So what does Chrome mean for Mozilla, and for me?

As a post-script to my post on Google’s newly launched browser, Chrome, I just wanted to add some thoughts on what this means for Mozilla. Their browser, Firefox, is currently the best browser out there. It’s open source, its robust, its standards-compliant and it’s packed with features. And the thing that’s causing some raised eyebrows around the web is that Google is in quite serious partnership with Mozilla: their input in return for setting Google as the default search engine in Firefox amounts to a hefty percentage of the company’s revenue. So what do the folks at Mozilla think of Google stepping on their toes?

Well, they have been pretty quick to state that they’re not upset . Both the CEO John Lily and European President Tristan Nitot have commented fairly extensively and reading between the lines, the message seems to be ‘yes, we did get a bit sideswiped, but we’re big boys and we can all get along’. Whilst they seem to be a little on the back foot with this one, they also seem relatively confident that both companies have the best interests of the web at heart and that they can co-exist supportively. And although they're hardly likely to stamp their feet and scowl in public, I would like to believe them.

Read More » September 5th, 2008 / Tags: chrome, firefox, mozilla / Trackback

Web Browsers Revisited

As a designer, some days there just aren’t words for how much I hate Internet Explorer 6. It is the least standards-compliant browser still massively in use; which is a nice way of saying that it seems to goes out of its way to misinterpret even the simplest piece of html.

And yet it stubbornly remains as one of the three most popular browsers. To give you some idea, there are really three browsers being used by the vast majority of the Windows-using browsing public out there; IE6, it’s successor IE7; and Mozilla’s Firefox. As of May 2008, the breakdown goes like this: IE6 27.3%; IE7 26.5%; and Firefox 39.8%. IE7 is hot on the heels of 6, and of course will sooner of later will become the more popular of the two. Eventually even Microsoft will stop supporting 6, and that can’t come soon enough.

I realise that at this point I might sound like someone riding a bit of a personal hobbyhorse. But there are real, honest-to-god reasons why the latest browsers are better, besides just making my job easier.

Reasons to upgrade to IE7 (or better still Firefox):

Read More » August 19th, 2008 / Tags: IE6, IE7, Firefox, Web Browsers / Trackback