Posts Tagged ‘browserwars’

The second half of 2011 was, it seems, a recovery period for Mozilla’s Firefox team. After a prolonged Firefox 4 development period that caused Mozilla to miss the most critical evolutionary phase of web browsers since the defeat of Netscape, Firefox has been losing market share and there is doubt whether Firefox can rise again. An updated roadmap is the prescription to keep Firefox competitive.

Chrome for Android was released with about 3 months delay (or more than 3 years, depending on your view) on Tuesday. Google hopes to replicate the runaway success of the desktop version of the browser, but the browser is less appealing and less accessible to the user than Chrome, which makes this mobile browser an inconclusive product that, in addition, lacks compelling features over rivals.

January 2012 has been a remarkable month for the web browser as we know it. Those who closely follow the popularity of web browsers already know that Chrome has, according to StatCounter, surpassed Firefox in market share in November 2011, thus rearranging the rules of the browser game and turning it, for now, into a two-horse race. Now, Chrome is beginning to approach IE in most regions around the globe and has reduced its distance to IE, on one day, to less than four percentage points. If the current trend, which has lasted for more than 3 years, continues, then Google will surpass IE within 3 months.

Google is reworking the Options menu of its Chrome browser. The most recent nightly builds include an experimental menu that eliminates the “Basics”, “Personal Stuff” and “Under the Hood” clutter at the top level. There is also a new feature that visualizes the suggestions provided by the Omnibox.

Four months after publishing the proposal for an extended service release (ESR) for Firefox, Mozilla will be releasing the first Firefox version that responds to business concerns that the rapid release cycle has made Firefox difficult to maintain in corporate. Firefox 10.0 ESR will enable companies to move from Firefox 3.6 to 10.

Chrome ended 2011 with 42.50% market share gain for the year and the highest monthly market share growth in its history, according to data released by StatCounter. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was the only browser to lose market share, but slightly slowed its losses over 2010. Firefox had a tough year with a loss that more than quadrupled over 2010.

Mozilla announced that it has signed a “significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google”, which ends speculation that Google could possibly be moving on and not support Mozilla via the browser’s search box and the integrated default Google search anymore.

Mozilla has released the final Firefox version today. Officially, it’s not Firefox 9, it’s just a new version of Firefox that delivers major JavaScript enhancements, But it is really Firefox 11 and 12 we are waiting for.

Mozilla can use all the support it can get at this point. Both Google and Microsoft are being focused on their future platforms, but there has been little reported news this week about the developer preview of Mozilla (Labs) Apps, which provides a first glimpse at Mozilla’s view of an open apps platform for the web. A detail of Mozilla Apps is an opportunity for Mozilla to follow Google into the entertainment and, specifically, in the game market.

Microsoft’s decision to begin updating Internet Explorer browsers to overcome update fatigue and a painstakingly slow upgrade rate is a major update for the browser. The company will introduce the feature in some geographies in January and scale it from there to be able to fend off Google’s Chrome.

As I stumbled over a note from Mozilla’s developer staff today, I wondered how much impact feature delays in a rapid release process really have and whether delays in a 6-week release cycle matter or not? Firefox could use some good news, but there is not much that could cause some optimism in the near future. Nearly every major feature the browser could use today is delayed and the browser that Mozilla would need today won’t be available until the end of April.

It did not take much to turn the world against Firefox. Just one Internet analysis firm that has, admittedly, the most comprehensive, publicly available data set on browser market shares available, released data, which indicates that Firefox has been surpassed by Chrome in popularity. It was enough to serve as a foundation for an Internet broadside against the browser that, not too long ago, carried the mind share of innovation in Internet software. Suddenly we are asking questions and wondering if Firefox can “survive” or if it is “toast”. The second salvo came today when reports questioning the state of negotiations of Mozilla’s royalties with Google surfaced. Does Google still need Mozilla? And if it does not, who needs Mozilla anyway? Do you?