Gecko Uptake

[TonyG]

Just been reading the thread on Opera and had a look at various browser stats floating around. Gecko based browsers are slowly gaining some share but the progress is sooooooo slow.

The thing that I find is that every single person I have shown Phoenix 0.4, now uses it as their stable browser. I have got Mozilla dropped on desktops in my work place and ALL our developers test web pages for Gecko compliance.

The fact is the browsers are good for users and they are better than IE when it comes to feature set. Forget crap about slow loading etc. Most peoples PCs are plenty good enough to run Gecko-based browsers.

The question is - who should be promoting the browsers and how can this be assisted?

[Gunnar]

I have a similar experience promoting Mozilla / Netscape 7. Find out which features people will like most and show them these features.

Probably the most important group to convert - at least initially, are web designers, consultants, and similar groups. I e.g. test all new web pages that are done on Mozilla. The people who design them for us know that so they installed Mozilla, as well (to save themselves unnecessary work . In the end, they really liked it and now they use Mozilla as their personal browsers. Guess which browser products they do for future clients won't look bad on

Still, we need to fight inertia. Many people are more or less satisfied with IE. Getting them to use a different product, even if it is, at least IMHO, far better, takes an effort from us, since getting used to something new takes an effort for them.

[mesostinky]

The only thing that is going to get Mozilla/Phoenix any type of sizable market-share is OEM bundling period. In all reality it just doesn't matter how good Moz is, IE works well enough for most people, comes bundled with >90% of desktop PC's and most people see no need to switch. As much as I like Mozilla I be lying if I said I ever thought it would gain like >10% of the market without a huge advertising/palm greasing budget.

You asked about who should be promoting, the answer besides us end-users and developers for Mozilla in general, was supposed to be Netscape. Netscape was supposed to take this non-end-user browser and spend the cash needed to promote it and thereby Mozilla and work out the deals where it was bundled with new PC's. That never happened and that is one of the biggest disappointments I've had with both Mozilla and Netscape. I mean how much does AOL spend marketing AOL? They've given Netscape and as a consequence Mozilla the cold shoulder when it comes to advertising dollars and have ensured low adoption of both Netscape and Mozilla.

I am happy with and use Moz and Phoenix and also try to get everyone I know to use it, but you gotta realize that when it comes to peoples desktops and you start talking about real adoption rates, money is what makes it happen. That or MS just stops bundling IE with their desktops for some reason.

I'm sure there are other takes on this, but realistically the bottom line is money or MS faltering.

[nicubunu]

The only thing that is going to get Mozilla/Phoenix any type of sizable market-share is OEM bundling period.

I agree with that, with another possible scenario: why not, for example, an Dell Browser, something like 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/2002xxxx Dell', just an custom skin, another about page, home page, icon and some strings modified ? And the same for some ISP.

[moronicbajebus]

why not, for example, an Dell Browser, something like 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win98; en-US; rv:1.3a) Gecko/2002xxxx Dell', just an custom skin, another about page, home page, icon and some strings modified ? And the same for some ISP.

I agree, but I think to get the most out of that there needs to be really simple (like wizard) to do that.

[nicubunu]

An wizard would be very good, but it not so hard, i think for someone experienced with Mozilla can be 1 person/1 week work, is almost nothing for any medium/large firm.

[moronicbajebus]

I think Netscape makes a free <a href="http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/partners/cck.jsp" target="_blank"> wizard</a>.

I have not tested it so if anyone does give me feedback.

[whiprush]

I've tried the Netscape customizer thingie:

It is kind of cool, but limited. For example, you can add custom bookmarks, things in the titlebar, etc. etc., but you can't REMOVE anything, which is annoying - so things like the marketing crap shoved into the personal bar and the sidebar are still there. You can add your own graphics and stuff to the installer. It's worth playing around with.

I've been looking at "easy" ways to make a custom Mozilla distro, something like the Netscape customizer for Mozilla would be awesome.

[moronicbajebus]

There are a lot of personal websites through geocities.com, tripod.com, etc who do not know squat about html. Even without knowing html much less CGI or CSS, they made a website usally with links, pictures, and probally a bulletin board.

Why?
It is easy. All you do is select a design and then enter in form fields. Who cares if looks great or even has worthy content, they love their website and show everyone they can.

If there was a way to super simple way to change and package the:

• Text in the title bar
• basic changes to the theme based on a few already made themes
• Where the throbber linked to
• The start up homepage
• and preset bookmarks

Then you would see a lot of "StAn'S wEbBrOwSeR."

This would at least get more people looking at Mozilla.

[nicubunu]

Look at <a htref="http://mozilla.org/projects/cck/">http://mozilla.org/projects/cck/</a> (Client Customization Kit), is something like that, available unfortunately only in CVS.