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Criticisms of Mozilla Firefox

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Criticisms of Mozilla Firefox are made by users of other Web software, but are also made and contested by the Mozilla community and its own developers. Criticisms include complaints about speed, the features included by default, and how it renders web pages.

Functional criticisms

Missing features

Features that the Firefox developers believed would be used by a small number of its users have not been included in Firefox and left to be implemented as extensions.[1] PC World notes the difficulty a casual user would have in finding and installing extensions.[2] Furthermore, as most extensions are not supported by Mozilla, there is a possibility of vulnerable[3] or malicious[4] third party code.

Compatibility

Firefox complies with Internet standards more strictly than Internet Explorer[5]. While Firefox, like other browsers, has a quirks mode for compatibility with legacy IE versions, this mode isn't completely compatible.[6] Because of the differing rendering, PC World notes that a minority of pages do not work in Firefox.[2]

c|Net notes that Firefox does not support ActiveX controls by default, which can also cause webpages to be missing features or to not work at all in Firefox.[7] Mozilla made the decision to not support ActiveX due to potential security vulnerabilities, its proprietary nature and its lack of cross-platform compatibility.[8][9] There are methods of using ActiveX in Firefox such as via third party plugins but they do not work in all versions of Firefox or on all platforms.[10]

Corporate deployment

eWEEK states that Firefox is missing features such as deployment and customization tools that are useful for corporate deployment.[11] Mozilla responded to this criticism by releasing a client customization kit[12] and is planning to provide official Microsoft Installer (MSI) packages.[13]

Political criticisms

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) considers the official Firefox binaries released by Mozilla to not be free software because they include the proprietary crash reporter Talkback, have trademark restrictions, and force the user to accept a clickwrap agreement (the latter only applies to the Windows version).[14] Google and Mozilla developers are working on Airbag, an open-source replacement for Talkback, that will allow official Firefox builds to be entirely free of proprietary software.[15]

In the past, Firefox was licensed solely under the Mozilla Public License (MPL). [16] The FSF criticizes the MPL for being weak copyleft; the license permits, in limited ways, proprietary, derivative works. Code under the MPL also cannot be legally linked with code under the GNU General Public License (GPL) or the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL).[17][18] To address these concerns, Mozilla tri-licensed Firefox under the MPL, GPL, and LGPL, which permits developers to use whichever license they wish in creating derivative works. The effect of the tri-licensing is that developers can legally link Firefox code with GPL or LGPL code, but still allows them to create proprietary, derivative works (though not both at once). [16]

In September 2006, a controversy relating to the proprietary licensing of portions of Firefox led to the creation of the free software alternative Iceweasel. Iceweasel is officially sponsored by GNU's Gnuzilla project. Iceweasel removes the proprietary plugins and artwork to make the software package acceptable to exclusively free software distributions.

Performance criticisms

Memory use

Internet Week ran an article in which many readers reported anecdotes of high memory usage in Firefox 1.5.[19] Mozilla developers claim the higher memory use of Firefox 1.5 is sometimes at least partially an effect of the new fast backwards and forwards (FastBack) feature.[20] Other known causes of memory problems are misbehaving extensions, such as Google Toolbar and Adblock.[21] However, 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.[22]

Launch speed

Softpedia notes that Firefox takes longer to start up than other browsers[23] and browser speed tests confirm this to be the case.[24]

Security Criticisms

File:Virusscale.jpg
A record of Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox's security behavior and the predicted outcome.

It is often disputed whether or not Firefox has a security advantage over Internet Explorer 7. The reasoning is that Mozilla Firefox does not have a). a very effective phishing filter, Firefox block only reported web pages, saying that it is always a "suspected web forgery." However, unlike a few other browsers, (including Internet Explorer 7) it does not block a page that is not reported, but still suspicious. b). The unpatched viruses per month it recieves are at a larger rate than Internet Explorer, meaning that it is getting less and less safe faster than Internet Explorer, meaning that, if it was around as long as Internet Explorer, it's security would be much lower, and it is predicted to drop lower than IE in late 2007/early 2008.

References

  1. ^ Reasons to switch to the Mozilla Firefox browser [1]
  2. ^ a b "First Look at Mozilla.org's Firefox". PC World. Retrieved 2006-09-22.
  3. ^ Register Article on Greasemonkey Possible Malicious Attack[2]
  4. ^ "Malicious toolbars and extensions try to hijack browsers". ars technica. Retrieved 2006-09-22.
  5. ^ Web Browser Standard Support[3]
  6. ^ Mozilla's Bugzilla list of quirks mode bugs [4]
  7. ^ c|Net Reviews - Mozilla Firefox [5]
  8. ^ Mozilla.org Security Announcement [6]
  9. ^ Netscape Gecko Plugin Overview[7]
  10. ^ Plug-in For Hosting ActiveX Controls [8]
  11. ^ "eWEEK Labs Review: Firefox 1.0". eWEEK. Retrieved 2006-09-22.
  12. ^ "Firefox 1.5 CCK (Client Customization Kit) Wizard". Retrieved 2006-09-22.
  13. ^ "Mozilla Bug 231062 - Provide Firefox MSI package". Retrieved 2006-09-22.
  14. ^ Free Software Directory: Firefox [9]
  15. ^ Deploying the Airbag. BSBlog (Mozilla developer Benjamin Smedberg's weblog).
  16. ^ a b Mozilla Foundation MPL Relicensing FAQ [10]
  17. ^ Richard Stallman. On the Netscape Public License. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/netscape-npl.html
  18. ^ GNU comments on MPL [11]
  19. ^ Firefox 1.5: Not Ready For Prime Time? InternetWeek.
  20. ^ Bug 319262 - Significant memory leak. Mozilla.org Bugzilla.
  21. ^ Problematic Extensions. MozillaZine Knowledge Base.
  22. ^ Which New Browser Is Best: Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 7, or Opera 9?. PC Magazine.
  23. ^ "Mozilla Firefox Review". Softpedia. Retrieved 2006-09-22.
  24. ^ HowtoCreate.co.uk Browser Speed Comparisons [12]
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