FlipmodePlaya's Journal: FireFox

I'm baffled at the popularity of FireFox... Absolutely amazed, and confused. What does it have to offer that makes it so popular? It's not especially light, it doesn't offer a lot of features, it's not overly pretty, it doesn't have unheard of compatability, it's not the fastest browser out there. Let me say that my browser of choice has been Opera for some time, so I may be somewhat biased. I do, however, regularly use Mozilla when away from my computer, as it's much more common that Opera. When I'm given a choice of any browser, I go for Opera, then Konq, then Moz, then (reluctantly) FF (though I've yet to try out a few that look cool, such as OmniWeb).

I grep Moz's popularity, it's a *complete Internet suite* with a nice rendering engine. It's advantage over Opera is that it's OSS, and that should award it some popularity. On the other hand, FF is just an OSS *browser* with a nice rendering engine. It's not that much lighter than Mozilla, why not use the whole suite? Are there some features that can be added via extensions that Moz can't have, and are any of them worth losing the eMail/chat/planner/etc. capabilities?

Is Opera unpopular just because of the ad it has in the unaid version? It's not huge and screen stealing, and you can use the rest of the toolbar for buttons and such, thanks to the completely customizable interface. Hell, the Google ads come in handy once in a while (that's a stretch, I know). Is Mozilla less popular because the interface brings up memories of Netscape?

I don't want to come off as angry or spiteful, I'd actually like to know what the big deal is. It's not that I haven't tried FF, I used it exclusively for a several days recently just to see if I'd warm up to it (I didn't). It's not that I think it's terrible, I just thing it's glaringly mediocre. I liked the extension manager, though I didnt like the fact that you have to ream through a catalogue of over a hundered extensions to get the functionality you've come to expect in other browsers. Meh, I doubt anyone will end up reading this anyway...

Modularity & Other Tools

[Oculus Habent]

You'll find some people prefer FireFox to Mozilla because they enjoy the UNIX-like modularity of their programs. Just as there are separate programs for grep and cat, they prefer knowing that each of their larger programs are independant of others. I don't believe this is the biggest draw, though.

Simply put, people already have other tools. I use a Mac and a PC. At home, my Macintosh handles my e-mail in Mail and my calendar in iCal. I also browse in Safari or Camino. On my home PC, I don't require a mail