Four reasons for Firefox 4 to go – and one reason why it can't. "-ZDNet (blog)

"The operating system and application Interoperability

War on the OS really feel like the browser wars in recent years. Microsoft still has most of the OS market, interoperable with other OSes or not, are still a piece of the market share of the browser. Add-on compatibility is more important than the OS compatibility IMO.

Firefox has the most add-ins, so Yeah, it's still my primary browser.

"Speed"

The rate is rising for all browsers, and the latest versions of all of them are lightning fast.

I think we're going to major wall with optimization, however, as they are very similar in terms of performance.

I found that most of the speed differences are now on the manage window and tabs. Sometimes it takes a while IE9 to open a new window or tab.

There are also some problems with memory usage-different browsers use different amounts of memory. In a system with lots of RAM it's nonsense, but something like a netbook, it may be a major problem.

It seems that Firefox 4 today to be better, but practically could not use 3.x at all and completely switched to Chrome for a while. I hate to say it, but Firefox was in fact one of the worst browsers for a while. Lock memory usage, and brings me to the madness.

"The interoperability of the Web"

I had some problems of the current HTML 5 tests, which cause many people to claim that IE is still behind you. They barely even standard and test clouds unrelated things.

So until I see better tests, I wouldn't compare with HTML 5 support.

"Properties"

This is the main reason why I still use Firefox. Czech support to Firefox addon is great.

I like tab grouping, but I am completely convinced that it is not yet stable. Has some problems. It also has some problems with the performance and memory usage, it seems, but it's a great idea, and I hope to improve it over time.

"but all together it's good enough to return users who have moved back to Chrome, or IE?"

It's done for me. I like chrome, but it is not enough to permanently. As soon as it came out of Firefox 4, I tried it again, and I'm sticking to it.

"I think a lot of people like controls readily available lined up in the upper part of the program, even if the use of screen real estate."

You're right. Like a minimalist UI is somewhat a matter of taste. Many people prefer to have everything what is available, even if that's a bit crowded.

"Today, but I'm afraid his case too little and too late, to the tenderer in 2011."

I think that it remains competitive. I'm not like this "If you're not # 1, you're nothing." logic that ZDNet loves to use. I think that Firefox will remain for some time. I think it will be all right for the three major browsers on the market.

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