Those who know, use Firefox

giulio · Oct 12, 2007

http://isohunt.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=104057

"Firefox users on isoHunt have now overtaken IE users, and I see the
trend continuing in more Firefox adoption. The less reliance on
standard non-compliant and malware-friendly IE, the better."

Firefox
Sep 25, 2007 - Oct 1, 2007 46.19%

Internet Explorer
Sep 25, 2007 - Oct 1, 2007 46.07%

Opera
Sep 25, 2007 - Oct 1, 2007 3.79%

Safari
Sep 25, 2007 - Oct 1, 2007 2.91%

It can be hypothesized that users of this type of site are very smart and concerned about security. That being true, these numbers tell how people feel about security implementations in their browsers!
Surely a huge population of this site is also just people looking for pirated media, and have no clue about security. I wonder how the numbers would be more affected if all of the users knew of the differences in IE and FF.

iRye · Oct 12, 2007

I can't stand FF. In OS X, at least.

cwa107 · Oct 12, 2007

I like Firefox very much and it is the only browser I use at home on all of my machines, but I like it because of the way it handles RSS feeds and some of the plug-ins.

I found this site a few months back and found it very interesting as I was always under the assumption that FireFox was more secure than IE.

Zoolook · Oct 12, 2007

Exactly, ISO-hunt is not a great indicator is it.

Anyway, Camino FTW!

cwa107 said:
I found this site a few months back and found it very interesting as I was always under the assumption that FireFox was more secure than IE.

Firefox is more secure. You don't really believe that MS fanboy drivel do you? I saw that in another thread on another discussion board about 6 months ago... many of the claims and stats are simply untrue.

giulio · Oct 12, 2007

isoHunt it a great indicator... for isoHunt. You can't use it as a blanketing global indicator. But you can make assumptions of the type of people who use it... of what they know about the net and their experience level... and then see what browser they prefer. I thought it was pretty interesting.

Zoolook · Oct 12, 2007

giulio said:
isoHunt it a great indicator... for isoHunt. You can use it as a blanketing global indicator. But you can make assumptions of the type of people who use it... of what they know about the net and their experience level... and then see what browser they prefer. I thought it was pretty interesting.

I just don't think you can extrapolate browser useage from a single site, especially one that is used for such a specific reason.

I don't think isoHunt necessarily indicates smarter or more security conscious web users either. I think that hypothesis could be shown to be flawed.

mac57 · Oct 12, 2007

Folks like me, who simultaneously run multiple platforms (Mac, Linux, Windows) probably prefer Firefox because it is the same across all three, and synchronizing bookmarks is simple too.

DSCole312 · Oct 12, 2007

I like Firefox mainly because of the running spell-check when filling out online forms (such as when writing this). Does the Mac version of Safari have this feature? I have the Windows beta version, and it doesn't seem to.

Zoolook · Oct 12, 2007

DSCole312 said:
I like Firefox mainly because of the running spell-check when filling out online forms (such as when writing this). Does the Mac version of Safari have this feature? I have the Windows beta version, and it doesn't seem to.

It's an OS X feature, not a Firefox one.

TheCustomer99 · Oct 12, 2007

Firefox is nice, but I prefer Safari simply because it opens faster.

raptorkid700 · Oct 12, 2007

i prefer fire fox cause i can type the name while it loads. it never loads fastter for me.

vicariousgeorge · Oct 12, 2007

Zoolook said:
It's an OS X feature, not a Firefox one.

Actually no, it's definitely a firefox feature.

amrk47 · Oct 12, 2007

if you use firefox for more than an hour it stops responding and you have to force quit it and open it back up again

il stick with safari u

goobimama · Oct 12, 2007

Actually no, it's definitely a firefox feature.

While it is a Firefox feature, when it comes to OS X and Safari, the spellcheck is provided by OS X's unified dictionary. That is, the same dictionary for Pages, textedit, safari and such. Windows doesn't have a dictionary, so firefox has to use its own dictionary.

Not sure whether OS X's firefox uses the system dictionary or it's own...

DSCole312 · Oct 12, 2007

Nice to know the Mac version of Safari has spell-check. Also nice to know there's just one master dictionary on Mac OS X instead of multiple dictionaries that contradict each other.... Reason #497 I'm looking forward to getting a Mac.

Zoolook · Oct 12, 2007

goobimama said:
While it is a Firefox feature, when it comes to OS X and Safari, the spellcheck is provided by OS X's unified dictionary. That is, the same dictionary for Pages, textedit, safari and such. Windows doesn't have a dictionary, so firefox has to use its own dictionary.

Not sure whether OS X's firefox uses the system dictionary or it's own...

Well that clears it up - OS X can be set to check spelling in any application, so I didn't realise that Firefox does it's own.

I just posted this from FF in Windows... and it does spell check, my bad.

goobimama · Oct 12, 2007

Well not ANY application. Only Cocoa (OS X native) applications. Apps like Adobe suite, MS Office and such would need their own dictionary. I'm not sure how to differentiate between Cocoa and Carbon, but it's there.

I hope you guys know the dictionary anywhere trick: Hit Command + ctrl + D and hover over a word in any of the Cocoa apps. It will pop out a dictionary right there. Shortcut can of course be changed in Keyboard shortcuts prefs pane...

WakeCarver · Oct 12, 2007

amrk47 said:
if you use firefox for more than an hour it stops responding and you have to force quit it and open it back up again

il stick with safari u

I have never had this problem. However I have had safari lock up on me when I was trying it out when I first switched. I can leave firefox open for days at a time without any problems, I almost never quit firefox I just leave it running all the time. IMO Firefox is much superior browser to both IE and Safari.

giulio · Oct 12, 2007

What I meant was, "You can't use it [isoHunt] as a blanketing global indicator."

Zoolook said:
I just don't think you can extrapolate browser useage from a single site, especially one that is used for such a specific reason.

I don't think isoHunt necessarily indicates smarter or more security conscious web users either. I think that hypothesis could be shown to be flawed.

I must disagree.

Over 50% of isoHunt users are on Firefox. I've never seen a number so high anywhere. So you have to think, "what is it about isoHunt users that makes them choose Firefox?" Then you get into the demographics... the type of people who use the site...

Surely you can make good estimations about the type of people who visit a site. Technical sites will be used more by technical people. Most of the folks at mac-forums.com prefer iPod over Zune. Etc.

Yes bittorrent is becoming more mainstream daily. But for the most part it's pretty geeky.
And also for the most part, people go to isoHunt to steal SOMEthing - music, movies, software. In addition to legitimate downloads of course. These people know they are doing something wrong. They know the pending lawsuits, the risks, consequences. They know of spyware, malware, etc etc.

Smart, security conscious people, choosing firefox.

amrk47 · Oct 12, 2007

babarnette said:
I have never had this problem. However I have had safari lock up on me when I was trying it out when I first switched. I can leave firefox open for days at a time without any problems, I almost never quit firefox I just leave it running all the time. IMO Firefox is much superior browser to both IE and Safari.

shoot
what do u think is wrong