Your parents are not your friends. If they were, they wouldn’t give you money.
Been a while since I’ve heard this one.
Hard to believe he sings for Slipknot as well.
Source: SoundCloud / guilpessoa
Browser Evolution
Being a big supporter of Open Source applications for years now, I was hit with a dilemma when Google launched Chrome. I am a loyalist to both Mozilla and Google, but now that they are competing, what was I to do?
I decided to stick with Firefox, keeping Chrome as my secondary browser(for those times when you in a hurry and need to quickly look-up something). But one eye was always on Chrome and it’s developments. It wasn’t until a month ago that I decided, like many before me, to switch, and I want to share why.
Firefox was the pioneer in browser security, customization and speed. It could do no wrong wrong. From fast boot times, to tabbed browsing, to a massive collection of addons. It was so extremely flexible that it even spun off a music player based on it.
Geeks, Web Developers, New Users - Everyone loved it.
For years, every time I re-installed my OS, or used someone’s computer that ran IE, first thing I’d do was install Firefox. I even got my dad(who is incidentally a big Microsoft fan) to switch and few days later, he reluctantly agreed he loved it.
It peaked at a whooping 47.9 % of the browser market in July 2009(Source - w3). Currently they only account for 37.1% of the market. A big chunk of which has been stolen by Google Chrome.
I’m not entirely sure what happened between then and now, but innovation was lost. They seem as if they are sort of giving up.
I’ve always believed that with competition, comes innovation. As seen with the iPhone and Android. Mozilla seems to have just moved on to other things, like their Boot 2 Gecko mobile platform.
They have had stuff like Ubiquity. I’m not sure if you’ve used or even heard of this add on, but it was part of Mozilla Labs. It basically allowed you to type out commands in simple English and your browser would do it. It was wonderful. I don’t know why Mozilla decided to not pursue it. Infact, I stayed on 3.5 for a very long time even though 4.0 came out just so that I could continue using Ubiquity.
Firefox’s Android app was also very underwhelming. Considering how long it’s been out there. Chrome beta for Android came out recently and I find that a lot more stable than Firefox android, further nudging me toward chrome.
Firefox sync was a killer feature for me and I still believe Firefox’s awesome bar beats Chrome’s unified address and search bar. But Firefox sync is also hit and miss. A lot of times it just fails to sync. Chrome on the other hand, has picked up on Firefox’s failures and improved on it. Chrome’s sync just works now. You sign into chrome with your Google account, and voila. Everything is there across all your machines. While I understand that Google has a much larger server backing, Mozilla needs to buck up if they need to stay relevant.
I REALLY wish Mozilla would give me a reason to switch back. I really do. But as of now, I see no inclination from their side besides just bumps to their version number.
