When did Firefox get popular, and Why?

[SquireQuack]

I switched to firefox approximately 3 or so years ago. I had Red Hat Linux at the time and I hated the (Mozilla) browser that came with it (how ironic). and I googled and came up with some brand new browser still in its infancy. I tried and and I thought it was just the best!

I didn't really advertise it or anything for 2 years. About a year ago, I began to notice that FF was EVERYWHERE! At my dad's office, all my friends had it, it was all over the forums...it was kinda crazy.

So I'm just wondering, when exactly did Firefox get popular and why did you switch?

 

[RegFee]

because i had installed it and it had imported my opera bookmarks. then opera bookmarks were gone one day and I saw that ff still had them all, so I started using it and it just kind of stuck. pages actually seem to load better with it, maybe not because it loads pages better, but more people design for it. Take my site toppixels.com, it looks good in ff, like crap in opera.

 

[stscac]

Because FIREFOX RULES!

-Steve

 

[Rowan W]

All it took was my old man giving me his USB drive and saying I should try out this safer browser, this is after I found spyware hidden in IE. At the time I was mainly attracted to the standard features, such as tabbed browsing, pop-up blocker, and the simplicity of the design (and of course there were no exploits around at the time). The more I used it the more hidden features I found, and now I can't browse without it.

I believe it spread mostly due to word of mouth; one person finds it and likes it, so this person tells their friend, who also happens to like it, then it goes from there. I've told countless people about Firefox (in person and online) and most of them have used it and stuck with it. I've converted both of the programmers I work with into Firefox users, and programmers are usually the advocates of IE.

I think people catch onto it easily because it's so simple to use and it's not bloated with unecessary features. Even with simplicity it still has a lot of features, customisation settings and useful safe extensions.

There have always been other browsers out there with the same sort of features, but I think the main reason they didn't catch on was because they were either bloated and/or unfinished.

I can understand why some people won't switch, it's usually because they don't like to be told to and don't want to "go with the crowd". Because it certainly is a large crowd.

Now the only reason I recommend people to not use IE is because of it's lack of web st*ndards support. You can use whatever modern browser you want, as long as it's not based on IE6 or less. However I still make sure my sites work in IE, otherwise I wouldn't be working.

I can't wait for IE7 to save the day!

 

[DJ-Sound]

I use firefox because I like it better, the tabs, having one window open is nice. Has alot of drawbacks and I still use IE often to view websites. Safer, better? I wouldn't say so, I get about the same amount of crap from both, but with ff less things work on websites and if I had to vote I would say IE is still better.

 

[WealthStream]

I had a few technical problems with IE, and couldn't be bothered to re-install it. So I tried Firefox, and quickly started to like it's interface. Now I use it about 90% of the time.

 

[def1]

I still dont see the big deal with ff. It doesnt have any cool image filters. And my non ff browser has tabs, rss, and a search box. I like firefox but i think ie is better. Plus ie loads pages a lot faster for me than opera and ff

 

[Epic]

I wanted to be a rebel lol

Plus Firefox is faster and I got it back when IE didn't have a popup blocker

 

[thomaslgates]

I did not like IE. Perhaps, when I first tried FF, I liked it and then, I started using it!

 

[LeetPCUser]

I have seen it get big in the past year. Before 2005 I had never seen it. I started using it around April or so.

 

[Freakz]

I just like the look of it - slick looking - IE has a 4-5 year old interface still.

 

[NuPagady]

Becouse
Firefox is Firefox - and it rocks.
Internet Explorer is Internet Explorer - and it sucks.

There are so many things written about it and I don't think I have to explain anything now :]

 

[Momo]

I used to use IE before, but because of frequent crashes, I decided to switch to Firefox, and I've come to love it since then. Firefox has a lot of features that IE didn't have (then) like tabbed browsing, pop-up blocker, password manager, integrated search, etc.

 

[richplay]

Was using IE before, don't know exactly when I switched, but I was sick of IE thats for sure.

 

[Kate]

IE what ? :lol: :p

 

[Troubled1]

I started using firefox mostly for sites that were full of adware and spyware, firefox was resistant to them. However lately i've noticed that more and more junk is getting thru firefox too.

I still use it a lot though. My favorite browser now is Maxthon.

 

[theSun]

Simply becuase it ROCKS YOUR SOCKS~~!~ woowoooo ~!~~

 

[Castlemelody]

I agree. The main reason why I switched to FF is because a lot of adwares creep in at IE. However, I've seen little adware also coming out of FF lately. I dunno why. But, I have installed Spybot Search and Destroy to take care of them.

Maxthon? First time I've heard. I have Opera and IE on my system as well. Let me take a look...

Take care everyone!

I started using firefox mostly for sites that were full of adware and spyware, firefox was resistant to them. However lately i've noticed that more and more junk is getting thru firefox too.

I still use it a lot though. My favorite browser now is Maxthon.

 

[primacomputer]

Who says you have to switch to use firefox? I use a number of browsers, including firefox and IE. I certainly like the tabs and popup blocker in firefox. But there are some things that simply require IE, or work better in IE. By the same token, I still use Netscape on a daily basis because it's quick and lean. Sometimes Lynx is the right tool for the job.

 

[Tony89]

I switched from IE to Firefox mainly because its 2x faster than IE and you dont get no spyware etc.. harming your computer.