Ask Not -- The Bell Is Not Tolling for Firefox Yet
by Kristin Shoemaker - Mar. 22, 2009Comments (3)- Related Blog Posts
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Late last week, Sam took a close look at the rapidly changing browser landscape. In one of the posts linked therein, Keir Thomas speculates that Firefox may well have just given up the ghost, what with an alpha version of Chrome now being available for Linux (or, at the very least, Ubuntu).
I don't think it is, nor is it going to be, quite that easy. Firefox isn't without issue -- or momentum. And Chrome for Linux? In all reality, it doesn't exist, yet. Chrome may have a number of advantages over other browsers, including Firefox, on other platforms. But if it's still too early to call this fight on Windows, declaring the superior browser on Linux is pretty much a coin toss.
First, about that Chrome Launchpad PPA link -- it's not the Chrome browser. It's an application based on the open source browser project known as Chromium. Google's Chrome is also based on Chromium. The difference doesn't seem earth shattering, but it is significant. Chrome is an official Google release. The alpha package on Launchpad (the start page lists it as a pre-alpha) is not from Google.
The start page states that Google Chrome for Linux will not exist until Google officially releases it. That's good news for Firefox (which undoubtedly has a whole lot of life ahead of it) -- but it's also bad news.
Thomas makes some very valid points about Firefox, and its road ahead, in his Linux Line blog. The browser hasn't been spared from technical difficulties: random crashes, sluggishness, and production delays. It is working -- and must continue to work -- to overcome these obstacles, ensure they don't recur, while continuing to innovate and move forward. It's a tall order, without argument. Firefox does have history, community, and momentum behind it, however -- and if it is at all possible, my money's riding on the notion that the Mozilla Project can do it.
Competition -- at least from Chrome, at least on Linux -- isn't going to be the end of Firefox in the short term. As the Launchpad team working on the Chromium packages reminds us, Chrome is an official Google release, and there are no official releases, or even testing versions, of Google's browser for Linux. What if the competition isn't Google's browser? What if the competition is what makes Google's browser what it is? Perhaps it's not so much the Google name that's threatening (the recognition probably doesn't hurt -- but likely means more in some user demographics than it does in others). What is ultimately threatening for Firefox, it seems, is Chromium itself.
Thomas is right in this respect, as well. The Chromium package I installed on my Ubuntu Intrepid machine delivered a very fast, if not somewhat foreign feeling, browser. This browser isn't Chrome, but it is related. If, as Thomas says, Mozilla has grand aims but has lost sight of what users want from Firefox, I'm not overly confident that Google won't face the same problem with its official Chrome releases. It might end up that Firefox -- and Chrome -- will soon grapple with real competition from browsers using a Chromium core.
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