Firefox was a transitional product. Early versions of Firefox looked a lot like Internet Explorer. Outside of some small differences in naming (e.g., favorites versus bookmarks), users could transition without re-learning much. There were even Firefox skins (yeah, they used to call them that) that made Firefox look like IE.
At the time, Firefox was also a much better product. It was faster, it was more secure, and some of its seemingly obscure features (by the mainstream metric) made it wildly popular with geeks. It became "cool" to use Firefox.
Firefox taught regular users was a "browser" was. I bought a Firefox t-shirt early on. At first, no one knew what it was; no one knew what a browser was. But over time, people started speaking up: "Hey, I use Firefox."
Fast forward three or four years, and users already know that switching browser isn't all that painful. They've already done it once, and Firefox isn't the fastest kid on the block any more. Everything Firefox taught users -- to the undoing of IE -- is now being done to them.
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 22.2 ms ] threadAt the time, Firefox was also a much better product. It was faster, it was more secure, and some of its seemingly obscure features (by the mainstream metric) made it wildly popular with geeks. It became "cool" to use Firefox.
Firefox taught regular users was a "browser" was. I bought a Firefox t-shirt early on. At first, no one knew what it was; no one knew what a browser was. But over time, people started speaking up: "Hey, I use Firefox."
Fast forward three or four years, and users already know that switching browser isn't all that painful. They've already done it once, and Firefox isn't the fastest kid on the block any more. Everything Firefox taught users -- to the undoing of IE -- is now being done to them.