[WEB4LIB] Firefox revolution over?

[K.G. Schneider]

> The CNet Anchordesk is claiming that the Firefox revolution is over
> aborning, due to the announcement that Internet Explorer 7 will be
> released independent of Windows as early as this summer (in beta). See
> <http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-5666404-1.html> for the opinion piece
> and <http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5577263.html> for the story.
> Roy

First, the opinion piece surprised me, and seemed really opinion--not at all
evidence-driven. Also opinion: I use Firefox alongside IE and I have had too
many times when IE went into a catatonic state, and none with Firefox. I
don't think Firefox loads slowly, in my experience. More broadly: are these
experiences reported by users? Note: I have never been a browser cultic in
any direction. I just have to use two browsers for my job, and increasingly
I prefer to use Firefox for tasks because, well, it works. 

I have also heard people praise Firefox for its toolbars and particularly
for its integrated RSS reader.  As for tabbing, I never used it until she
mentioned it. Nice feature! ;) (Still not sure I'll use it, though.)

IE7 could be the best thing since sliced bread. It could also be WordPerfect
6, the version that pretty much killed off that product as far as I was
concerned (and how I loved WP before that--this is going back, but I
remember the day it left Wordstar and Enable in the dust). How this
columnist could tout a product she hasn't seen is beyond me. The cynic in me
wonders what's in her stock portfolio. 

Finally, the real story here was the separation of browser from OS, not IE
versus Firefox. 

I haven't had experiences where Firefox has trouble rendering bad code, but
I'd like to hear this group respond to that comment because I wonder if that
isn't driven by MS itself. Though I agree with the premise that a browser
should make every attempt to render a page. A browser is not a validator,
it's a tool for browsing the Web (Opera, you hear me?).

I'm more concerned that Firefox development might founder for other reasons.
If it doesn't keep growing, it will die. 

Karen G. Schneider
kgs at bluehighways.com