Firefox is no longer the most secure?

This is horrible. A study has been carried out (it is worth noting that Google sponsored it, hence how Chrome obviously wins)  that shows Chrome as the most secure web browser followed by Internet Explorer and then Firefox. The main reason that Chrome wins is probably because security (and speed) was one of the key aims when Chrome was originally created and every single tab, app and extension are sandboxed very tightly so that they can’t do anything that they shouldn’t be allowed to do. Internet Explorer has been slowly gaining this feature over the last few versions and it is still quite bad implemented.

I would say that Firefox has quite a lot of security though and it does sandbox to a certain extent, although probably not as much as the other browsers. Plugin security has been something that has been included in all three browsers for a while and theoretically Microsoft would win this if only Silverlight were judged.

I think that the main reason that Firefox has fallen behind is because the security was the main reason that people downloaded it initially. Aside from being faster, Firefox 1 was what was bringing people away from IE because it wasn’t going to infect their computer and had relatively good reviews. Over time Firefox added new problems that led to security holes.

By the time that Chrome was released Firefox was getting quite clunky and Chrome, being built from scratch, was offering both security and speed. Firefox then had to catch up with Chrome’s speed which meant that security was ignored and even now the new releases are advertised as being faster rather than safer. It doesn’t really surprise me that IE has improved in the last few years and the main reason is probably also Chrome; it needed to be better because it had already had such bad press.

Firefox 8 is officially here

Firefox 8 has somehow arrived already (I think we were using 3.x last year…) and it brings a few new features. I’ve only had a brief chance to play around with it but to quote Mozilla’s website it does seem to have even more awesomeness. The big new feature that Mozilla are talking about is Twitter search which looks like it is relatively fast. WebGL support has also been modified and improved so its faster.

Loading tabs on demand is also a new feature which should allow for faster loading of tabs which again looks quite useful as I have Firefox load with exactly the same tabs every time. Firefox for Android has also had some updates which allow it to handle HTML5 a bit more easily but also to allow you to add web apps to the home screen which is a simple but much needed feature which iOS has had for quite some time.

Extension support is a pain with any update for Firefox and sadly over half of my extensions don’t work with the new version, but hopefully that might be updated before version 9 comes up. And hopefully they’ll be updated again before version 10 comes out.

In case you are interested, Thunderbird has also been updated to version 8.

Firefox 8 FTP links

Firefox 8 is set to be released in a few days time but if you want to download it now click on one of the following links to go to Mozilla’s FTP server:

• Windows (United States)
• Windows for EU Browser Ballot (United Kingdom though you might as well download the normal version)
• Mac OS X (United States)
• Linux 32-bit (United States)
• Linux 64-bit (United States)

If you would like to download Firefox in your own language you can find it here. For most users (i.e. not Firefox addicts) it will probably be best to wait until Firefox 8 shows up on firefox.com instead.

The psychology of version numbers

I am not a psychologist and I don’t really claim to be any good at it. Yesterday Firefox 7 was released. The Firefox project changed its versioning system earlier this year so that know they will be doing regular updates increasing version numbers every few months – to the degree that this time last year I was using Firefox 3.6. Google Chrome works in a similar way – I’m currently using version 15 (beta) however this time last year I was using version 6 (final). Version 16 – ten versions later – is already available in the developer channel. But what is it about having big version numbers?

The first thing is that having a bigger number seems to convey age or maturity of a product. If I told you that I was 40 you would definitely assume that I was more mature than a 14 year old. If I told you that I’ve got an IQ of 160 you’d probably say I was highly intelligent*. Basically, the bigger the number, the better we assume it is.

Google Chrome using v14 current version suggests that it is more developed than Opera (v11), Internet Explorer (9), Firefox (7) and Safari(5?). People think that a new version number means that a lot more features. If this is the case, people will assume there are more features in Google Chrome.

Many people believe that Firefox increasing its release system is because they are trying to play catch-up firstly with the other browsers, but ultimately Google Chrome. Firefox is losing users dramatically, and Google Chrome is gaining them at the same rate (well, the same rate Firefox and Internet Explorer are losing them). I made a bet with a friend earlier this year that Google Chrome would overtake Firefox by 2012, and I still think it will – maybe even by November.

Firefox developers believe that increasing version numbers will increase inferred maturity or features. Whether it will or not, I don’t know. What I do know is that there are quite a lot of ads for Chrome on other browsers at the moment.

*Last time I did an IQ test I got this, but it was one of those dodgy online ones that is quite inaccurate.

Firefox 6

Today is Firefox 6 day. It seems ridiculous that we are already using Firefox 6 when just a few months ago we were getting excited about Firefox 4. It is even possible Firefox 7 will be out by the end of the year. Firefox 6 is great though. It uses the same interface as Firefox 4 and 5, but there noticeable difference is speed. This version of Firefox is just faster at everything. JavaScript performance seems infinitely better and overall rendering is faster.

This version seems (though I am probably wrong) to be quicker than Google Chrome on my computer. I can do tasks more easily and it seems to handle tabs much better than previous versions – switch between tabs is also much quicker and enjoyable.

There are still a few niggles, but I hope that these will be wiped out. I think that Firefox should probably do sand-boxing better so it doesn’t have scripts crashing quite so much. It would also be good if an automatic updater was included (like in Chrome) so I don’t have to worry about updates.

I have actually been using Firefox 6 since it first came up on Mozilla’s public FTP, however the official download has gone up today.

IE users have a lower IQ (Hilarious survey)

UPDATE: IT HAS SINCE EMERGED THAT THE STORY, AND COMPANY, WERE A FAKE

A consulting firm called AptiQuant has run some IQ surveys across 100,000 people. Pretty useful – though I’ve always found that websites that try and work out my IQ seem to get confused and give me really low scores (on the last one I get 160). This company ran the survey, but to be useful, also collected data on which browser the participants were using. The result was that users using Internet Explorer tended to have a lower IQ than those using better browsers, such as Chrome, Safari, Opera, Firefox and a browser based on Firefox called Camino. Opera and Camino users tended to have above average (>100) IQs whilst the other browsers’ users were generally average (100).

Reading through the article on BBC News – currently the second most read article – the firm suggests that rather than Internet Explorer actually lowering people’s IQ it was just that people with lower IQs tended to be using Internet Explorer in the first place. But what if it was the other way round, and IE did actually lower people’s IQs:

• The slow browsing experience means that there is less time to look up new interesting things
• The number of ads for better browsers confuses the audience and so lowers their IQ
• The already low IQs mean that people don’t understand they need to download a better browser

Of course, I don’t doubt that this is not necessarily true, however I thought it was fun anyway. My ultimate suggestion to get people off of Internet Explorer is for someone like Google to stop throwing ads everywhere but to setup an advertising campaign where there is a ‘Chrome day’ where you have to get a friend using Internet Explorer off of it and onto Google Chrome. People are more likely to listen to their friends than to ads on the internet, so it could be useful…

Browser Success

The above graph from Wikipedia shows the top six methods for browsing the internet: IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera and Mobile Web. Roughly looking at these graphs we can see that there is a steady pattern: Internet Explorer is losing users, Firefox and Opera are staying steady, and Safari, Chrome and Mobile Web are gaining users, Chrome is gaining rapidly. By mid-2011 I see it as fairly likely that Internet Explorer usage will have probably dropped below 40%, and by mid-2012 Google Chrome will have over-taken both Firefox and Internet Explorer. If you’d asked me six months ago I would probably have said that by the end of 2011 IE will still be the most used, but Chrome will have more users than Firefox.

It is hardly a surprise that Internet Explorer is rapidly losing users, it is struggling to stay ahead and despite that desperate TV marketing campaigns, it is clear that Internet Explorer is on the demise, with Google sticking a Chrome ad on pretty much every Google owned site, including Google ads. Firefox is also now the most used browser in Europe, but I think one day Firefox will also die a death.

As for Safari getting more users, that can only be down to more Mac sales.

Why Firefox Beta is the best channel

You have three options when downloading Firefox: Aurora (translates roughly to Dev in the Chrome world), Beta and Stable Release. Previously I had always worked with the Stable Release because that way you know everything works, however I have since discovered that it has been better to use the Beta build over the other two. Here are five reasons why:

1. Automatic updates. This will seem old hat to Chrome users, but Firefox 5 Beta automatically keeps itself up to date, meaning less work for the user
2. More support. This is kind of obvious, but it means that you are always ahead of most Firefox users with HTML5 and CSS3
3. Its more reliable than Aurora. The Aurora channel isn’t appropriate for must users, and Beta runs more smoothly
4. You help to make Firefox run better. Usage statistics are sent back to Mozilla so they can help fix it and make Firefox run faster
5. You get features first. This means that you have the chance to use the best of the web

Everyone’s making a browswer (really often)

In the past couple of days Microsoft has started to announce platform previews for Internet Explorer 10. There had already been rumors about IE10 following the release of some suspected Windows 8 screenshots, and it is thought that the browser will be designed with touch/tablet support – though that is hardly a surprise.

I think it could be said as a surprise that Microsoft is already releasing platform previews of IE10, considering that IE9 was barely released a few weeks ago and most of us haven’t even got round to installing it (I have managed to some how get away with the fact I have the latest versions of Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera on my computer, but no IE). The current IE10 test drive is just a platform preview and doesn’t show what the browser will be like in the future, it just shows what kind of features it will have. It seems to come with a very similar array of HTML5 capabilities to Firefox 4, which is fantastic, however it is the first browser to drop any support for Windows Vista, it only runs on Windows 7 at the moment.

Perhaps this is the first stage of Microsoft saying goodbye to Windows Vista, the devil OS. IE9 was not released for XP purely because XP doesn’t have support for some of the hardware requirements that IE9 has like DirectX 10 and Aero, however I find it a little non-nonsensical that Microsoft aren’t giving Vista support considering it is based on exactly the same architecture. I am not complaining of course, however I find it a very unusual decision by Microsoft, I get the feeling Microsoft are finally giving up on Vista at last.

I am not actually particularly worried about Microsoft releasing the IE10 preview, because they aren’t the only browser developers to be moving towards more frequent updates, and if Microsoft releases IE10 within about six months (which is what it took IE9 from platform preview to release) it will be one of the fasted IE releases ever. However, Firefox and Chrome both take this model. Chrome is now released about every month and a half, and the beta seems to updated every couple of weeks – though I can’t remember exactly how long it is. Mozilla is also considering a similar model, with Firefox 5, 6 and 7 potentially being released this year.

The advantage of frequent updates is that you are always guaranteed to get a secure product, but the only other benefit that I can see is that you are getting the best HTML5 support possible – which is useful from a competition point of view. I think that, ultimately, competition is at the heart of it because it is what has left Microsoft behind, IE simply doesn’t have the best support whereas Chrome does and it is released the most often. I think that once HTML5 is standardized, whenever that time comes, the frequent updates may slow slightly, but another situation could arise in which there is no standard specification, however there is an open – perhaps wiki based – standard that developers can contribute to, like the model W3C is using at the moment. The risk of this is having another Internet Explorer like browser where the developers just add more and more unnecessary features that are only supported in one browser.