Tag: Internet

Today marks the official release of Firefox 1.0, the first full release of the web browser that has already started to “take back the web”. If you are a regular reader of this blog (of which there are, like, 3 of you), you know I am a staucnh supporter of Firefox and have written about it extensively.

As we have seen in recent weeks, Firefox has started encroaching upon the dominant web browser of today, Internet Explorer, taking away a small (but important) part of it’s marketshare. So far, the general consensus is that mostly the tech-savvy geeks such as myself are the ones that have been behind this push. The hope is that the trend will carry over to the ‘average’ internet user with the official release of Firefox 1.0.

However, I still see one big obstacle. The fact remains that no matter how much you try to inform users of the advantages of using Firefox over Internet Explorer (the security, the usability, the tools, the features), the average user is too used to clicking the Big Blue ‘e’.

To most people, “getting on the Internet” means clicking the Internet Explorer icon. It has become intrinsic over the last few years, and until the Big Blue ‘e’ disappears from desktops and quicklaunch toolbars, Firefox will face a hurdle.

So what can we do? Ideally, when one installed Firefox, all occurences of the Big Blue ‘e’ would be removed from a user’s desktop. Or, the shortcuts would be remapped to launch Firefox.

Unfortunately, there are probably legal implications to doing this that would keep it from ever happening. Maybe the Mozilla team could still look into it.

CNET reports that Firefox is still gaining ground on Internet Explorer. Granted, it’s not much, but IE has seen a drop in browser marketshare to about 92%.

The first full version of Firefox has yet to come out, and with a new version of the resurrected Netscape out, IE might just slip away even more.

By sheer coincidence, I recently had to reinstall the operating systems on both my home PC and my work PC within a couple of days of each other.

I loaded all my usual software, set Firefox as my default browser, then started doing my usual 10 to 12 hours a day of work online. A few days later I realized that I never loaded the Macromedia Flash plugin in Firefox on either PC. The only thing that led me to realize this was some sort of Flash banner ad on a site I visited. As a little test, I decided to not install the Flash plugin and see how much of my ordinary internet life would go on without being interrupted.

3 weeks later, I can say that I have not been negatively effected by not having the Flash plugin on either my home PC or my work PC. There was only one site, the Weekly Standards, that had a Flash menu for voting which I was unable to see or use. Still, everything else on the site was usable.

It would seem that either creating sites in Flash is becoming more widely known as a hinderance to accessibility, usability, and search engine optimization, or the sites I visit happen to use Flash only on banner ads.

It’s a mixture of both of these things I suppose, but overall, I think this is a good sign. Web designers seem to be moving away from Flash-based design as Web Standards and Accessibility gain ground. They are realizing that Flash has a place on the web and can be useful for certain interactions, but dominating a site’s navigation and design with such a restrictive media definitely smells like poo-poo-poo.

If Flash goes the way of animated gifs and scrolling marquees, we will see it used more and more for advertisements, and less and less for practical design. The ‘kewl’ factor is fading.