World Firefox Day


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This is just getting ridiculous. It seems they will try anything to push the product. Call me old fashioned but I always thought the product was supposed to sell itself.

I also often wonder about Firefox, it will never claim a percentage of browser use anywhere near MS simply because many businesses will simply not install any software that is not MS certified. Every web system we develop is still only designed for IE, we never test any other browsers on it, we simply say it is designed for IE and other browsers may not work correctly.

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twisted logic? We're talking about the Mozilla foundation right now, not african viagra maker, Mozilla or any other OSS organization for that matter does not spam. If they do, it's because most likely they're also selling a product and want to push sales of it (like everything related in spam) but no, does Mozilla sell anything? Not really. They get payed a lot for the google searchbox and get donations from big companies so there you go, the twisted logic :rolleyes:

So which is it? They do or they don't? :whistle:

Ya know what? How about you PM a few of us your e-mail address, and we'll use it to share some other great products we've found on the web. Sure you might get a little bit of spam, but how long will it be for you to delete 1 or 2 e-mails from the pages we sign you up at?

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It is fortunate that Asa's oppinion isnt that carried by the entire team but. Other Mozilla employees have come out and said that IE7 is actually shaping up nicely, I cant remember who that was whether it was Ben, Bart, Blake or one of the other developers. I don't think they do themselves any favours when they have team mebers saying such things about the competitors. Sure its a personal blog but none the less it will be associated with the team as a whole. A more humble approach is usually best IMHO. You can definetly aggresively market a product without saying alot of the things Asa does about the competition.

Extremely well written (Y)

Unfortunately as Asa is the leader of Mozilla's Quality Assurance and Testing, as well as the head of the "Spread Firefox" campaign (IMO, the most disgusting of all referral programs ever released), his every published word regarding his and competing browsers are read by the public and as such should have some degree of decorum (a quality which he unfortunately lacks).

It is interesting that more than half of the man's Wikipedia article is about his outspoken criticism and flaming of other browsers.

The smartest move that Mozilla could make is to distance themselves from this man.

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It is a double-strandard that if any other major browser developer did something similar, Asa would be tearing strips out of them for it!
The smartest move that Mozilla could make is to distance themselves from this man.

Both QFT

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Extremely well written (Y)

Unfortunately as Asa is the leader of Mozilla's Quality Assurance and Testing, as well as the head of the "Spread Firefox" campaign (IMO, the most disgusting of all referral programs ever released), his every published word regarding his and competing browsers are read by the public and as such should have some degree of decorum (a quality which he unfortunately lacks).

It is interesting that more than half of the man's Wikipedia article is about his outspoken criticism and flaming of other browsers.

The smartest move that Mozilla could make is to distance themselves from this man.

Well, the Spread Firefox web site is, in my opinion, not a bad website (though I would have preferred a 'Spread Web Standards' site). The problem about Spread Firefox is the huge amount of fanboys it contains.

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Trying to shove Firefox down people's throats eh?

I'm not intending to defend Firefox here, but this is just plain wrong.

You seem to be confusing with Microsoft and IE... :p

There you have the shove-down going on.

At least Mozilla is still giving the option and not working on an OEM level to do their campaign, like a certain other software developer. :p

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Ya know what? How about you PM a few of us your e-mail address, and we'll use it to share some other great products we've found on the web. Sure you might get a little bit of spam, but how long will it be for you to delete 1 or 2 e-mails from the pages we sign you up at?

Um, here they say that you can give a friend's email address, not some unknown ****. If you get "spam" because of a friend, then he's not really a friend now is he?

For example if I participate and do this, I might have in mind 1-2 ppl who might be interested to try Firefox, not just a random friend or person that I know who might get bothered by this. If anything, it's your friend's fault if you get this email that bothers you so bitch at your friend, not Mozilla.

Again, I bet if Microsoft or Opera was the one doing this people would praise them but because it's Mozilla and Firefox, neowin finds a way to bitch about this methodology. You don't need a rocket scientist to see that most of Neowin prefers IE or Opera over Firefox so you know how ppl will react, at least according to a certain poll where Firefox is winning by a huge margin :whistle:

As far as this marketing strategy by Mozilla goes, it's not worse than an email from Amazon saying that theres a 20% rebate off shoes.

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Again, I bet if Microsoft or Opera was the one doing this people would praise them but because it's Mozilla and Firefox, neowin finds a way to bitch about this methodology. You don't need a rocket scientist to see that most of Neowin prefers IE or Opera over Firefox so you know how ppl will react, at least according to a certain poll where Firefox is winning by a huge margin :whistle:

Are you serious? Please tell me your not :huh:

Can you imagine how many pages this thread would have full of anti-Microsoft messages if they even attempted to do that? :blink:

Think about the WGA thread times 50.

Oh, and by the way, I think you should take a look at this poll before you say people here are anti-Firefox and pro-IE/Opera :whistle:

Oh, and let me add something else :blink:

post-57338-1153154518_thumb.jpg

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Um, here they say that you can give a friend's email address, not some unknown ****. If you get "spam" because of a friend, then he's not really a friend now is he?

I'll start off the bat by saying I agree, this isnt spam. Like I said earlier other companies use it for similar purposes for years be it be within MSN messenger when adding an email address to your contacts (look at the radio box there), gmail invites, live invites, e-cards ect ect. I personally cant see how one email sent from YOUR FRIEND can be considered spam. As you said it's your friend sending it. The company sends the invitation on your friends behalf, its really no different than them sending an email via hotmail promoting anything else and saying Microsoft is spamming you because the email originated from MS's servers. Alas no, its the friend whos sending it and supplying your information. Ideally they should ask for permission 1st.

That said that link you posted was a rather poor example. I would say FFX is the most popular browser here. Case and point, I hate firefox fanboys. That however doesnt mean I'm not a firefox user. Theres a very clear distinction between the program itself and the fanboys using it. Fanboys annoy me and get in my face, an application does not (and can be uninstalled if it does). I would say Neowin has a fairly even spread of users in terms of Browsers but even then I'd say the majority tend to lean towards Firefox having no real figures to support that arguement. It may just be the fanboys being more vocal but.

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if microsoft did this much "advertising" and stupid commercials (goes for both apple and firefox but this is about fox so ill keep on topic), or devoted space for people to make commercials trashing other browsers ms would get sued into the ground for slander, but since both of those products are so low in the share percentage scale no one cares.

Can you really get sued for slander against a product, i think those laws only apply to people, not objects.

I think it's kind of a stupid idea, but it's just advertising, plain and simple, every company does it.

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So that is Microsoft's fault? Not Apple's for not making their stuff compatible with other companies hardware (until the recent Intel stuff)? Not the hardware companies for choosing to have their laptop come with Windows rather than Linux? It is just Microsoft's fault?
MrA never said it was anyone's fault, I don't believe. It sounded more like the general airing of a statement or complaint about a situation without laying blame.

But, if we were to look for blame, we would need to look back through the cause/effect of the past. The current situation is that Dell, HP and all the others are in contracts with Microsoft that provide discounts to them only if they meet certain criteria, such as logo placement, statements that "Xxxx recommends Microsoft Windows" and selling desktops that only have Windows preinstalled. Who's fault is it that the contracts exist with such terms? Well, the current market situation (Microsoft overwhelmingly dominates the home PC market) makes it so. Who is to blame for this? Some consumer inertia (the "herd mentality"), general business needs (minimize spending and maximize profit to provide the best possible R.O.I. to investors), and past practices (some deemed illegal in US courts) by Microsoft to lock themselves into that position of overwhelming dominance.

Even with the unethical and illegal acts, Microsoft did only what other companies do daily to get advantage. Industrial espionage exists. Business practices push the limits of legality at times to get that sliver of competitive advantage over their opponents. While you could say that Microsoft is to blame for the situation, it is only a small-ish part of the whole story.

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I would be really ticked if my friends were giving out my email address to Mozilla or any other company.

That is a very good point :| I never thought of it like that!

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what a stupid idea. I still like firefox but this just dumb. I like firefox because my IE is faruked iuno what wrong but i cant stream anything at least in ffox its wrkng and it render pages alot faster than IE for me. Don't ask.

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I love Firefox and everything - even Mum has started to use it now. But sometimes you just cringe a little bit for something they're doing.

Setting up a new XP install the first download was Firefox - same for everyone I know. If they don't already have it, I don't know that the idea of being in the source code is going to make them download it, assuming they know what the source code is.

I'll still get extensions, suggest it to new users etc and am still thinking about buying a Firefox bag, but I don't think anyone would thank me for giving their email address to anyone, whether Firefox or whoever.

It's kind of a cool idea, but... ya know... :)

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**** FF!

Download and Install IE7 Beta 3 to help IE7 Beta 3 when it is at its final version to gain world domination and to bomb FF!

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**** FF!

Download and Install IE7 Beta 3 to help IE7 Beta 3 when it is at its final version to gain world domination and to bomb FF!

Ummm. At 80-something percent, IE is already the dominant browser. :ermm:

And look what letting Microsoft completely dominate the browser market did for the consumers... :no:

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Trying to shove Firefox down people's throats eh?

No thanks, I'll just uninstall Firefox on every PC instead.

My god, seriously.

Everyday I read a new story about how the mozilla corp. wants to promote firefox.

First its the NY Times advertisement, now its this stupid crap.

IF A SOFTWARE IS GOOD IT WILL GENERATE ITS DOWNLOAD NUMBERS ON ITS OWN!

Do you REALLY think that Ad-Aware, ICQ and Limewire did these stupid marketing ploys to garner enough downloads to be in the top 10 on Download.com every week?

Nope, I didn't think so either.

Im getting sick of these stupid antics from the Mozilla corp. They need to concede to the fact that they will never be the #1 browser in the world. Its just a fact.

Its not necessarily because IE is BETTER, but just because the majority of people are too lazy to change. As the old saying goes, dont fix what aint broke.

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IF A SOFTWARE IS GOOD IT WILL GENERATE ITS DOWNLOAD NUMBERS ON ITS OWN!

Do you REALLY think that Ad-Aware, ICQ and Limewire did these stupid marketing ploys to garner enough downloads to be in the top 10 on Download.com every week?

Nope, I didn't think so either.

Im getting sick of these stupid antics from the Mozilla corp. They need to concede to the fact that they will never be the #1 browser in the world. Its just a fact.

Its not necessarily because IE is BETTER, but just because the majority of people are too lazy to change. As the old saying goes, dont fix what aint broke.

How do you explain Kazaa (it was number 1 until their offices were raided)? Theres many other notables there that arent that good, winzip has long since fallen behind the competition and I dare say ICQ's quality has slipped consistantly in the past few years.

The point of this campaign isnt to get Firefox to number 1 position. It's simply there to spread awareness and gain them 1 or 2% extra market share. Most of the team are realist and know that if they are ever going to be number one it wont be for another decade and would require a huge shakeup in the tech world but thats no reason to give up or not try and get a few percent. Like watching sport it's always good to see the loosing team continue to fight on and despite the odds occasionally they do win out in the end.

I personally dont like this campain too btw but it's not that big a deal. The other one was simply a fund raiser and made them well over a million dollars in the process so it's not like the campaigns arent working for them. The ad in the paper was really just an incentive for every day users who mightnt always donate to put some money in and get something in return and it seems it worked quite well for them.

Edited by Smigit
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...

IF A SOFTWARE IS GOOD IT WILL GENERATE ITS DOWNLOAD NUMBERS ON ITS OWN!

...

Well, If people don't know about it, they can't download it.
Its not necessarily because IE is BETTER, but just because the majority of people are too lazy to change. As the old saying goes, dont fix what aint broke.

In that case, IE is definitely broken :laugh:

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How do you explain Kazaa (it was number 1 until their offices were raided)? Theres many other notables there that arent that good, winzip has long since fallen behind the competition and I dare say ICQ's quality has slipped consistantly in the past few years.

The point of this campaign isnt to get Firefox to number 1 position. It's simply there to spread awareness and gain them 1 or 2% extra market share. Most of the team are realist and know that if they are ever going to be number one it wont be for another decade and would require a huge shakeup in the tech world but thats no reason to give up or not try and get a few percent. Like watching sport it's always good to see the loosing team continue to fight on and despite the odds occasionally they do win out in the end.

I personally dont like this campain too btw but it's not that big a deal. The other one was simply a fund raiser and made them well over a million dollars in the process so it's not like the campaigns arent working for them. The ad in the paper was really just an incentive for every day users who mightnt always donate to put some money in and get something in return and it seems it worked quite well for them.

I wasnt saying that they are trying to be #1 on Download.com.

That joke that everyone pulled on MTV back in 2001 to get that New Kids on the Block song from 10 years prior into the top 10 of TRL was, though. Ah the good old days...

KaZaa and WinZip:

WinZip was the original in zip extraction/compression. Besides the fact that they paid off every company they could locate to include WinZip in everything they distributed.

I can't recall whether my Comcast internet setup CD back in 1998 included WinZip, but it certainly included Adobe Acrobat reader and Netscape Navigator.

However every demo CD I go from PC Games and PC Gamer magazine had WinZip.

What I am pointing out here with Winzip is that they paid their way into the #1 compression program slot, which is one way to do it. You pay your way to be included with everything that is anything. Game demo cds, internet setup cds, program install cds, music cds, etc. It would appear that FireFox isnt taking this route.

Another way is how KaZaa did it. They built a program on the wake of the most popular program of its sort was shut down (Napster). They made it user friendly, had a great interface, etc. They just capitalized on a recently down market. From there it was all word of mouth. P2P - use Kazaa, its the only thing out there!

FireFox would LIKE to do this, but no matter what they do Internet Explorer will never fail enough to leave a mass of people wanting to find an alternative.

All FireFox can do is hope a few techies put an ad here and there on their sites, hope techies tell their customers to use it, provide code for web developers who love FireFox to make it so people without FireFox can't view their page forcing them to get FireFox, and do stupid ploys like the one this thread is about.

Let me just ask a few questions in relation to these marketing ploys by FireFox about Internet Explorer:

Do you see mass adverts for Opera or IE? Nope.

Do you see a dumb ploy like this for Opera or IE? Nope.

Do you see webpages that only work in Opera or IE forcing you to obtain those browsers (therefore being an ad for the browser)? Nope.

Do you find a lot of techies recommending people use Opera or IE? Not really (since most of them are situated with IE anyway, and dont feel like changing).

It makes me feel like FireFox is just another spam software like Spyware Doctor or Registry Mechanic, trying to spam their name all over the place to get downloads.

Well, If people don't know about it, they can't download it.

In that case, IE is definitely broken :laugh:

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it". IE ain't broke it was I was saying. Quit twisting my logic. I retain the rights to twist my logic :p.

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