ve written about many times before. And my angle on this acquisition is one that no other commentator I’ve yet seen has taken: following in the footsteps of the Chrome web browser and the Android and Chrome O/S operating systems, Google’s pending direct control over On2 is the company’s latest move to wrest control of the Web from companies such as Adobe, Apple, Microsoft and Mozilla (specifically, the latter’s under-siege Firefox web browser). [...]

By: On Mobile Phones, Firefox’s Big Bet Is Nokia & Android

On Mobile Phones, Firefox’s Big Bet Is Nokia & Android — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:16:48 +0000

[...] For Firefox, a Challenging Future Awaits [...]

By: knuthf

knuthf — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:43:03 +0000

Android should be able to pull it off as long as it has industrial support from Google, that is ready to commit funds to develop it.

It is astonishing how the “Not Invented Here” syndrome is allowed to exist.
Opera is the dominant browser on the mobile platform, as long as it delivers to Nokia and all Symbian platforms. The others are a mere curiosity. And read the article again what is stated about “mobile browsers”.

Opera, has like Android a leg to stand on. It allows its community to contribute with “Widgets” – that can fully use Java and enhance functionality, but it provides the main functionality, including an email browser. So simple things like downloading a file does not require a subsequent search of all disk.
Opera also seems to be the browser that paves the way with new functionality, from tabbed windows, downloading, notes (including “Copy to Note” and “Insert from Note”) – and because of the mobile: the ability to zoom on on what is interesting on the page.

Now, the article address the application that is to be integrated with: “Widgets”. That is available in Opera, with a kit for developing new widgets to interface to other applications.

IE will be loosing share because of the inherent security violations. I am surprised by the number of Internet banking sites that permits IE access. FF is a skeleton, with add-ons that nobody controls style and quality. When will you reflect on the reason for why so little useful software is created in the US? Because, Apple has seen it for years?

By: Takethe5th Picks and Pans » Blog Archive » RWW’s Sarah Perez: Microsoft Hitwoman?

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 17:59:07 +0000

[...] journalism. I can point to browser articles by Jim Rapoza at ZDnet or the long careful pieces by Om Malik at Gigaom as just a few of the much more balanced evaluations of the Web scene and RIA/RAIA [...]

By: Ron Fischler

Ron Fischler — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 01:28:12 +0000

I don’t understand what people are talking about when they say Firefox, (I am running 3.5.1 on Ubuntu,) consumes 500+ MBytes. This has never happened to me since I began running 3.5. It is fast and memory efficient – I don’t understand what others are talking about. It is slow to startup, but I am running about 40 addons.

By: Google Chrome OS & What It Means For Future of Computing

Google Chrome OS & What It Means For Future of Computing — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 15:36:34 +0000

[...] In fact, it almost sounds like a…browser. Which may be the point, since Om argues that the browser is where the action will be in the coming years, and as we consume more of our web experience through apps, a full-fledged [...]

By: Top Posts « WordPress.com

Top Posts « WordPress.com — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 00:07:03 +0000

[...] For Firefox, a Challenging Future Awaits For much of this decade, Mozilla and its Firefox browser were the upstarts, out to beat the big, bad Microsoft and its [...] [...]

By: Colin

Colin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 22:11:30 +0000

Interesting piece Om. What about the revenue generated over the past 5 years by Mozilla and how will this help? Or, will it help them tackle these issues? You’re way closer to this – but given the work I’ve done with them in the past this piece of the puzzle always fascinates me. Did you speak with them about this? Maybe it’s overly reported, I’m not sure, just an interesting angle I think. There is always a lot to discuss in terms of how these respective browsers are engineered, but the fact that Mozilla piped into the search monetization cash flow early has got to still be a big advantage? Maybe not w/ Chrome…

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:32:07 +0000

Asa, I don’t even install extensions and I still have 500+ mb after a few hours. Compared to Chrome (which I like the speed but not the interface), I estimate that Chrome manages memory at about an order of magnitude better. Chrome goes to under 100mb after closing all but one blank tab, but not Firefox.

By: Mishan Aburted

Mishan Aburted — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 15:31:09 +0000

The biggest problem IE had prior to IE8 was _horrible_ Javascript performance. There were worst-cases where pages could take several seconds to run scripts that other browsers executed in less than a second. This has been vastly improved in IE8, but Apple and Google are making big strides and still appear to be faster.

As absurd as it is in many ways, web applications are relying on Javascript on the client, so this needs to run fast. Microsoft’s foot dragging on this is just another example of a monopoly’s complacency. (And my company paid a very big price for it — it actually crossed my mind to sue MS.)