Why I Think All Browsers (Mozilla Firefox Included) Will Survive

Mozilla Firefox 4, as customized by me

Mozilla Firefox 4 is out, and I'm using it now. It's now fast enough and stable enough that it has rekindled some of the old excitement I felt when I first started using Mozilla Firefox and when I started using a new version of the browser. At the same time that I started using it, I saw this article (Ed Bott, ZDNet) which posits why Microsoft Internet Explorer will survive and Mozilla Firefox won't, and I felt like I should respond to it.

Before that, there are two things I should disclose. The first is that I initially considered titling this post "Review: Mozilla Firefox 4" but I decided against it because it's more my opinion of the current status of the browser and my excitement about the new release. The second is that I am probably quite biased in favor of Mozilla Firefox, considering that I have been using it since version 0.8. Please keep these in mind when reading the rest of this post.

Basically, he posits that Mozilla has done wrong by letting Firefox sit without a major release for two years, while in two years Google Chrome has gone from version 1 to version 10. Furthermore, Microsoft has been ramping up its Internet Explorer release schedule and coming closer to how often Google releases Chrome and will make bigger strides in market share thanks to integration with Microsoft Windows Phone 7. And finally, both Microsoft and Google have a whole host of web applications coming with Internet Explorer and Chrome, respectively, while Mozilla has nothing of the sort for Firefox, so Firefox is the loser here. Follow the jump to read my take.

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