NEWS: Firefox Promoted on Google Homepage, but Only to IE Users

GEEK: Firefox Promoted on Google Homepage, but Only to IE Users

Any geek who has earned his binary wrist watch runs screaming from the room when confronted with the harsh reality of using Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Luckily for most of us, there are several alternatives: Linux users can run Galeon or Konqueror, Mac users can use Safari, and everyone can use Opera or Firefox, even those unfortunate enough to have been assimilated by the Borg.

The reasons to use Firefox are numerous, including its extensibility, live bookmarks, pop-up blocking and inherently superior security, but it sill enjoys just over ten percent of the market.

Google recently began working closely with Firefox (totally not because they're trying to become a portal and an operating system and know every single detail about every single thing you ever do, so stop asking questions, if you know what's good for you) and their marketing team has placed Firefox on the Google homepage, suggesting that users try Firefox (with the integrated Google Toolbar that really isn't tracking every click of your mouse, they swear.)

Firefox is the first third-party application to earn about nintey-six brazillion eyeballs a second (number reduced by one-quarter to account for the pirates out there ) -- but you'll only see the ad if Google identifies your browser as Internet Explorer, which will make Opera users who already suffer from an inferiority complex invest some serious time making some impassioned forum posts that everyone ignores.

If we see a significant boost in Firefox use in the next few months, especially with Microsoft's newest version of IE about to ship, this will say just as much for Firefox as it does for Google. However, if use remains the same, it says a lot more about Google (and its associated privacy baggage, which you shouldn't really be concerned about because they never do evil things . . . unless you're in China.)

(via Fantacular)

I like the improvements in IE7, but it still lags behind Firefox.

Opera is great. Why argue about that?

firefox was good (and still is one of the best) but mozilla seem to be making the same mistake they did with navigator in that they are starting ot make it too big for it's own good .....

[Edited on Apr 27, 2006 by zoton]

tee hee hee!

Don't think they've added it to the google.co.uk site. Just the .com.

Opera 9 beta kicks ass better than firefox

I haven't used Opera 9 Beta, but I'm eagerly anticipating the finalized Opera 9. I'm using Opera 8.54 as my primary Web browser, and I love how fast it is. And I can't live without Opera's mouse gestures. I fully realize that Firefox has mouse gesture extensions available, but they're nowhere near as good as the functionality that's included with Opera by default.

Well, things are about to get very interesting. Is Google really the threat to Microsoft that Microsoft keeps saying they are?

We're about the find out. If Firefox usage increases dramatically, and it because google put a link to it on their home page, what is to stop them from taking a stab at office with star office in the future?

I am personally excited about this. For too long Microsoft has dominated the market (from a sales perspective)....

Welcome to Google vs Microsoft round 1.2 beta.

Well, for one, this only triggers if you're using IE. They have no way to tell what office suite you're using from inside a browser, and the clean simplicity of the Google start page is one of the selling points. Putting unveiled ads on it for everyone would hurt that.

True.

However, I think google has a large enough market share and a loyal enough group of users, that one ad for a product is not going to make a difference.

We'll see how it goes with Firefox.

Of course, one issue that does come up is.... Many Firefox users I know don't bother going to the google homepage anymore. They just type directly into the toolbar search.

Ask the Alta Vista folks about how easy it is to lose that market share...

I await IE7 like I would a root canal. As a web developer, now I have yet another browser I have to tweak for, because Microsoft in its infinite wisdom has not so much complied with W3C recommendations as it has fixed things the way they think things should be fixed which will bring out a whole new slew of bugs, quirks, and workarounds. So I now have to check all previous sites to see how they fuck up in IE7, and design all future sites to work on W3C browsers, IE6, and IE7.

Because that was so much fun when I did it for IE5 and IE6.

*shudder*

Apples and Oranges.

I used to like firefox, but its been fucking with me lately.

That's a feature, not a bug.