The Evangelist

It's been a while since I mentioned Opera in a post. The browser has a mere 1.50% of marketshare according to Wikipedia, coming in behind Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Mozilla's Firefox, Apple's Safari, and Google's Chrome. Considering Opera's quality as a browser and how many features it has pioneered before other browsers, it is surprising how little marketshare Opera has.

Mozilla has announced that they will stop updating the Firefox 2 series this December.

What will this mean? Firefox 2 and Thinderbird 2 will stop receiving updates of any kind, and all browsers based on Gecko 1.8 will at the very least not receive security updates from Mozilla. This means that Seamonkey 1.1, the original Flock browser, K-Meleon 1.1.1.5, Camino 1.5.5, Epiphany 2.16 and all older versions will no longer receive Mozilla security update.

Mozilla is encouraging users to switch to Firefox 3 to keep their systems secure. Those using third-party Gecko browsers should really update as well; there can really be little harm in it the way that browsers have been improving in speed these days.

This will mean that users who want Firefox on Windows ME or any older Windows operating system will have to stick with Firefox 2 despite the fact that support is stopping.

If you ask me, Mozilla is doing what is right. By killing of continued support, they can focus their efforts on developing new technologies such as Firefox 3. In the end, many users will benefit from this.

So Mozilla has released Firefox 3, and the browser's marketshare has been steadily increasing to the 43.7% is has now.

It will be interesting to see whether or not Firefox will continue to expand as quickly when its marketshare starts to near 50%. There are a lot of users out there who don't know that there is an alternative to Internet Explorer. And even those who do know that there is an alternative might not care because Internet Explorer "works" and is "good enough." This is more understandable with IE7 with its new features than IE6, which lacks some more basic features such as tabbed browsing. This is not to say that there aren't Internet Explorer users who actually realize the alternatives but choose to use IE because they prefer it, however. It will be interesting to see whether members of these groups switch to Firefox, making its marketshare continue to increase, or if Firefox will start to come to a "critical momentum," so to speak, and balance around a certain percentage. If internet access becomes available in more developing nations, the use of Linux and therefore possibly Firefox could also have an interesting effect on this dynamic.

But there is more to the future of Mozilla than the expanding marketshare of Firefox. There are other ways to expand as well.

Currently, it would seem that in the world of browsers, Mozilla is targeting the mobile platform with a mobile version of Firefox, codenamed "Fennec."


Through Fennec, Mozilla hopes to bring their standards-based browser to their mobile platform and make it so that device manufacturers as well as individuals (in some cases) can embed the browser on their devices. Mozilla also wants to make it so that the mobile version of Firefox is add-on capable, just like the regular Firefox browser for the desktop. This would help to enlarge the Mozilla community in the mobile market (and compete with Opera Mini). Mozilla also wants to help web developers with making web applications compatible with the browser and use developments from the project to benefit the desktop version as well.

Mozilla wants to make Fennec able to browse the web and access web apps the way they are meant to be viewed. They also want to make it so that developers don't have to go out of their way just to design a page or app that works well with the browser, which would be great. They want to make mobile browsing simple and fast. This is something that has proven hard for the developers of browsers for mobile phones. Simple tasks such as entering a URL or refreshing a page can be exceedingly difficult at times. Like the desktop versions of Firefox, Mozilla hopes to keep the mobile version secure to ensure that phones are not hacked and information taken from them.


Mozilla plans on using their leverage in the desktop market to try to make people aware of Fennec and why it is better than the other mobile browsers already available.

One interesting element is that Fennec is to be compatible with both touchscreen and standard phones, and be relatively easy to use on both.

Those with a Nokia N810 can already get Fennec on their phones through the Fennec Releases page. It is worthy of noting that this version is far from complete, and is definitely lacking in the UI and usability improvements that Mozilla hopes to have in the final version. The current version does however show how well the backend of Fennec works, and the browser is still technically impressive (although not really ready for general use and release; Mozilla will likely do what it does with its other products and not release the browser until they are sure it's ready).

It is my hope that Mozilla also explores opportunities in other areas. Mozilla has always had a commitment to supporting open source, and I hope they continue to honor that commitment in the future.

It is also my hope that Mozilla starts offering web services such as online bookmarking that can be used across multiple browsers and other services. Perhaps Mozilla, with their significant marketshare and strong support, could even take on the giants like Google and Microsoft in online services with the help of its large base of web developers. I know that I would gladly contribute to such a project by Mozilla to make such a change.

The future of open-source web browsing awaits us. And it's looking like a bright future.

In the so-called browser war, we are always hearing of the battle between Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox. Alone, IE version 5, 6 or 7 has less marketshare than Firefox. Together, they have about 50.6% of the browser marketshare according to w3schools, while Firefox only has 43.7%. Apple's Safari browser has 2.6 percent of the marketshare. Opera, on the other hand, only has 2.1% of the marketshare.

Opera is a fast and memory-efficient web browser with many innovative features that gets far less attention than it deserves. Being a user of Firefox myself, I can say that Opera has features that even Firefox doesn't have (while conversely Firefox has some features that Opera lacks, such as find as you type).

Quick Find is a nifty feature that allows you to search the content of sites you have visited in the past to help find something on a page even if you forgot which website it was at. With Opera Link through the My Opera Service, everything gets synchronized across Opera browsers over multiple PCs, allowing you to keep your bookmarks and settings no matter which computer you are on. Speed Dial, which is much like the speed dial feature on a phone, brings up a list of up to 9 user-defined websites instead of about_blank when a new tab is opened. Mouse gestures are an alternative to clicking buttons in the browser or using key commands, which can be useful for some users who like to use the mouse. The download manager is comparable to the one in Firefox 3, plus it has Bittorrent capability, a big plus. The browser also has widget capabilities as well as a jumble of other features that I won't mention here because both Firefox and IE7 already have them.

What is also interesting is that Opera is working on a set of developer tools for creating websites and web applications known as Opera Dragonfly. This is an interesting move for Opera to release a set of tools for developing web pages and then make sure they are compatible with the browser. While other companies have made similar moves, they have never to my knowledge taken it this far.

Overall, my experience with Opera has been a good one. The browser behaves as one would expect it to for the most part, and it has some great features. While many of these can be attained in Firefox through other means including add-ons, Opera has really gone far to make an original browser, and has really come far from earlier versions.

Targeted advertisements. You've probably seen them before. They advertise something that you are interested in, have searched lately, or seem to know where you live.

Because of targeted advertisements, I have Firefox set to delete my cookies, cache, and other internet information every time I close my browser. While this can be annoying and log you out of your session at many sites, it can also help improve your internet security and anonymity.

However, I recently saw an incredibly targeted ad. I had looked at the weather for my local area (which, of course, means my zip code). Next thing you know, I see an ad for the county fair. While the fact that the ad was for the county fair did not creep me out that much, the fact that I was being shown an ad for the county fair did.

For those who would like to avoid these advertisements, deleting your cookies and the information saved by your browser regularly can help.

However, for those who are more concerned about protecting their privacy, there are tools like Tor, which can help ensure that advertisers and those looking for personal information alike can't get it. By using Tor, the website you are connecting to won't be able to determine where you are located based on your IP address and more. The downside is that browsing is slowed significantly, even on broadband connections (if you have dial-up, don't even consider it).

What do you think about targeted advertisements? Leave your comment to get the discussion going.

Are you a member of many social networks? Do you feel like you have to run around to many different sites just to check up on all of your friends and contacts?

Then you need Flock, the Social Web Browser. Flock 2, based on Firefox 3, allows you to easily stay connected to your friends online. Flock makes it easier to share with others and to keep up-to-date when a contact updates their profile.

Flock is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.