Firefox: Users Try, But Do They Stick With It?

Mon Aug 13, 2007 12:57PM EDT

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I was beyond surprised when I checked out the statistics on one of the websites I publish: More users who visit the site now use Firefox than use Internet Explorer. I'd always thought Firefox was around 20 or 25 percent of the market, but to brush 50 percent? Crazy!

Interestingly, Mozilla (the organization behind Firefox) still struggles to get users to give it a shot: Only half the users who download it actually install and try it, and only half of those users stick with it. That's a huge opportunity for the Firefox to improve growth rates by simply convincing people not to jump ship back to IE (or Safari, or whatever).

The Mozilla group has created a 12-point plan to attempt to improve things, mainly designed to give web novices more help in getting started: Renaming the application to better reflect that it's a web browser, improve add-on management, and create a more sophisticated help system. (Though I have to admit the user-based help system is awfully useful and responsive.)

Tragically, the one thing I don't see on the plan is a goal to make Firefox more stable and bug-resistant. I push browsers pretty hard, admittedly, but over three machines I continue to have frequent crashes whenever I open too many windows, or, particularly, on one website (IMDB.com), which sends a once-daily double-pop-up ad that immediately crashes the whole thing. Arggggh!

Still, I appreciate that the Firefox folks are trying to make things smoother for newcomers to the browser. Despite its bugs, I have made the move completely to Firefox, with no regrets. It's faster, easier to navigate, better organized, and nicer to look at than IE. The spell-checker alone is worth the price of admission. And unlike IE, it keeps getting better, not worse. 

Comments on Firefox: Users Try, But Do They Stick With It?

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  • 26 Posted by carissa_94 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:18PM EDT Report Abuse

    I use both, I prefer Firefox because of the simple things like the Find function, it makes finding words in a browser so darn easy and it makes sense. Being able to customize the browser to fit your needs using about:config is a great feature. It is a memory hog, but I notice that IE 7 is just as much a hog. I do think that IE 7 is the best version of IE that is out there,especially now that they have copied FF and added tabbed browsing, but for me FF is the browser that does what I need, and if I have to use IE then I just use the IE plug in for FF and off I go.

  • 27 Posted by nice_male_43 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:37PM EDT Report Abuse

    I have used Firefox for many years now and love it. IE has too many concerns to even know where to begin. I only use IE if I come across a website that for some reason doesn't agree with Firefox and this happens rarely. I see from the replies that some people have problems with memory and crashing, you should send an email to the firefox website describing it and I am sure they will help. The Firefox webbrowser is so much better than IE.

  • 28 Posted by indyfitness on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:24PM EDT Report Abuse

    I have less crashes and issues with Firefox than with IE, not sure what it would take to get me to move back to IE.

  • 29 Posted by moonlac on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:26PM EDT Report Abuse

    I use firefox. It's a lot faster than my safari and also a lot of platforms support firefox as against my safari. I do notice from time to time it will crash but there's that helpful restore session button that is beautiful.

  • 30 Posted by moonlac on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:26PM EDT Report Abuse

    I use firefox. It's a lot faster than my safari and also a lot of platforms support firefox as against my safari. I do notice from time to time it will crash but there's that helpful restore session button that is beautiful.

  • 31 Posted by melodyjo6 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:15PM EDT Report Abuse

    I love Firefox! Ever since I've been using it I don't get annoying pop-ups anymore. I love the tabbed browsing and the add-ons, especially the other search engines like IMDB, Wikipedia, etc. The only reason I keep IE is because I occasionally have to download audio files that for some reason aren't compatible with FF. Otherwise I'd never use IE again.

  • 32 Posted by orionwisdom on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:46PM EDT Report Abuse

    Another Firefox fan. I love the add-ons and I just love supporting the creativity and open-web-use principle behind how it was created and sustains.

  • 33 Posted by am_odom on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:53PM EDT Report Abuse

    I love using Firefox, and have not had any problems with it crashing. I run two to three browsers open with as many as 15 tabs on each window. I do have all pop ups blocked, because I do not like them, but every now and then one will get through then I block it with the adblock add-on.

  • 34 Posted by sassysouthernbelle65 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:06PM EDT Report Abuse

    I was not too sure I wanted to change to a new browser when FireFox was introduced to me. But I absolutely love it. I would NEVER go back to IE completely, but I do have one issue with FireFox that I wish they would resolve. The fact that the NETFLIX movie player will not work within FireFox and the customer needs IE to be able to view movies from that site. It may be NETFLIX and not FireFox so I have emailed them as well. But overall, I love FireFox and am very happy that it came along to replace IE.

  • 35 Posted by harmless71453 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:16PM EDT Report Abuse

    Mr. Null, I don't know what you mean by "pushing browsers pretty hard" so perhaps your browser requirements don't match the more common user. And I'm surprised that you are still experiencing pop-ups, even with the myriad and free pop-up blocking software available. I installed Firefox on my laptop and use IE only for certain applications, maybe one or two, that won't work on Firefox. In the 2 years since I installed and used Firefox, my screen hasn't crashed even once; something I can't say for IE. I can't imagineever using IE ever again for my regular browser.

  • 36 Posted by eaglet1223 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:50PM EDT Report Abuse

    Has anyone even tried Opera. Opera outclasses every other browser in every way. The only things that are better about Firefox are the add-ons and that it works with more sites. Opera really is the future. I use it almost as much on the MAC at work as I use Firefox. (Safari... don't get me started. What a waste of time). At home, I use 1E7, Opera, and Firefox almost interchangeably. Fact is, unless your computer is a sloth, each browser runs practically at the same speed over a broadband connection for basic uses.

  • 37 Posted by tawnya_gregory on Thu Sep 3, 2009 9:57PM EDT Report Abuse

    I actually use Firefox for a lot of things that my ATT/Yahoo browser won't do, such as open windows all the way on Pogo.com to see chat and the bottom of the window. I love Firefox and when I had AOL, I used more frequently as AOL was always crashing and not working right

  • 38 Posted by liz.zuffi@sbcglobal.net on Thu Sep 3, 2009 6:54PM EDT Report Abuse

    Chris, FYI: Firefox has a wonderful ad blocking add-on called Adblock Plus and is customizable. It has blocked 99.9% of pop-ups on my computer. I'll never go back to IE and would do away with it altogether if MS didn't require it for updates.

  • 39 Posted by andrius240 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:54PM EDT Report Abuse

    "Tragically, the one thing I don't see on the plan is a goal to make Firefox more stable and bug-resistant." Who is this guy writing the article? Reason I got firefox was because I got fed up with IE crashing on me over and over again. Drove me nuts. And talk about bugs.... With IE I constantly had to get security updates and tons of other bugs worked week after week. Problems with IE never stopped. Slow, bug ridden and unstable, who wants that? Been using Firefox for a few years now and couldn't be happier with them. I day trade and run a lot of programs over 6 monitors. Lots of Java applets, browsers, etc. On average I have 20-25 windows open at the same time and I never have any crashing problems. Don't even remember last time time it happened with firefox. With IE I used to have really bad window freezing issues and it would crash on me on regular basis. Imagine being in a trade, get a frozen window, then everything crashes, then 5 minutes later still trying to load everything back up. Had quiet a few instances where the 5-10 minutes of down time cost me thousands of $ in losses because I couldn't get out of my positions. At least for me firefox has been a blessing and I am grateful for their service.

  • 40 Posted by deadly_the_eternal@sbcglobal.net on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:39PM EDT Report Abuse

    I tried Firefox once before, but I decided to uninstall it for good. Why? Well for one thing, IE looks much much better than Firefox, not to mention IE 7 has a realy small toolbar which maximizes the size of web pages. Second of all, I'm just more used to using IE, and I will stick with it from this point on.

  • 41 Posted by kdrobb2k on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:48PM EDT Report Abuse

    Firefox is the standard browser in this houshold. IE is used only in rare cases when FF does not render the page properly. Initial Firefox launches are slow but subsequent browser starts are quick. IE is built into the Windows OS so launch is fast. This OS/Application combo with the dreaded Active X is a virus and spyware magnet. IE has improved but I am still more comfortable with Firefox.

  • 42 Posted by kamuidn on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:46PM EDT Report Abuse

    ive never had a problem with IE and have both IE and firefox on my computer, but i prefer to use IE. i just dont like firefox that much.

  • 43 Posted by jhofve on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:34PM EDT Report Abuse

    I use Firefox on a Mac, and used it prior to that on PCs. I have noticed quite a lot of crashes, but only since the last update. But the "restore session" usually works. I have a (probably) bad habit of opening a window, finding what I need but not having time to deal with it then, and leaving it open for days. That often triggers a crash. I'm trying to retrain myself to do more bookmarks. Hate IE but some commerce and database sites require it -- yuck! Even on a Mac it makes me nervous to open IE -- bad stuff might get in!

  • 44 Posted by fantazzia2004 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:58PM EDT Report Abuse

    I love firefox, I use it at home and at work, even though the company would prefer me to use IE, I hate IE and find FF runs alot faster. Aslo i love that FF was out first with the tabs and IE just ripped them of on IE7. Long live FF.

  • 45 Posted by xim1970 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:53PM EDT Report Abuse

    I have to say that I visit IMDB.com a few times per month, and have not had the same problem with crashing, Chris. I do find Firefox slow to start, and a fair memory hog, but I'm running a 600 Mhz HP Pavilion with 768 MB of memory, plus FoxyTunes, Yahoo Toolbar, Clipmarks, Grocery List Generator, Download Statusbar, FireFTP, and SafeCache. I expect some slowdown, but it's mostly in starting up (takes up to 1 minute!). I'm glad it isn't as much of a target as IE is for hacks, but that will change someday. For now, I feel more secure with FF, but am always on the lookout for news of hacks on the program.

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