Talk:Firefox

Misleading Graph Problem

The graph near the middle of the article which shows the cumulative downloads of Firefox is a misleading graph. A person who first sees the graph would be like: "Woah! A lot of people downloaded Firefox!" Even though there are only 250 downloads. This is a misleading graph. Someone should change its intervals, and make them higher, and make the graph larger in size, and give an accurate view of the downloads. Thank you! I can't change the image, because I can't make graphs on the computer, or photoshop. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grubzic (talk • contribs) 23:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC).

Erm... It is a graph showing mozilla firefox downloads between Jan 2005 and sometime near the end of 2006. The numbers, as is stated in the caption, are in millions. I personally see nothing wrong with it, as it accurately shows the cumulative downloads over that period of time...-Localzuk^(talk) 23:30, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, I think I see his point (and actually agree with it). The problem is this graph will never be descending... Think about it for a while, especially in context of NPOVization... 193.219.28.146 00:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, that is true - but as a cumulative graph that is all it could show really but then again, the purpose of such a graph is to show the overall trend (ie, you can see which months had less downloads by the change in gradient). How about a graph that shows the data per time period rather than cumulatively? (If you get what I mean...) I have no real feelings on this either way really, it isn't really an POV issue though, as it is just a form a graph.-Localzuk^(talk) 00:54, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I've added a graph that shows the download rate. The graph does not match the numbers in the table, because the table shows the average downloads per day since November 9, 2004. My graph shows the instantaneous download rate computed by numerical differentiation (specifically the 3 point rules, asymmetrical from sitmo). -- Schapel 22:19, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

What data (which columns) have you used to create this graph? 193.219.28.146 23:50, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The "Number of days" and "Downloads (millions)" columns. Here are the calculations (three-point numeric differentiation, except two-point numeric differentiation is used for the end points):

(25-1)/(99-1)=.245

(50-1)/(171-1)=.288

(75-25)/(259-99)=.313

(100-50)/(344-171)=.289

(150-75)/(479-259)=.341

(200-100)/(629-344)=.351

(250-150)/(732-479)=.395

(250-200)/(732-629)=.485

And then you just multiplied each of this by 100 1000 and put on graph, yes? I'm sorry, but I think you completely misunderstood the idea of (numerical) derivative (including equations formulas). 193.219.28.146 01:05, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Could you elaborate? -- Schapel 01:07, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, nothing now. My mistake. I guess I was wrong here. I want to apologize to you for my allegations.

OK, and now even better news ;-) -- I think most people here don't like my edits, so I'll go away. Bye bye! 193.219.28.146 18:49, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Grammar

Some sections especially the google relationship one needs a rewriting, it sounds like a telegram or that it was written by a non english speaking person 201.252.216.216 09:52, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Revert of my edit

Schapel, could you elaborate on this edit? On WP:AWW we can read: "Avoid "some people say" statements without sources. Weasel words are words or phrases that seemingly support statements without attributing opinions to verifiable sources.". But I gave reliable source. LWN is "a computing news site (or webzine) with an emphasis on Free/Libre/Open-Source Software and software for Unix-like operating systems." 193.219.28.146 02:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you gave a source for the statement "By some accounts, this feature will turn Firefox into spyware." But those are still weasel words. Who says that? If a statement can't stand on its own without weasel words, it lacks neutral point of view. Without any sources, it is also unverifiable. Either a source for the statement should be found, or the statement should be removed. Unless we can give a reliable source that says "this feature will turn Firefox into spyware," standing on its own without weasel words, the statement should be removed. -- Schapel 02:58, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

"Who says that?" Well, author of the article given as reliable source. This is the same as citing opinion of editor of Forbes that FF is "the best browser". 193.219.28.146 03:09, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

No, the author of the article says "By some accounts, this feature will turn Firefox into spyware." Who says "this feature will turn Firefox into spyware?" It is not the same as citing Forbes that Fx is the best browser, because Forbes says it's the best browser. Anyone can verify that Forbes makes that statement. Forbes doesn't say "some say Firefox is the best browser." Do you understand the difference? -- Schapel 03:27, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the point Schapel is trying to make is that saying 'by some accounts' forbes is just being a proxy for those other accounts and without providing a source themselves forbes becomes unreliable in that article. The forbes article stating that firefox was the best browser did so directly and didn't say 'some think it is the best browser'. I hope this helps clear this up.-Localzuk^(talk) 22:56, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

To-do list

I'm working on finishing up the items in the to-do list at the top of this pages, and the two items left are (1) merge references into footnotes, and (2) add criticism. We're now down to two remaining references. One is Firefox language coverage and I cannot find where material from that source is used in the article. Should this two-year-old link to language coverage just be removed? The other is Chrome-plated holes, a Heise Security article where they report about problems with the security model and how Mozilla developers intend to fix it. However, this article is also very old — it refers to Firefox 1.1 as the trunk version. Does anyone have updated information about the topic? Lastly, is there any criticism that is verifiable from reliable sources that we haven't included? -- Schapel 04:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Personally I think both refs can be removed as out of date. Also, the 2 items in the to-do list can be removed to I think, as there has not been any referenced criticism suggested for a long while now.

However, I think we need to improve the lead a bit. This is a long, complex article and as such the intro should reflect this. We should have 3 paragraphs as our lead, covering all major aspects of the article. The lead is supposed to be a 'mini-article' which can stand on its own.-Localzuk^(talk) 15:45, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the remaining references and updated the to-do list. I agree that the lead needs work. For reference, here's the version of the Firefox article from shortly after it was featured. That should give a start as to what the lead should look like now. -- Schapel 17:52, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I see a certain someone also wants more criticism added to the article. What criticism would that be, exactly? -- Schapel 22:46, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

See my response on Localzuk's talk page for details and propositions. 193.219.28.146 00:09, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I see something you don't seem to like about the EULA (remember we need a reliable source to cite before we can add information to the article), and criticism of Google's Firefox extension, which doesn't seem to belong in this article. Can you give a reliable source that criticizes Firefox. -- Schapel 00:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to point out that there was "Criticism" section in this older version of the article... (But I am not suggesting adding it again.) 193.219.28.146 00:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Concerning the lead: "flagship" is a peacock word. Mistercupcake 19:27, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous reversions

I see a certain anonymous editor is reverting my edits for no good reason. One was the claim in the lead that Firefox has a 12% usage share. That is a summary of information properly cited later in the article. The lead is merely a summary of that information, and as far as I know doesn't need to be cited. Am I incorrect? Another was putting back the average download rate column in the graph, with the comment that the numbers on my graph are only an "estimate." How does this justify putting back the completely different and confusing download rate column? In what way is my graph an "estimate" but the rest of the information apparently isn't an estimate? Why does this person seem to be complaining about a graph he asked for in the first place? -- Schapel 23:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted these edits. The lead does not need to provide a source for information that is sourced later in the article. However, if needs be it can be added with little effort.

I have no thoughts on the graph, as I think there is no real need for the download rate graph anyway as the cumulative one does the job.-Localzuk^(talk) 23:10, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I see you've removed the download rate graph as original research, as we don't really know the downloads per day. That's fine with me, but then we need to remove the download rate column also, because again we are taking an average over a period of time and we don't know the downloads per day in that case, either. The only difference between the number in the column and the points on the graph are that there are different time periods being averaged. For that matter, we should plot only points on the cumulative graph, and not draw lines between them, because the lines show a constant download rate in between points. In fact, we don't know what the download rate was at all. It doesn't matter to me which way we do things, but we should at least be consistent. Either we can say only the download numbers and dates from the reliable sources, or we can interpolate and average the data to make nice-looking graphs. -- Schapel 23:30, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Consistency - cumulative graph is bad, because it will never be descending in contrast to the graph above ("usage share"). 193.219.28.146 02:02, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I have a feeling we're about to go in circles again. That's the reason you asked for a graph of the download rate, because the download rate can decrease. My download rate can decrease much more easily than the "download rate" column in the table because it's a running average and will be more sensitive to a sudden slow down in download rate. That would make it "good", right? However, you also said that the download rate graph was bad because it was an "estimate." Can you pick a graph that you'd like and stick with it? Please pick criteria for a "good" graph that we can apply consistently to all graphs. -- Schapel 02:08, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Why does the anonymous editor also keep removing the reference to Forbes calling Firefox the best browser? It seems like it's in "retaliation" for removing an old, unused reference. If you want to take the old reference and try to use it to add to the article, be my guest. But please don't remove used references and their associated text. Thanks. -- Schapel 02:14, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

No, I think it is a matter of consistency and consequence. "Best browser" from Forbes is from 2004, so I think material regarding security issues older than the newest ones should also be included. To-Do was saying about "merging", not "removing", but you've chosen to remove interesting reference to heise.de article completely. How about merging info from it into "Security" section and adding reference to "Footnotes"? 193.219.28.146 23:18, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Just for your convenience: here is edit with removal of heise.de article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mozilla_Firefox&diff=98899433&oldid=98899183 193.219.28.146 23:57, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

There was no need to merge the reference into the footnotes, as it was unused. As it is specific to Firefox 1.0, I don't see any reason to add it. That is, unless there's updated information about the situation in Firefox 1.5 and Firefox 2.0. There isn't other information specific to Firefox 1.0 except for historical information such as reviews and download and usage statistics. -- Schapel 01:25, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Archiving

So, rather than be accused of hiding edits I am posting here first. This talk page is getting too long again. Time for an archive?-Localzuk^(talk) 23:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Go for it. It's not like it's being deleted. And it's not like people seem to have a problem with brinign old topics back up if they feel they weren't resolved. Chris Cunningham 12:56, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Done. Nothing constructive lost. The less flame wars in here the better. Chris Cunningham 16:40, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Licensing section

I see our anonymous editor is re-adding redundant information to the Licensing section. Could you please remove the redundant statements, such as "Mozilla Firefox ... contains several elements with copyright and trademark restrictions" and "the official artwork is trademarked and copyrighted." With the redundancies left in, the section seems poorly written to me. Thanks. -- Schapel 23:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I've taken a stab at cleaning it up; I've (hopefully) removed the redundancies, and done what I can to improve the style and clarity of the text (the licensing is a complex issue, though, so I don't consider this anything more than a rough attempt). Ubernostrum 04:23, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Just some friendly advice

I have seen this article go wrong, this is reaching the point of being stupid, this is an encyclopedia, not a collection of internet quotes about a piece of software and a soup opera, so my sincere opinion is this, trash the whole article and rewrite it making it minimal with these sections only: General Description Features History

and thats it, no more criticism, no more praise, no more 300 quotes trying to make it look bad, good, ugly, etc. Just the solid facts Good luck 200.82.113.37 05:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Um, this article is filled with facts. The quotes support the facts added in this article. So, pay attention to the article more. --esanchez, Camp Lazlo fan! 05:47, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

If you read the discussion page you will notice the war that is going on and that is ruining th article, thus my advice to make it minimal, there are facts that belong on an encyclopedia and facts that belong on specialized blogs like "Ill marry firefox if it was human" or "Firefox, devil reincarnated". It seems to me like the only feasible solution here, just get rid of all the unnecesary fat, im sure the user can make an opinion for himself without being spoon fed this kind of things on wikipedia 200.82.113.37 05:53, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. There are too many details and opinions being added to the article. The details belong in the daughter articles. POV rants belong on a blog or other personal website. This is one of the problems mentioned in the featured article review. Firefox is in danger of being removed as a featured article if these problems aren't fixed. The new edits are simply ruining what used to be a great article. -- Schapel 14:21, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, "Relationship with Google" is too short to make separate article, but OTOH too important to remove it completely... 193.219.28.146 23:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I think you're exaggerating when you write about "ruining the article". There is a lot of talk indeed, but there were not too much controversial edits actually. And about rewriting article to include only few sections -- how about doing the same with other articles about browsers before even thinking about so radical changes here? 193.219.28.146 23:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Others agree with me. This article is a previously featured article. However, someone recently wrote, There is an edit war going on, and editors are making poorly-sourced edits based on original research and in violation of Wikipedia:NPOV. The page has been flagged with {{NPOV}} and {{weasel}}, and includes many technical details which are unnecessary, citing pages from mozilla.org. Because of this, the article can also no longer be considered "Well written", since the prose is not necessarily compelling, and definitely not brilliant. This article needs significant amounts of work in order to maintain its featured article status. Others have expressed similar thoughts on this talk page. Instead of immediately disagreeing, could you look around and think about these other opinions first? What editors do you think they could be referring to? -- Schapel 00:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

"Soup opera"? AlistairMcMillan 07:59, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Heavy editing

Seeing as this article is a huge mess and the talk page is a wasteland, I'm being bold and editing it heavily. At the moment it's incoherent, incomplete and far too heavily-focussed on adverts for add-ons and what random reviewers said. Chris Cunningham 14:31, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

The random reviewers part is because originally those statements in a criticisms article/section that said essentially "Some people think Firefox is slow. For example, Joe Bloe from some magazine people have heard of thinks it takes too long to start up...". The statement makes sense in that context because it kept the article NPOV. Now it is indeed just random reviews of the product. I think it would be better to move statements like that into sections in the Features article. "Critical reception" is just "Criticisms" reworded, with two "pro" sentences at the start to appear balanced, and two paragraphs at the end that are off-topic.--Nonpareility 17:17, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

Graphs

Are these strictly necessary? Chris Cunningham 15:32, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I was planning to move the entire Market adoption section to its own daughter article. If I did so, I would be inclined to keep only the usage share graph, not the download table and graphs, in the summary section. Perhaps it's not necessary and we should only state that Firefox's usage share is 12% and has been growing since its initial release? -- Schapel 15:36, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

If there's enough there for its own article I'd suggest that, but I can't see such a thing being particularly useful in itself. Yeah, a simple claim and a couple of good refs should be fine. We're not trying to write an article about how awesome and popular the thing is. Chris Cunningham 16:15, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I left the graph there, but if anyone removes it I won't object. -- Schapel 16:23, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Upgrade

I just upgraded my Fx. As a result I can no longer save in wiki using alt-s. Any solutions pls? - Kittybrewster 23:41, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

Alt-shift-S. :) Chris Cunningham 01:50, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Extensions and Plugins

Please be careful to use the terms for Firefox Add-ons properly. I put in the 6 common Fx plugins -- this short list seems appropriate, and there is no real Firefox Plugins article. But I don't know how we would decide which of 1000 extensions to mention by name here, if any. And I doubt that the set of security-related extensions currently mentioned deserve this special distinction. 69.87.203.136 15:59, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't even see the need for the "Software ecosystem surrounding Firefox" section. The Licensing section already mentions Netscape, Flock, Songbird, and IceWeasel, the Features section/article mentions add-ons, and if it doesn't already, it should probably also mention plugins.--Nonpareility 17:02, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

It was a quick wrapper for some loosely-related items which didn't belong in whatever sections they were formerly held in. The whole article needs to be reorganised properly at some point. Chris Cunningham 17:20, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I've knocked the whole section out. Add-ons are discussed under Features, Portable Firefox has its own article and I don't see why it should be discussed in this article any more than Flock or Netscape.--Nonpareility 02:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Criticisms of Mozilla Firefox

If Criticisms of Mozilla Firefox redirects here, why is there nothing about critism at all? Darthnader37 00:29, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

If you don't see any criticism in this article, I don't think you're actually reading it all the way through.--Nonpareility 16:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

I too cannot find anything negative about this cult/browser in said article. --Indolences 05:25, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Please read better then. The article contains criticism that is woven throughout it. There is more criticism in the Features article (as most criticism actually relates to specific features so that is the appropriate place for it).-Localzuk^(talk) 07:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and adding an NPOV banner to a section that discusses both how it was accepted by the world and how it has been criticised (memory leaks, google relationship) seems strange. I am going to remove it unless you explain why that section is not NPOV as it plainly and simply is.-Localzuk^(talk) 07:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

First, there are plenty of negative statements about Firefox in the article. The official binaries are not free software. Some users complain of memory problems and long startup time. In 2006, there was exploit code available for Firefox that worked even with a fully patched version. It currently has a publicly known security vulnerability. Some users are concerned about the privacy issues of the anti-phishing filter and the new ping attribute. Second, we keep asking for reliable sources that have other negative statements, and no one can seem to produce any. Personally, I think the article is too much focused on negative statements; according to the neutral point of view (NPOV) policy, All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing views fairly, proportionately and without bias. Editors have worked long and hard to find all this criticism. Editors should work just as hard (that's the proportionately and without bias part) to find praise, too. -- Schapel 13:11, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

The Internet is SERIOUS BUSINESS. I am busy at the moment I will re-read at a later time.--Indolences 18:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay I looked over the article. Every negative thing is rebutted by blaming a third party and using weasel words. "Other known causes of memory problems are misbehaving extensions, such as Google Toolbar and some old versions of Adblock [41] or plug-ins, such as older versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader", whose source is a Mozilla fansite wiki. "When PC Magazine compared memory usage of Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer, they found that Firefox seemed to use only about as much memory as the other browsers". So it SEEMS to, not actually does use as much memory as others. "Mozilla developers said the higher memory use of Firefox 1.5 is sometimes at least partially an effect of the new fast backwards and forwards (FastBack) feature". If you don't see the retardedness in this quote please ask me to explain further. "Tests performed by PC World and Zimbra indicate that Firefox 2 uses less memory than Internet Explorer 7." This "Zimbra" (I have never heard of the site) appears to be a blog. I do not think blogs are allowed sources are they? Correct me if I'm wrong. --Indolences 03:50, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Yep, I'll correct you. Zimbra is an open source company that produces software. Next I'll point out that the use of the word 'seems' is a good usage as to state 'does' would be definite - what if it doesn't on another machine? Also, what does the actual source say?

Finally, Mozilla is a good source to quote on the product which they produce. In order to maintain WP:NPOV all criticisms must be be provided with context and where possible rebuttals by other organisations.-Localzuk^(talk) 16:02, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be good to have a separate section and/or article, so that readers do not have to weed through the article to find any criticisms? Many tech related articles have this implemented. And you could always tryfirefox myths for criticisms, since it has sources showing criticisms of firefox compared to other browsers.Darthnader37 01:57, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Firefox myths isn't completely reliable, some of the rebuttals Andrew K (the creator) posts aren't too credible, but it's enough to base a criticisms section on. Other users have argued here that there are criticisms in the article, but they're not clearly outlined. The other browsers have a criticisms section. This one doesn't. --84.12.27.67 17:12, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

"The other browsers have a criticisms section." - Opera doesn't, Safari doesn't, Seamonkey doesn't, IE does. In my opinion, IE shouldn't.--Nonpareility 18:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

No, it woudn't be good to make it as separate article or section, because then you're actually splitting up similar info. For example, currently we talk about Firefox's licensing and the criticisms the FSF has on it together - it doesn't make sense to split that info up. Firefox's licensing and FSF's opinion of it are more closely related than FSF's opinion and Firefox using a lot of memory.--Nonpareility 18:28, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Criticism sections are Bad! They break up the flow of an article so that a user has to read about something in 2 places rather than 1. It attracts trolls who hate the program and seem to be unable to follow our policies. It is inherently POV due to it being just negative items. If we have a criticism section should we also have a 'Positive things' section? Where we just give all the good bits? I don't think so.

We spent a lot of effort re-integrating the criticisms into this and the features article so that they would read better and be more well rounded. Can you provide a good reason why we should re-pov fork it?-Localzuk^(talk) 18:43, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Well, there is very strong pro-FF lobby here, so your efforts toward adding criticism section are probably pointless, unfortunately... See also archives of talk page, if you don't know what I mean... 193.219.28.146 15:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

The article is as biased as it was before xmas. ualso see the tag was removed and the talk archived but the article reminas like a charm opffensive for FF without any real criticism except it takes a while to load up (very true), SqueakBox 01:00, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

What about the "Relationship with Google" section? Privacy concerns? Memory usage? End-user builds being considered proprietary? Firebird controversy, described in commentary—cited in the article—as "one of the dirtiest deeds...seen in open source"? I'm sorry, but where is the "charm offensive"? Fvasconcellos 01:10, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I have to admit that after recent changes current version of the article is indeed not bad. There are still sentences present like "Forbes.com called Firefox the best browser" leaning toward POV a little bit, but overall article seems balanced... Anyway, we will see how long it stays in this state...

Out of curiosity, are you expecting publications which offer software reviews to try to adhere to Wikipedia's policies? I can see it now -- "Forbes.com, in accordance with WP:NPOV, refused to offer opinions on any of the competing products, choosing instead to provide an encyclopedic description of each..." Ubernostrum 13:13, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and someone has added recently info about "CSS3 columns" with ref. This ref. says: "In Firefox 1.5 and later we have implemented a subset of these properties to behave as described in the draft (with one exception explained below)." So I am not sure section about version 3.0 is appropriate place to put it in. Perhaps person who added this knows better actual state of implementation of support for these features, I haven't checked it personally... 193.219.28.146 17:14, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Pipelining

Pipelining, a feature than can only be enabled by changing a hidden pref, is not notable enough for inclusion in this article, since our discussion of the features of Firefox is only an overview. It may be notable enough for Features of Mozilla Firefox, but likely not as a section on its own.--Nonpareility 16:56, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

"Forbes called Firefox the best browser when it was released in 2004."

• 1: Forbes.com said this, not Forbes magazine. (Even click on the guy's name, it says "Former reporter at Forbes.com. "
• 2: The article in question is labeled "commentary".

It would make more sense to either change it to "Arik Hesseldahl, a former reporter for Forbes.com..." or "Forbes.com calls..." What do you think? --Indolences 03:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it matters that he's not with Forbes anymore. He was with them when he wrote the piece.--Nonpareility 02:16, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

And what do you have to say about the rest of what I wrote? --Indolences 09:29, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

FF as abbreviation for Firefox

Mention of "FF" as an abbreviation for Firefox has been removed from the article before, probably multiple times. I don't see the logic in it because it is an abbreviation, after all. There might be reason to remove it if usage is very minor but this isn't the case. For example, when I searched Slashdot using Google, this is what I got:

• http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=site%3Aslashdot.org+ff+firefox --- 2,030 hits
• http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=site%3Aslashdot.org+fx+firefox --- 502 hits

I could change the Google search queries around, but in general on most places on the web, "Fx" seems to be in minority use, occasionally hitting about 50-50 with "FF." People who say FF is not an abbreviation for Firefox appear to be playing dumb. —Tokek 06:17, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

You about done with your speech? Ok, good. You wanna think people are playing dumb by saying it isn't an abbreviation, so be it. You're also calling Mozilla dumb too, as they are the ones saying the abbreviation of Firefox is Fx.--XMBRIAN 06:55, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Features that IE7 copied off FF

"Many features that previously distinguished Firefox from competitors are now available with Internet Explorer 7" Such as? One or two examples needed here. 196.203.17.67 19:55, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I've yet to encounter a feature in IE7 myself that was copied from Fx, most were intriduced in Opera and the like, and a lot of Opera users could agree. From my perspective that statement looks rather ignorant. I strongly agree examples are needed here.--84.12.27.67 17:06, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

I find this incredibly incorrect. Perhaps english is not your first language or you just misread the clause you quoted so I shall attempt to enlighten. Nowhere in what you quoted does it indicate that IE "copied" Firefox. Please don't manipulate quotes like that. As a matter of fact, features such as tabs, available on Opera first or not (I don't even know if they were to tell you the truth) still distinguished Firefox from its competitors (a major one being IE, which did not have them). Don't abuse language simply because you don't agree with something, thank you. --Oni Ookami Alfador^Talk|@ 13:57, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

If a feature distinguishes Firefox, that means it is unique to Firefox. Features like tabs do not distinguish Firefox: Opera, a FF competitor, had them for years before FF 1.0, along with quite a few of FF competitors. Besides, the point wasn't that the statement quoted was untrue, it was that it needed an example because examples don't occur to the reader spontaneously. And since none occur to me, some-one else needs to do it. Any volunteers?196.203.19.243 12:03, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Firefox 3.0 using XAML

Firefox's interface is written in XUL (which is rendered by the underlying Gecko layout engine). XUL serves much the same purpose that XAML does: XML-based GUI markup language. For this reason it is unreasonable to suggest that Mozilla would use XAML in the next Gecko/Firefox release. 208.242.14.198 06:44, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

It's weaselly nonsense. Removing. Chris Cunningham 09:25, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Browser market?

user:Bigdumbdinosaur recently changed the sentence

Web-surfers have adopted Firefox rapidly, despite the dominance of Internet Explorer in the browser market.

adding quotes around the word "market". Rather than simply revert this change, I took a stab at rewording the sentence to explicitly convey the intent (which I believe to be that there really isn't any browser market in any normal sense). My reworded version was

Web-surfers have adopted Firefox rapidly, despite the availability of Internet Explorer on every Windows PC.

This version was reverted. I personally agree that there isn't actually a browser market. Users don't buy a computer and an OS, and then separately buy a browser. IE is bundled with every copy of Windows. Safari is bundled with every Mac. Some people choose to download, install, and use a different browser, but saying there's a "browser market" that IE "dominates" is (IMO) a complete mischaracterization. 90% (or so) of PCs are Windows. IE usage does not reflect share of a "browser market", but the fact that browsers are preinstalled and Windows dominates the PC market.

For now, I've changed it back to market without quotes, but I'm open to other suggestions. -- Rick Block (talk) 16:46, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

You don't have to pay for something for there to be a market on it. Just like you choose what you want at a market, the Internet is the browser market, and you choose which one you want to download and use.--XMBRIAN 20:20, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

If IE did not come pre-installed on every Windows PC I'd agree with you. But it does. So I don't. -- Rick Block (talk) 21:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)