Manage updates with the Download AppJune 18, 2007 5:41 AM PDT
Mozilla exec calls Apple's Safari plan 'duopolistic'
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Lilly made his comments following the Apple CEO's keynote speech last week at the Worldwide Developers Conference, where the Mac maker unveiled a version of the Safari browser designed to run on Windows Vista or XP.
In the speech predicting how Apple would expand its market share, Jobs showed a slide with Safari dominating almost a quarter of the market--a market shared only with a single other browser, Internet Explorer.
Lilly says he doesn't believe that this was an omission or simplification, but instead an indication that Jobs is hoping to steal people who use Firefox and other smaller browsers in order to run a "duopoly" with Redmond.
"This worldview...betrays (Apple's) thinking: it's out-of-date, corporate-controlled, duopoly-oriented...It's not good for the Web. Which is sort of moot, I think, because I don't think this two-party world will really come to be," Lilly said in his blog.
A browser market split exclusively between two companies is the "wrong thing to do" and would cause a dip in end-user experience, as well as ruining participation and engagement, the Mozilla Foundation executive said.
Still, Lilly went on to welcome the latest addition to the browser market. "Another browser being available to more people is good," he said. "I'm glad that Safari will be another option for users...We've never ever at Mozilla said that we care about Firefox market share at the expense of our more important goal: to keep the Web open and a public resource. The Web belongs to people, not companies."
Lilly, however, cast doubt on whether Jobs' two-browser state would come to pass, saying the rise of Wikipedia and Linux suggests that people are no longer content with the "monopolies and duopolies and cartels of yesterday's distribution" led by the big software vendors.
Since Safari for Windows debuted on June 11, it has notched up 1 million downloads. It has also seen a number of security vulnerabilities unearthed, resulting in Apple issuing three patches.
Jo Best of ZDNet Australia reported from Sydney.
See more CNET content tagged:
browser market, Steve Jobs, Apple Safari, COO, market share
82 comments
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Come on, are you serious? Are you honestly that scared of a little competition? Let's be real for a minute. The only reason IE has the dominant market share is because most computer users aren't that computer savvy. Those who are, aren't going anywhere, and will continue to love just about anything other than IE.
Personally, I think this guy needs to sit down and stop making the company that many of us love, look like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum.
Firefox works too well at the moment for me to give it up. There are lots of me, and I'm not interested in Job's "safari".
There's ulterior motives, too, because Jobs plans to have third-party app support on the iPhone STRICTLY through Safari web applications, which naturally won't be compatible with anything else. Devs will be more likely to code such apps, I think, if there's more people using Safari (i.e. who wants to code something that'll only work on a Mac or an iPhone? Waste of time.)
If anything pushes Safari though, I think the iPhone will be it.
the Mozilla guy) is TOTALLY off-base! What a paranoid
schizophrenic view of Apple's Safari for Window's introduction.
Primary reason for Safari going to Windows: iPhone developer
support and growth.
Look at the venue and timing of the announcement. WinSafari
was announced minutes before Steve Jobs talked about iPhone
3rd party apps using Safari and Web 2.0. It's a no-brainer.
I think the real reason Jobs wants to do this is so that more apple software will get into the hands of users, making them more amenable to apple computers in general. Stevie boy, let me tell you... If it weren't for the fact that for some reason or other there are people offering quicktime content, I wouldn't have that thing on my computer. With each update it hijacks my settings, reinstalls itself into my startup folder, the list goes on... Why would I want safari? So it can hijack my preferences too?
I do want to get a mac in the near future. But mac stuff on my XP machine? Nah, not happenin'.
The first part you got right - Jobs wants Safari spread far and wide. BUT... the second half is only a side benefit. The main benefit is to provide a platform for iPhone development and interaction.
HTH a little,
/P
easier to program for the iPhone. Lilly's paranoia betrays his anti-
buisness attitude. Pretty lame.
I believe the reason for Mr. Jobs showing the chart with Safari market share cutting into Firefox and leaving IE "as is" is meant to not offend Microsoft overtly and give them a reason for retaliation. But Microsoft marketing is smart enough to notice that. Safari's entry into the MS Windows boxes is good for web standards adoption and for the average consumer -- besides also providing a develop/test environment for iPhone applications for third party developers. The announcement was made the the World Wide DEVELOPERS Conference after all.
better customization capabilities by use of extensions (e.g., Safari
doesn't even have an option to delete cookies on exit)." i have to
say you missed private browsing feature .... here, from safari help,
oh uninformed n00b "Cookies are deleted when private browsing is
turned off"
`km
going to do is just shift IE a little down the rung for home users.
I don't think it would ever touch the business users.
I work on a Mac at home and I run two browsers depending on
my requirement. Safari is good, but it has it's limitations.
Firefox is amazing, but even it has it's limitations. I use the best
features in both of them. When I worked on a PC at home, I
hated using IE but reluctantly there were still a few things I
found it could do better than Firefox. IE was my last resort for a
few things. If I had a PC at home now, I think using Safari and
Firefox in combination would be a great setup, the same as with
my Mac. I would never use IE again.
The thing is that at work it's a different story. I have to work on
a PC because it's the company standard. I have to use IE
because it's the company standard. A free version of Safari
wouldn't make them want to change that standard, since even
the dependability of Firefox on PC over IE hasn't changed their
minds in all the years it's been available. I don't think my
company is a unique situation. Since the work world seems to
be heavy into Windows, I seriously doubt that Apple is going to
hurt Firefox's percentage of the market in that area. If anything
they'd end up getting the full Mac replacement of the PC before
they'd get the browser market from either IE or Firefox.
has much to worry about. If Safari for Windows is as incompatible
with as many web pages as the Mac version, Windows users will
quickly toss it. Apple is proudly unwilling to bend Safari to
accomodate Explorer-centric sites. This is widely recognized by
Macoholics, but they deny reality and shift the responsibility from
Apple to web designers, defensively calling the problem "Mac
marginalization." Firefox should be distinguished by its
capabilities, not by the political attacks of Mozilla executives.
work with. And often, those sites don't work with Firefox either
because they are completely IE based. Hell, even Yahoo! Music now
works with Safari. I don't know if you have a bunch of specific web
sites that you use but, this is far from my experience.
First, the story in summary, paraphrased of course:
"Oh look! Apple completely wiped out Firefox and other browsers with Safari in their
keynote today, gentlemen, run for the hills! They're plotting an evil duopoly (which is
unbelievably enough, an actual word) with Microsoft."
The reality:
Steve Jobs was editing his keynote and decided it made more sense to wipe out the
small guys with Safari than to try and guesstimate what the new market share values
might look like or to completely wipe out IE from the chart which still has the largest
market share of them all in order to make his point: Apple's browser market share will
go up if they launch on Windows.
Sebastian
agree that people are making too much of this. Leave it to CNet to
make a mountain out of a mole hill. Do you expect the
presentations to not be a little Apple-centric at the Apple Wold
Wide Developer Confrence?
Safari works great on the Mac. I don't have/use Windows, so I have no Earthly idea if it will work well there or not.
That said, even if the Mozilla camp is right, a duopoly beats the hell out of a monopoly. Personally, I think he's miffed that Safari and Mozilla's own spin-off, Firefox, is eating Mozilla's lunch.
/P
I didn't like the way things showed up on the browser, and the first time I used it, the browser crashed within 5 minutes.
I un-installed it right away.
If you want a good reliable browser, just go with Firefox. It's easy to use, and rarely crashes.
DEFINITION - In software development, a beta test is the second phase of software testing in which a sampling of the intended audience tries the product out. (Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet.) Originally, the term alpha test meant the first phase of testing in a software development process. The first phase includes unit testing, component testing, and system testing. Beta testing can be considered "pre-release testing." Beta test versions of software are now distributed to a wide audience on the Web partly to give the program a "real-world" test and partly to provide a preview of the next release."
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://searchsmb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid44_gci211654,00.html" target="_newWindow">http://searchsmb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid44_gci211654,00.html</a>
Opinions on which you like better is just that, you opinion, and your entitled to have and share it. However, I don't think it's fair to slam a beta release.
In fairness, I'm sure that you'll test out the final version when it's released as well, and I'm sure you fully understand that it's a beta release. I just didn't want people who didn't understand the concept of "beta" to come to the conclusion that Safari is no good based on your personal experiences with the beta release.
DEFINITION - In software development, a beta test is the second phase of software testing in which a sampling of the intended audience tries the product out. (Beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet.) Originally, the term alpha test meant the first phase of testing in a software development process. The first phase includes unit testing, component testing, and system testing. Beta testing can be considered "pre-release testing." Beta test versions of software are now distributed to a wide audience on the Web partly to give the program a "real-world" test and partly to provide a preview of the next release."
<a class="jive-link-external" href="http://searchsmb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid44_gci211654,00.html" target="_newWindow">http://searchsmb.techtarget.com/sDefinition/0,290660,sid44_gci211654,00.html</a>
Opinions on which you like better is just that, you opinion, and your entitled to have and share it. However, I don't think it's fair to slam a beta release.
In fairness, I'm sure that you'll test out the final version when it's released as well, and I'm sure you fully understand that it's a beta release. I just didn't want people who didn't understand the concept of "beta" to come to the conclusion that Safari is no good based on your personal experiences with the beta release.
I do hope they steal a huge chunk of IE users, though. That'd be sweet, to break up windows into 3 nearly equal browser market shares. It'd bring the emphasis back to open standards compliance. I also think it would be interesting to see Firefox come up with a webkit variant or add private browsing. We're living in exciting times.
Geeks don't like to be mocked like that.
What else is new...
Sebastian
That being said, to mozilla, stop whining. It reflects badly on you. FF -AND- IE have nothing to fear from Safari. Just download the beta and see why. Its awful.
(yes, they have a windows version now, and it blows chunks)
Does it mean Safari now has an additional 1 million users and the other browsers 1 million less users?
I am one of those who downloaded Safari.
I am also one of those who removed it from the computer within 24 hours of installation.
You see, Safari is not faster than Firefox, Safari is not more functional and not even equal to Firefox, and Safari is not better than Firefox in any way.
In other words, Safari is not Firefox.
Seems I heard that Intel based MACs can run a Microsoft OS. and PC's with Linux can run OSX (illegally?)... But after spending three months figuring out how to get sound to work for Flash on Debian Linux and being completely unable to get Linux running on my iMAC, and months trying to get MS Media Player for MAC to install on OSX Tiger, the mix and match game is too time consuming for my house.
This dog Safari will not hunt. Poachers!
(ICC-aware), a key reason for photographers to run Safari on
Windows.
Proprietary browsers are not about the technology rather they are just pawns in certain companies strategies. What benefit is it to me to use IE or Safari? I am just a number to them.
Open is best and that is why Firefox is the best. Firefox is made by the people and for the people and it is the best of breed too.
been so peachy! The Mac version of Firefox needs quite a bit of
work.
If Safari can strike a similar deal as IE on preloaded computers then it has a chance to increase its market share. And if the iPhone does take off, it too can help increase the Safari marketshare, especially if it is the frontend for any desktop synchronization.
Out of curiosity, I did download the Beta of Safari. It did not hijack my preferences. But it was still too buggy.
IE will continue to have non-geek market share, as long as it is the default browser on preloaded computers. Firefox will have the geek and converted non-geeks market share. Safari will have the iPhone market share.
I still love my Firefox. Nothing can come close to it. It's innovative and lightweight. And it has lots to offer through it's extensions, and add-ons. Everybody I've introduced it to has converted to using it as their primary browser. It can't be beat.
Well.. I mean.. Other than the fact that after 20 years of development, the most common open-source operating system STILL can't install a simple driver for a graphics card without dropping to a command-line.. Or the fact that the most common open-source spreadsheet is still missing a non-linear solver model (but it's still as good as Excel - as long as you don't care about speed)
Come to think of it, I can't really think of any open source software that actually works intuitively and has features users actually want that DIDN'T start off as proprietary software (Firefox is kindof included in that definition, y'know).
Despite the fact that Firefox is tremendously better than IE 6 and has been for a long time, Firefox mind-share and market-share numbers are terrible. Most people don't even know about Firefox. In that respect, Lilly has failed. As a result, Microsoft can still use their IE market share to manipulate internet standards.
Apple is good at marketing and can leverage iTunes. So they can help solve this problem by letting more poeple know that there are browser alternatives besides IE. Some of those people will migrate to Safari and some will migrate to Firefox.
The result is more browser choice for users, and Microsoft will be required to again follow web standards. I don't see a downside.
wasnt to suggest that safari and IE be the only browsers it was to
ILLUSTRATE what percentage of market share apple wanmts. apple
doesnt want FireFox to die, apple wants 25% of the market share. it
was illustrative tool. end of story.`
Km
Fact of the matter is that unless you have some kind of financial or emotional interest in the positions of Microsoft, Apple, or Google/Mozilla, chances are you could care less about whether you click on the compass, the blue E, or the firey globe. In fact, most people don't do any of those, instead accessing the internet by merely calling a URL to the operating system from perhaps some program they have open -- in which case the page opens in the default browser. Further, that default browser was probably not set by the person who is actually accessing the pages.
Yes Internet Explorer has its security issues, and it probably doesn't load pages as fast as other browsers. But its not that much slower, and one thing remains an advantage for the big blue E over any other browser on Windows in that it opens way faster than Safari, Firefox, or Opera -- completely blowing the others out of the water. Same thing holds true for Safari on Mac OS.
And when you get into clicking assortments of URLs for accessing webpages, it suddenly seems to blur the line between "going on the Internet" and "balancing your checkbook", and the company behind the browser suddenly doesn't seem as important as how long you have to sit there and wait for a browser window to open because you clicked on something that references a web URL...
launches faster, I'm supposed to be impressed?
I don't know about you, but most human beings launch their
browser once, then spend the day browsing.
Maybe you're implying that IE is so unstable, that you need to
launch it several times each day?
Dunno, I can't stand it, so I don't use it, but the "faster launches"
bit is the silliest thing I've read all day.
Netscape was killed by MS-IE internet free browser give away & embedment into the Windows OS so deep that even the US DOJ could not pull it apart.
Sour grapes & FUD.
are with the Windows version and not the Mac version, even with an
InputManager Plugin and nightly builds of WebKit in use it's still
very stable and I have yet to discover a bug in it. It's just the
Windows version I hate.
Sebastian
destroying IE's monopoly, and right there the partnership ends.
Apple once considered a Mozilla browser but liked the KHTML
code base because it was smaller and more efficient, the Apple
browser that never was became Camino, and Safari was built
from forked code based on KHTML.
Sebastian
respect, at their respective release dates.
Did the 'Dozer community throw up their hands, then, crying
"Oh NOES, eXplOreR SuXors!" and quit?
Nope.
They sat on their hands at each release, saying "Just you wait! In
a couple years, IE will rock!"
v 1 Sucked, yet they clung to it.
v 2 Sucked, and they said "OMG, v 3 will RULZ teh world!"
3? Sucked.
4 and 5?
Yep. Sucked.
You can just SMELL the fear, listening to the Pro IE crowd, as
they dog this beta, and it's cracking me up.
Do you really think Apple is going to pack up and go home?
You guys clung to IE like there was no tomorrow, year after year,
waiting for IE to "suck less", and by version 6, it kinda did suck a
little less.
So you think a test version of Safari is bad, so what?
There will be Safari 4.
There will be Safari 5.
Ooops, I just answered my own question, didn't I?
'Dozers know what's coming, and they're afraid, because now,
they can look ahead to a future where IE will continue to suck
when compared against everything out there, and they'll be
using their buns as hand warmers again, year after year, looking
like dorks.
:-)
Comments like yours only hurt those chances however. Please let the product stand by itself.
I would say this has a lot more to do with Network and Computer speeds.