The Add-on Argument
Posted on July 9th, 2008 |
In a few blog posts I’ve read recently, I’ve witnessed at least two backers of separate web browsers claiming that their respective browsers have an edge over Firefox because they don’t require all the add-ons Firefox does in order to behave the way a user expects them to.
First off, over at the Maxthon Blog last week, a Maxthon user was quoted as having said the following about Firefox 3:
I’m sure Firefox has add-ons that can compensate for its apparent lack of features but…my hard drive says it was nice knowing you but you have to go.
Given that the Maxthon Blog reminds me of a certain other source of information, I took the opinions there with a grain of salt. However, I soon spotted a similar refrain at a much more trustworthy source.
Opera Watch has an article titled Guardian: Forget Firefox - I’m going back to Opera for browsing and email which quotes The Guardian columnist Andrew Brown as having said the following of Firefox 3:
With the release of Firefox 3, I mounted a private celebration: I went back to using Opera 9.5 as my main browser. This wasn’t just perversity. Firefox without its add-ons is clearly inferior to Opera. Firefox with enough add-ons to make it really useful is very much slower.
Although the reasoning behind Firefox’s add-on architecture has been well-publicized by Firefox spokesmen like Asa Dotzler and there are obviously those out there who appreciate that architecture, it appears that the latest approach by those supporting other web browsers is to suggest that the add-ons approach to feature support contributes to both a lackluster default set of features and excessive bloat once the desired features have been added.
So what’s your take? Is Firefox’s add-on approach the right approach, or is it better to try and target a larger set of features out-of-the-box?
Tags: Add-ons, Asa Dotzler, Comparisons, Extensions, Firefox, Firefox 3, Maxthon, Maxthon Blog, Opera, Opera 9.5, Opinion, The Guardian, Twitter
5 Responses
Using
Mozilla Firefox 3.0 on 
Linux
That’s why Seamonkey exists.
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/
Using
Mozilla Firefox 3.0 on 
Linux
I think the add-ons approach is much better, because you don’t have an “out-of-the-box” risk of bloat. The only other reasonable alternative is to have a normal, lean Firefox, and then a developer one that includes things like Firebug within the primary code. Either way, add-ons are still a must. Does Opera have the equivalent of Firebug, Greasemonkey, Flagfox, HTML validator, Web Developer, Live HTTP headers, etc. built in? Somehow, I doubt it has all of those. Firefox isn’t always the fastest, but there are significant advantages to open source projects with large communities.
Using
Mozilla 1.9.1a1pre on 
Mac OS X
I think the market share of browsers tends to speak for itself with this regard. As it is, most Firefox users don’t install any add-ons (or so the stats say).
Using
Mozilla Firefox 3.0 on 
Windows XP
> Does Opera have the equivalent of Firebug, Greasemonkey, Flagfox, HTML validator, Web Developer, Live HTTP headers, etc. built in?
For Opera :
GreaseMonkey - Opera built-in userjs support
Firebug/Web Developer - Opera Dragonfly
Live HTTP headers - nope, but then I just use web-sniffer which is much more versatile
HTML validator - there’s talk to add it to Dragonfly, for now I just use w3c validtor
Opera also basicallty have chatzilla, thunderbird, stylish, and foxtorrent built-in, and it has widgets too, and still has smaller memory footprint and installer size than vanilla Firefox.
For me it’s just like the micro vs. monolithic OS kernels debate, theoretically micro kernels are better, but still I find nothing wrong with monolithic kernels like Linux.
On a related note, the add-on stuff is not exclusive to Firefox, IE actually has even more extensibility than Firefox,
Using
Mozilla Firefox 3.0.1 on 
Mac OS X
>GreaseMonkey - Opera built-in userjs support
That’s very nice indeed and it looks like most Greasemonkey scripts can be run with little or no modification.
>Firebug/Web Developer - Opera Dragonfly
This looks like it has a lot of potential, though I hope they do more than create a Firebug clone. Competition is good for all of us end users. When Dragonfly is fully released, I expect it to be extremely useful for mobile testing.
>HTML validator - there’s talk to add it to Dragonfly, for now I just use w3c validtor
I sure hope they add it to Dragonfly; real-time validation is something I would hate to be without. W3C’s tool is nice, but it’s a lot less useful when doing a bunch of testing on non-cached pages in an admin area.
>Opera also basicallty have chatzilla, thunderbird, stylish, and foxtorrent built-in
It’s funny because those are probably the features most people find very useful and will be a good pull to get Opera more usage, but they’re the ones I care the least about.
>On a related note, the add-on stuff is not exclusive to Firefox, IE actually has even more extensibility than Firefox,
Well, you know what they say about polishing a turd
Thanks for the info, loligoth; it’s been a while since I last gave Opera a try. Maybe I’ll take another look at it in the near future.