With 3.5 launch, Firefox faces new challengers

A funny thing to happened to Firefox on the way to vanquishing Internet Explorer: the Mozilla browser's success opened the door for a host of its other competitors.

Even as Internet Explorer's market share has slipped--down a dramatic 8 percentage points to 65.5 percent in about the last year--Firefox programmers face a surprising question: should they be more worried about the programmers in Redmond, Wash., or about those working on Apple's Safari, Google's Chrome, and Opera?

Firefox has gained about 3 percentage points to 22.5 percent in market share, according to Net Applications' statistics since July 2008, and Firefox backer Mozilla doubtless hopes for more gains with Tuesday's release of Firefox 3.5. But Apple's Safari and Google's Chrome each gained 2 percentage points, to 8.4 percent and 1.8 percent, respectively, indicating a growing appetite for alternatives to Internet Explorer that's not completely met by Firefox. Opera stayed flat at about 0.7 percent.

In short, Firefox isn't the only scrappy underdog in town, and Firefox fans' easy us-versus-them polarization is transforming into a more complicated multilateral equation.

Having other IE challengers helps legitimize Firefox, because the idea of straying from the IE fold appears more legitimate, but the alternatives also collect some of the new users venturing farther afield. For its part, though, Mozilla likes to see the glass as half full.

"One of our biggest challenges is helping people to understand that they have a choice about their Web browser, and how big a difference that choice can make," Firefox director Mike Beltzner said. "Every release is an opportunity for us to bring improvements directly to our growing user base, but also help many users indirectly by putting pressure on Microsoft to improve their product as well."

Version 3.5 has been, relatively speaking, long in the making. It began its life as what was intended to be a quick and modest upgrade to Firefox 3.0, but the version number expanded along with Mozilla's ambitions for the software.

And it is indeed an important release, both because of competitors and because of new Firefox 3.5 features.

What's in it for users?
Firefox 3.5 has a host of improvements, some the sort of thing people can notice immediately and some plumbing improvements that could help the Web in the long run. With a release in 70 languages, a lot of people will be able to try

Under the covers but providing a direct benefit is TraceMonkey, the new engine that runs Web page programs written in the common JavaScript language. That will mean Web applications such as Google Docs get faster today and, if JavaScript speed improvements continue, more sophisticated tomorrow.

Weave is a project to synchronize many browser settings across multiple versions of Firefox, on PCs and mobile devices.

(Credit: Mozilla)

Another feature people might appreciate directly is private browsing mode, which erases evidence on your computer of where you've taken your browser. It's flippantly called porn mode, but it also can be useful to keep your boss from knowing what you've been up to while on company time or searching for Valentine's Day gifts. Along with private browsing goes the ability to excise particular sites or recent activity after the fact, too--though it should be noted that none of these options erase your fingerprints from the servers you visited.

Mozilla also is excited about HTML video, which makes it possible not only to embed video in Web pages without using plug-ins such as Adobe Systems' Flash Player, but also to have that video interact with other elements on the Web page. That's not likely to revolutionize the Web in the short term, especially because of prickly issues regarding file format support, but it could help in the long run.

Design fans will be excited about embeddable fonts that can spruce up Web pages, though typeface designers might be leery of yet another avenue for unlicensed copying of their work.

Deeper down, Firefox 3.5 also adds HTML 5 storage abilities to help make Web applications work when offline, "Web Workers" to let Web applications work on tasks in the background without the user interface bogging down, and improvements to standards such as CSS and SVG for better graphics. And a geolocation function can let Web sites know where you are, handy for maps and other local services.

Collectively, it's an important foundation, though just getting them into version 3.5 is only the first step. Firefox users tend to update relatively swiftly, but they're still a minority on the Web, and Web programmers tend to wait for some critical mass before they can afford to support the latest browser features.

Fending off rivals
Competitors aren't standing still. Chrome was missing many important features such as bookmark management when it launched in September, but Google has rapidly been fleshing out the product, including the addition of rough Mac OS X and Linux versions in May. Also notably, Google has continued to drive its V8 JavaScript engine ever faster, and Chrome's extensions mechanism is rapidly maturing.

Meanwhile, Apple released Safari 4 in June for both Windows and Mac OS X. Safari uses much of the same WebKit engine for rendering Web pages that Chrome, but it uses a different JavaScript engine, called Nitro by Apple and Squirrelfish Extreme at WebKit. Apple is loudly banging the "fastest browser" drum for Safari, and though the claim is grand, it does spotlight that performance is a major issue in today's browser competition.

Don't view Firefox developers as complacent, though. Performance improvements are a top priority in the successor to Firefox 3.5, called Namoroka, including fast launch speed, a present Chrome advantage. The new version is scheduled for release in early to mid-2010.

A host of other improvements also are under development. Among them:

• Weave is a project to synchronize bookmarks, passwords, preferences, and other settings across multiple browsers, including the mobile version of Firefox, code-named Fennec. Weave also can sync personas, another new feature that lets people customize Firefox's appearance.

• A project called Electrolysis is designed to improve isolation between different tabs and between plug-ins and tabs, improving security and reliability.

• Jetpack is designed to be a new framework for add-ons that can be developed using Web page design standards. That's the same approach Google chose for Chrome extensions.

• People use more and more tabs, and tab management is tougher, so work is under way to address the issue--perhaps with an automatically expanding or contracting tab list on the left edge of the browser instead of on a strip along the top.

• Snowl is a system that tries to unify messaging operations, whether messages originate from e-mail, Web forums, RSS feeds, social networks, or other sources.

• Ubiquity is designed to let Firefox interpret a wide range of formal or informal text commands, turning the browser into a more general window on the world.

Also, Firefox has some incumbent advantages of its own--enough market share that Web developers need to test their sites for Firefox compatibility and a range of add-ons to customize the browser, for example. Those are strong enough to keep people from rapidly switching away even if they're trying other browsers, too.

So yes, Firefox has abundant new competitors. But it hasn't been pushed aside.

[AppleProLeo]

Every browser should just adopt WebKit as the rendering engine so we can have ONE web standard and be done with it. That way no mater what browser we use all web pages will look the same.

That way browser was won't be as annoying which is what it is in it's current form.

[AppleProLeo]

Sorry that's....

That way browser wars won't be as annoying which is what it is in it's current form.

[eklectiqred]

Yes and we should all use the same computer, with the same operating system, wear all the same clothes and drive the same car. That world would be so much better!

Seriously, real web standards are defined by the W3C and it's all that really matters. We need multiple rendering engine and we need multiple browsers. Choice is what helps us be an individual. Competition is what makes good and innovative products.

[codynews]

If webkit is such a bad standard (or to be fair, you suggested that any single standard is bad) then why is or should W3C be the be-all-end-all of what is a "web standard"?

At first you compare everyone using WebKit to a 1984 utopia of brown clothes and conformity, then right after you suggest the same thing with W3C.

Cody

[mbenedict]

@codynews:

You're thoroughly confusing a PRODUCT vs. a STANDARD. Those are two very different things.

And whatever the Apple lemmings tell you, WebKit is far from being the best rendering engine. Look at WebKit's bug tracker, there are thousands and thousands of open bugs. It's good to have competition from Presto, Gecko, even Trident, etc.

[SJ2571]

"we should all use the same computer, with the same operating system" -- that's what made the Commodore 64 the massive success that it was. When it comes to PCs, a single standard that works the same for all, is the best solution. Choice just makes everything incompatible and unwieldy.

[wshun0]

If you guys want to destroy webkit, then please use it as a standard.

Setting standard is a long and tedious political process involving many parties. Once a standard is set, it is supposed to be followed by every party. That's why W3C works so slowly.

Do you think programmers can withstand such a long and tedious process to add new features to webkit?

[wshun0]

If you guys want to destroy webkit, then please use it as a standard.

Setting standard is a long and tedious political process involving many parties. Once a standard is set, it is supposed to be followed by every party. That's why W3C works so slowly.

Do you think programmers can stand such a long and tedious process to add new features to webkit?

[codynews]

@mbenedict: I'm an end user, so I don't care about "webkit" or anything else. That's all behind the scenes stuff. I just use the BROWSER. How it works is not important to me.

I was just making the point that who made W3C in charge of the web? Not that I have anything for or against them... But if someone is going to say we shouldn't all follow what webkit says/does, why wouldn't the same apply to W3C.

I get the difference between products and standards but one could argue that some products become defacto standards which is why I compared the two.

[wshun0]

Oops! Not familiar with the system. Correct a typo becomes create a separate comment.....

[eklectiqred]

@codynews
You obviously didn't understand my point. I'm not saying that using WebKit is bad, I'm saying that every browser using the same engine is. Also, as mbenedict pointed out, WebKit is a product, not a standard. The W3C is a consortium of people and organizations that work toward establishment of web standards. Anybody is free to join and bring their point of view to the table. This is how real standards are established. A wshun0 said, it can be a really long process but I think its worth it. Not to be rude but if you don't know anything (nor do you care) about it, maybe you should have simply let this one go...

[FF2009]

Firefox, Chrome and Opera are all good browser, but I choose Firefox just for the fact that it has add-ons i need to get online....Adblock-Plus and Noscript is a must have

[JimMcGale]

Why the reluctance on an official x64 bit browser?

[Shankland]

Mozilla is working on 64-bit Firefox for Mac OS X, but the 64-bit Windows version seems to be a pretty low priority. I was a little surprised by how far down the list it was too, but it is true that a huge number of people haven't switched to 64-bit operating systems, that a browser isn't terribly likely to be constrained by huge memory needs, and that adding new versions to test is a very complicated and expensive operation.

[karpenterskids]

That's good news for me, a Mac user!
A x64 bit browser would be AMAZING.

[Windywoo]

A 64bit browser wouldn't see huge benefits at all. Rendering webpages is not processor intensive, there would be no visible benefits to a 64 bit version.

[Seaspray0]

A 64 bit browser is already been done. The 64 bit versions of windows do come with 64 bit versions of IE. They also come with the 32 bit version of IE. That's important because some plugin's like flash to not yet make a 64bit version. So, if you want to render a flash, you need the 32 bit IE. Windywoo is correct, there really isn't much of a benefit in performance when comparing the 64 bit against the 32 bit version.

[Mergatroid Mania]

That's really too bad. With Windows 7 coming out soon, and the large number of people who are already starting the migration, you'd think the Mozilla/Firefox people would be smart about it and have a 64 bit Windows 7 version of Firefox available when people were changing over. Give them one more reason to make the switch so to speak.
I thought the Firefox people were smarter than that. Guess not...

[El_Segfaulto]

Even if you are running Windows 7 in 64 bit you will still have the option to run 32 bit software. Having a 64 bit browser is like having a 64 bit terminal. Eventually it will come, but as has been noted above it simply isn't as power intensive as graphics and audio programs and so isn't that big a deal. If I were a Mac user I'd be more up-in-arms on Adobe's lack of 64 bit applications than Mozilla's.

[Michichael]

It's a browser. Why does it need to be x64? Name one web-based application now or in the next 5 years that is going to use enough resources to warrant a 64 bit browser. By the time we get to that point we probably won't be using 64-bit any more :P

[nasserd]

This is one of the most poorly-written articles CNET News has published in the past month. It's almost getting to InfoWorld caliber "professional" writing.

[ibelieve01]

I notice in the section, FENDING OFF RIVALS, you talk about all the things that Chrome and Safari have done recently, but failed to mention what Opera has done....even though what Chrome and Safari have done pales in comparison to Opera's strides. They've just released three betas for OPERA version 10, which includes graphical tabs (the ability to turn your tabs into thumbnails of the tabs' contents that stay on rather than just being on when you hover over them), Opera Unite, which turns the browser into a server, Opera Turbo, which makes the browser run fast even on slow connections, and other tweaks such as the ability to customize Speed Dial, a new and better spell check, etc.

[Endbringer]

That's probably because Opera only has 0.7% of the market share. That's not enough to justify to developers to consider it, yet. Doesn't mean it's not a good browser or whatever, but it just doesn't have enough of a base to be considered a true contender.

[Seaspray0]

And why do you expect every browser article to mention one that's only used by 0.7% of people? Be realistic, ibeleive01.

[FKname]

It's right to mention Opera -- maybe some lazy developers won't consider it, but every journalist should, and this one missed the boat.
After that start mentioning that its in the Wii and many high-end regular and smart cellphones - and can be added to plenty of devices. It's much more ready for prime-time, and broader in its focus, than most of the competition.
All the Wii and cellphones must put the number at 0.8 (at least...).

Opera browser has plenty to make it article worthy - it seems cnet is saddling us with lazy journalists to keep the lazy developers company.
--

[lucid oldie]

I have been disappointed with the speed of Firefox 3 and uninstalled it. I shouldn't need to install preloader software. Hope the Namoroka issue in 2010 corrects that problem properly.

[clamenza]

3.5 is much, much faster. My 3.0 at work was taking a few minutes to start - no kidding, but it seems to have gone away.

[mknopp]

I wish them all good luck. I primarily use Firefox and Safari, but there are many things that I like about both Opera and Chrome.

The simple fact of the matter is that the competition is good. Despite what the first poster states, I hope that the world doesn't settle on WebKit. The broad acceptance of several standard compliant engines simply ensures that all strive to be better and more compliant.

Until Internet Explorer's market share falls to the 25% mark I will support and push any and every other browser that I can to anyone that I can. Not that IE 8 isn't a decent browser, and hands down better than any other browser that Microsoft has ever made, but we have all seen the hell Microsoft made of the internet when they had the majority, and we are still paying the price.

So I say long live a diverse browser market. We are all better off for it.

[umbrae]

Good comment.

The only reason we are not still using IE6 is because of Firefox. One might remember that Microsoft was not going to support IE7 on XP and it was going to be Vista only. And I am certain that would have been IE6 with tabs.

[twolf2919]

The author claims 2 percentage point rises of Safari (to 8.4 - presumably from 6.4 percent) and Chrome to 1.8 percent (so, it was at -0.2 percent before?) in support of his argument that Firefox has new competition. Sloppy writing aside, the author doesn't mention where those increases come from - presumably from IE's decline - nor whether Safari's increases are due to increased desktop adoption or iPhone usage. If it's the latter, than there really is no increased competition from Firefox as Firefox doesn't really play in the mobile phone space anyway.

[Shankland]

Actually, I did mention where the share came from in the second paragraph: "Internet Explorer's market share has slipped--down a dramatic 8 percentage points to 65.5 percent in about the last year..."

Safari on the iPhone and iPod Touch are included in Net Applications' statistics (I confirmed later today after the piece was published), but I don't know what the mobile/Mac OS X split is. Either way, it's significant in my opinion: I think the growing serious use of browsers on mobile devices is one area of tremendous strategic importance to browser makers. It's a fast-growing market, IE is not dominant at all there, and people are impressionable as the technology finally matures enough to be useful.

[codynews]

Having used all the "me too!" browsers, I can say that Firefox has the same flat bloated look and feel as IE8.

I wish MS would have gone the "Chrome" route with IE8 but, meh

So now I use IE8 when I need full functionality (such as my company CRM) and Chrome when I'm just dicking off and browsing around.

[Philips]

> Opera stayed flat at about 0.7 percent.

It's about time Opera started gathering and listening to feedback of its users - and those trying it out.

I can't get past several historical bogosities of Opera and thus can't use the otherwise good browser.

[Shankland]

Opera does have some real work going on--personally, I'm keen to see if they can produce the fastest JavaScript engine, as they promised, with version 10. And I'm glad Opera is working on new tab controls, though I find a strip of thumbnails across the top a terrible waste of screen real estate. Overall, though, Opera is not at the top of my browser priority list. It's got small market share, dropping to fourth place soon after Google released Chrome, though it's much more relevant in the mobile market. I use it sometimes on an Android phone I've been testing, for example.

[Windywoo]

The biggest thing I miss in Opera is the predictive search results when I type them in the search bar. I am a sucker for seeing what else I could be looking for.

[angry jubu]

I've tried everything, but I always come back immediately to Firefox. Yes, Chrome, Opera and Safari are somewhat faster, but nothing else allows me to organize bookmarks the way Firefox does. Each of the others is deficient either in the pull-down menu, the toolbar, or both. I can't understand why this isn't a priority for them.

[briceorbryce]

Gotta agree with you, and if you don't like how Firefox looks, odds are there's an addon that can help you fix it.

[Freedomstarfox]

Yep I agree with you.

[saintseminole]

I don't have an emotional attachment to any browser, like some commenters seem to. I just tried to find one that works for *me* and then start using it. For basic surfing, doing a web search, or reading a news article, all the ones I tried are sufficient -- and just would work for most users.

The browsers that are "faster" are only faster by a few seconds and so it doesn't matter in the end. In the end, what matters is what you like. Personally, I have chosen the browser that I can customize to *my* tastes, but that doesn't mean I should push it on *you*.

(Just playing Devil's advocate here... Trying to put myself in the Average Joe Surfer's shoes.)

[codynews]

Totally! I'm not going to switch to one brower vs. another because one uses "Spider Monkey" to render Java or HTML or what have you, and the other users "HotRod".

I care about the look/feel that I see and experience.

"OMG, THE NEW FIREFOX 3.24789021 ALPHA USES THE 'SWEET FRENCH TOAST' RENDER ENGINE!!@#@"

Yawn...

Cody

[Windywoo]

For surfing maybe the difference is minimal, but if/when web applications running in your browser replace desktop versions the speed difference will be important. Google apps come to mind.

[Seaspray0]

You did a good devil's advocate, saintseminole. I appreciate the effort and the honesty. I agree that people should not push their choices on others who may have different tastes. I'd rather someone tell me what they liked/disliked in a program they used than try and tell me the program I'm using is wrong for me because they think so.

[jackyma]

I was playing around with the url... and I'm surprised to find this legit:

http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5&os=linux&lang=en-US

can you download it now??

[jackyma]

or rather, this for windows?
http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-3.5&os=win&lang=en-US

[Shankland]

@Windywoo Actually, there are other benefits to 64-bit software. Some calculations are faster in 64-bit, and the increased number of memory slots called registers in 64-bit x86 chips mean a lot of operations go faster. Apple's upcoming 64-bit version of Safari that'll ship with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is a lot faster at JavaScript, Apple said. That said, plug-ins with binary code modules will break until they're updated, so it's not just a support issue for Mozilla.

[unserkampf]

What Chrome has brought to the table in terms of raw speed and simplicity (yes, it's possible to live without Add-Ons!) is pretty useful. I gave up on Firefox since when it became a performance hog.

Yes, there are websites that are not compatible with Chrome and there's always IE for that :)

[cmcenearney]

3.5 is blazing fast. I didn't realize that I could love Firefox more than I already did.

[AndrewSBrinkworth]

The video aspect of the new browser is very intriguing to me. As HTML 5.0 rears its head I am truly excited to see what web developers will come up with next.

My only hope is that it will make the internet easier to download and read with any browser.
I also look forward to being able to create one website with one set of code that will be recognized the same in all browsers not just 2 or 3!
Just my 2 cents
Andrew Brinkworth
<a href="http://www.miamiinsuranceahhl.com/index.php/2009/05/29/miami-auto-insurance/">Miami Auto Insurance</a>

[Mergatroid Mania]

I've been pretty happy with Firefox. I haven't had to resort to IE for quite some time. Also, since I receitly updated my computer, I really don't have any performance issues, even with multiple windows or tabs open. Heck, with the Sims running in the background, and Guild Wars running in the forground, reduce the size of the forground window and open a few Firfox windows...still no speed issues.

I just wish they would do something about the addons. There are some that will not uninstall. They ghost out the uninstall button. This is the type of thing a Browser should prevent from happening. Nothing should be able to install that removes options for the user. In effect, this is a sort of security breach. I installed new anti virus software on my computer and didn't notice the check box for it to install into Firefox, now I can't get it out at all. I can disable it but cannot remove it. That's my only beef with Firefox. I love the Bookmark management. Can't imagine using a browser without it.

[milesmilton]

is Safari 4 faster? i heard somewhere safari 4's java engine is the best around at the moment?