Would You Leave Firefox?
Firefox has been the browser of choice for millions of people, especially with designers and developers, mainly because of the CSS support that it has. It’s no secret that IE6 can be an absolute headache to develop for. But it seems as though Microsoft might actually be doing something right with the release of IE7 being right around the corner.
Now, Microsoft is quite good at screwing products up by releasing them before they are actually ready to be taken out of beta. But, in my opinion, IE7 might be one of the most important products that Microsoft will rerlease. The web is huge now, and it’s obvious that Microsoft finally deciding not to be naive about it.
What makes this release of IE7 so nice, is that they are marking this release as a “high priority” and will be included in a critical Windows update. So the current users of IE6 will be force fed the update, which is great. It makes me wonder how fast, if at all, this will phase out IE6. Hopefully fast, because I don’t think many developers would complain if they no longer had to take IE6 into account when building sites. And though it may not be perfect to the extent that we would like it, at least Microsoft is realizing that some things really need to change about that browser.
I am sure that the new IE7 will have tons of new features aside from web standards stuff, to make browsing alot better and customized, but there is no need to get into those features. But I wonder if IE7 will be that good of a browser to regain some of the people that made the switch to Firefox. I can’t even name how many people I alone have gotten to use Firefox, and everyone loves it. So I am thinking that IE7 better do some amazing things with the browser to top the comfort that Firefox users have with their browser.
Of course I will give IE7 a go, although I really don’t have a choice being a designer and all, however I am very skeptical to think that it will be that good of a browser to make me leave Firefox as my browser of choice. I can’t even imagine how much more I would customize my browser because it basically has everything that I need. So do you think IE7 will be that great to leave Firefox in 2nd place?
11 Comments
I will not abandon Firefox. The Mozilla community is so expansive, and yet tight-knit, that they’ll always have that “user-innovator” edge–the ones who improve the program are not being paid to, they just want their favorite browser to work better. IE7 will just be a sigh of relief. I will no longer design for IE6 once IE7 comes out.
I do think you raise a good point Tyler, but, I don’t think I’ll give up on IE6 when IE7 comes out. I’d have to see statistics on browser usage before I toss it out the window.
If IE& has something like developer tools and similar tabbed browsing, I would consider it. But as John said, data on usage statistics will be important. It will be interesting to see how it shakes down. Firefox has treated me so well though, my hope is everyone hates IE7 and jumps to firefox. Viva la resistance!
I am a Firefox developer-toolbar junkie. Unless IE7 had something the same or better I would not even consider the move back to the IE series.
Tyler: I think it’s ridicolous to stop designing for IE6 seeing as the only people who can get IE7 are XP users with Windows Geniune Advantage. There will be so many people without IE7 for a long time yet.
Steve: Check out IE Developer Toolbar: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038
It’s actually quite good!
Rik, I don’t think it will be terribly long before IE7 rolls around to non-XP users. Hopefully Microsoft has some kind of plan to get those non XP users that update as well.
But I agree that you just can’t give up on IE6 yet because that wouldn’t “best practices.” You have to appeal to everyone. I do think that you might be able to be a little more flexible, but that will also depend on the audience.
IE7 is only rolling out to XP and Windows Server 2003 users (and Vista obv.) so people using Windows 98, or Windows 2000 Server will not be able to get it. Maybe then it’ll be time to convince those users to get Firefox or Opera!
To me it just seems like there will simply be ANOTHER browser which handles code in a different way, another browser to check your sites design in and another set of steps which I will inevitably have to go through to make a design browser compliant.
The question is, at what percentage of usage do you seriously start to worry about the user-experience. 1%? 5%? 20%? It could be an incredibly fast growth, I doubt it will be toppling IE6 anytime soon.
Rik, my only thought about the people that won’t get the new IE7 because of their old OS, is that what would make them switch to Firefox or Opera? Like what would they care if IE6 is still working for them. I think that would be some hard convincing since they’re still using that browser when better alternatives have been out for awhile.
Ed, in my opinion, I would say if less than 10% then you are safe. As far as the growth, I think it really depends on how Microsoft markets this product to people with older OS’s. If it’s done right, I think there is a chance that it could topple IE6. You also raise a good point about having yetanother browser to to check a design in. And of course Microsoft has to do everything different to make things more difficult.
You guys bring up valid points: for those Windows users who don’t upgrade, they will likely stick with IE6–because as JP points out, they may have already overlooked the better alternatives.
It seems the path to a happy magical land of inter-browser compatability is still an uphill one.
No!
I can never forgive Microsoft for the hours I’ve lost re-designing for IE6!